CHAPTER XXXI 



HOW A HUNTER SHOULD QUEST IN CLEAR 

 SPIRES AND HIGH WOOD 1 



Also I will tell you how a hunter should go in 

 quest among clear spires, and among high trees, 

 and specially when it has rained the night before 

 and in the morning. Eke in the time when the 

 heads of the harts be tender, commonly they 

 abide among clear spires and in high woods, for 

 a thick country peradventure would do harm to 

 their heads which be tender. If he meets rain as 

 I before have said, or when their heads (are tender, 

 and he meeteth 2 ) anything that pleaseth him, he 

 should not follow it with his lymer, for they 

 remain in such a country as I have said in that 

 time, that is to say in rain and when their heads 

 are tender, for he might make the deer void into 

 some other place of the quests as it is before said. 

 And whoso meets him in the wood in sight of his 



1 In the text of our MS. (the Vespasian) no break occurs 

 here, but in the table of chapters at the beginning of the MS. 

 the chapter as here given is enumerated, and this corresponds 

 also with the Shirley and other MSS. 



2 The scribe who copied the Vespasian MS. omitted the 

 bracketed words. 



157 



