'A base borne issue of a baser syer, Bred in a cottage, wandering in the myer, With nailed shooes and whipstaffe in his hand, Who with a hey and ree the beasts command.'
This ree! is equivalent to 'right' (riddle-me-ree=riddle me right), and tells the leader of the team to bear to the right hand. The hey! may correspond with heit! or camether! which call him to bear 'hither,' i.e., to the left. In Germany har! här! har-üh! are likewise the same as 'her,' 'hither, to the left.' So swude! schwude! zwuder! 'to the left,' are of course simply 'zuwider,' 'on the contrary way.' Pairs of calls for 'right' and 'left' in German-speaking countries are hot! — har! and hott! — wist! This wist! is an interesting example of the keeping up of ancient words in such popular tradition. It is evidently a mutilated form of an old German word for the left hand, winistrâ, Anglo-Saxon winstre, a name long since forgotten by modern High German, as by our own modern English.[1]
As quaint a mixture of words and interjectional cries as I have met with, is in the great French Encyclopædia,[2] which gives a minute description of the hunter's craft, and prescribes exactly what is to be cried to the hounds under all possible contingencies of the chase. If the creatures understood grammar and syntax, the language could not be more accurately arranged for their ears. Sometimes we have what seem pure interjectional cries. Thus, to encourage the hounds to work, the huntsman is to call to them hà halle halle halle! while to bring them up before they are uncoupled it is prescribed that he shall call hau hau! or hau tahaut! and when they are uncoupled he is to change his cry to hau la y la la y la tayau! a call which
- ↑ For lists of drivers' words, see Grimm, l.c.; Pott, 'Zählmethode,' p. 261; Halliwell, 'Dic. of Archaic and Provincial English,' s.v. 'ree;' Brand, vol. ii. p. 15; Pictet, part ii. p. 489.
- ↑ 'Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, &c.' Recueil de Planches, Paris, 1763, art. 'Chasses.' The traditional cries are still more or less in use. See 'A Week in a French Country-house.'
