CHAPTER XXII. How a Hunter's Horn Should Be Driven

HOW A HUNTER'S HORN SHOULD BE DRIVEN

There are divers kinds of horns, that is to say bugles, great Abbot's, hunter's horns, Ruets (trumpets), small Forester's horns and meaner horns of two kinds. That one kind is waxed with green wax and greater of sound, and they be best for good hunters, therefore will I devise how and in what fashion they should be driven. First a good hunter's horn should be driven of two spans in length, and not much more nor much less, and not too crooked neither too straight, but that the flue be three or four fingers uppermore than the head, that unlearned hunters call the great end of the horn. And also that it be as great and hollow driven as it can for the length, and that it be shorter on the side of the baldric than at the nether end. And that the head be as wide as it can be, and always driven smaller and smaller to the flue, and that it be well waxed thicker or thinner according as the hunter thinks that it will sound best. And that it be the length of the horn from the flue to the binding, and also that it be not too small driven from the binding to the flue, for if it be the horn will be too mean of sound. As for horns for fewterers and woodmen, I speak not for every small horn and other mean horn unwaxed be good enough for them.

Shirley MS.: "lewed," i.e. laewed or unlearned (Stratmann).

Baldric, the belt on which the horn was carried. Fewterer, the man who held the greyhounds in slips or couples.