A stag which was old enough to be hunted was called a "warrantable" stag. Hence, a hart could be designated "a hart of grease", (a fat stag), "a hart of ten", (a stag with 10 points on its antlers) or "a royal hart" (a stag which had been hunted by a royal personage). A lord would want to hunt not just any deer, but a mature stag in good condition, partly for the extra meat and fat it would carry, but also for prestige. To be a "hart" was its fully mature state. In medieval hunting terms, a stag in its first year was called a "calf" or "calfe", in its second a "brocket", in its third a "spayed", "spade", or "spayard", in its fourth a "staggerd" or "staggard", and in its fifth a "stag", or a "great stag". The word hart was also sometimes used in the past specifically to describe a stag of more than five years. Historically, hart has also been used generically to mean "deer, antelope", as in the royal antelope, which Willem Bosman called "the king of the harts". Heorot is given as the name of Hrothgar's mead hall in the Old English epic Beowulf. The word comes from Middle English hert, from Old English heorot compare Frisian hart, Dutch hert, German Hirsch, and Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish hjort, all meaning " deer". Medieval hunting term for a red deer stag more than five years old "Hunting the Hart", a picture from George Turberville, copied from La Venerie de Jaques du Fouilloux, 16th centuryĪ hart is a male red deer, synonymous with stag and used in contrast to the female hind its use may now be considered mostly poetic or archaic.
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