A chacun son heure de gloire...
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| Time out in the French countryside: a pair of elegant Salukis, or Lévriers Persans, finish coursing an artifical lure. |
un dossard: a number worn by an athlete or competitor
à chacun: to each
son heure de gloire: his hour of glory
un lévrier: a sighthound
Persan: Persian
©2011 P.B. Lecron
Thank you for your fascinating mini-posts and the vocabulary enrichment. I presume that live hare coursing is now a thing of the past? How about ferreting? Is that still done in France? Do you happen to know if hare-chasing is a Norman regional thing? It would be interesting if it were, as it was so popular among the Anglo-Norman aristocracy in the Middle Ages. The word leveret seems to have disappeared from American English, if it was ever current here in the first place, but I have heard it out in the country in England in relation to coursing.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, you're quite right; live hare chasing was outlawed in France in 1844, although it has only been forbidden in the United Kingdom since 2002. Using ferrets, or furets, to "ferret out" rabbits from their tunnels is still a practice here. See http://www.chassepassion.net/chasse_furet.php . I have been surprised to read that ferrets come in third after dogs and cats as a favorite pet and as of late even need passports to cross borders! I recommend the children's song, Le Furet, as well as Le Furet bookstore in Lille, one of the largest in Europe.
ReplyDeleteAnd, according to the 19th century publication, An Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports by Delabere Pritchett Blaine, the ancient historian Arrian wrote an account of Celtic Gauls sport of hare coursing with greyhounds; so it was an ancient practice in this land. Curiously the way the sport was practiced then remained the same through modern times.
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