REYNARD THE FOX
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
new york · boston · chicago · dallas
atlanta · san fransisco
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
london · bombay · calcutta
melbourne
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
toronto
REYNARD THE FOX
BY
JOHN MASEFIELD
NEW EDITION WITH EIGHT PLATES IN COLOUR AND
MANY ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CARTON MOOREPARK
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1919 and 1920,
By JOHN MASEFIELD.
New illustrated edition, October, 1920.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
INTRODUCTION
I have been asked to write why I wrote this poem of "Reynardthe Fox." As a man grows older, life becomes more interestingbut less easy to know; for, late in life, even the strongest yieldsto the habit of his compartment. When he cannot range throughall society, from the court to the gutter, a man must go whereall society meets, as at the Pilgrimage, the Festival or the Game.Here in England the Game is both a festival and an occasion ofpilgrimage. A man wanting to set down a picture of the societyof England will find his models at the games.
What are the English games? The man's game is Associationfootball; the woman's game, perhaps, hockey or lacrosse. GolfI regard more as a symptom of a happy marriage than a game.Cricket, which was once widely popular among both sexes has lostits hold, except among the young. The worst of all these gamesis that few can play them at a time.
But in the English country, during the autumn, winter andearly spring of each year, the main sport is fox hunting, whichis not like cricket or football, a game for a few and a spectaclefor many, but something in which all who come may take a part,whether rich or poor, mounted or on foot. It is a sport loved andfollowed by both sexes, all ages and all classes. At a fox hunt,and nowhere else in England, except perhaps at a funeral, canyou see the whole of the land's society brought together, focussedfor the observer, as the Canterbury pilgrims were for Chaucer.
This fact made the subject attractive. The fox hunt gave anopportunity for a picture or pictures of the members of an Englishcommunity.
Then to all Englishmen who have lived in a hunting country,hunting is in the blood, and the mind is full of it. It is the mostbeautiful and the most stirring sight to be seen in Eng