Everyone is jumping somewhere, drinking wine. Dogs prowl and catch up with someone. And what is the essence of this hunt? And why did the hot Finnish guy dream of that very hunt?
"Peculiarities of the National Hunt." (Explanations for the film.)
In the film "Peculiarities of the National Hunt" the hunting itself is incomprehensible. More precisely, its old version. Shots of people in old hunting costumes, dogs, horses, sounds of horns flash by.
Everyone is jumping somewhere, drinking wine. Dogs prowl and catch up with someone. And what is the essence of this hunt? And why did the hot Finnish guy dream of that very hunt?
The essence of the ancient hunt is quite simple. Hunters have two breeds of dogs: hounds and greyhounds. Hounds dogs track down and drive to clean places (fields) hares or red animals: foxes and wolves. Then the hunters let their greyhounds on the beast, which they catch up with and lay down, that is, they hold the beast until the hunters arrive.
Hounds dogs chase the animal on the trail, drive it out to a clean place. With their barking they let the hunters know where to expect the beast from. The voices (barking) of the dogs in a particular pack were selected on a tuning fork in order to know which pack of hounds where. Hounds dogs do not run fast, there are even short-legged or walking hound breeds, but they can run and chase for a long time.
Greyhounds catch up and intercept the beast. They are able to develop high speed at short, up to 200-300 meters, distances. In order for the greyhounds not to fizzle out ahead of time, hunters held their greyhounds in pairs (bows) on a special leash-belt. The bow strap was passed through the rings on the collars of both dogs and both ends of the strap were held by the hunter in his hand. At the right moment, the hunter let go of one end of the belt, releasing both dogs at the same time. One dog was enough to intercept the hare and the fox. To intercept the wolf, more dogs were required.
P. P. Sokolov “Fees for the hunt. At the porch "1870 This is more fun than any lottery. It is necessary to stand in the right place and not miss at the right moment with a shot. But the main thing is waiting. To listen to how, somewhere far away, your dog is flooded and chases the beast on the trail, then the dog stopped talking, unraveling the tracks. Here the dog screamed. This is no longer a barking, it is a continuous scream. The dog chases the beast by eye, he sees the beast and chases after him. But you yourself do not see this, you only imagine what is happening and how. You are one with your dog, but it is there, and you are here. And as a prize, you see a hare rushing down the path at you. Or you see a cunning fox walking slowly in your direction. And the final shot puts an end to the lottery. More often than not, the hunt does not reach the shot. The beast ran in the wrong place, if you were standing in the wrong place …
Now imagine that you have in your hands a leash with a greyhound dog instead of a soulless gun. The beast comes out and your lowered greyhound like lightning, without touching the ground with its paws, silently flies to the beast, knocks it down with its chest and turns around to grab it … But the greyhound is not, a shot from a gun roars through the silence. The beast was taken, but you didn’t need it. A breathless dog came running and cannot breathe, sniff the hunted beast. At once the unity with nature, with the dog ended. There are memories of my own experiences and the sounds of barking hounds …
Today, collective hunts look different. Community huntsmen will know in advance where the animals are (wolves, wild boars, moose, etc.). In what specific small area of the forest, for example. On one side of this site, one group of hunter-shooters is placed, on the other side of the site, a second group of hunter-beaters are slowly driving the beast to the shooters. Here the sound of hunting horns (or a shot) is a signal to the beginning of the hunt, the end of the hunt, etc. as agreed.
A collective hunt, even with the participation of generals, smoothly flows into a collective drunkenness. More precisely, the custom has been preserved since ancient times to arrange a banquet on a collective hunt, lasting up to a day or more with continuation. Especially after a successful hunt.
But sometimes the banquet starts instead of hunting, and then the hunters are no longer up to the hunt. It was in such a national hunt-fun-banquet that the hot Finnish guy from the film "Peculiarities of the National Hunt" took part.
And now once again imagine yourself riding a frisky horse, with a greyhound bow in hand. You hear how a pack of hounds screamed and by sight chases the beast towards you. And so the beast jumped out onto an open field and went off to the forest. You let go of your greyhounds and rush after them, catching up …
A snowmobile race with prey guns, but is this a hunt?
