Deerhounds and the Normans

Whilst watching the BBC tv documentary - ‘A History of Britain: Conquest’ by ‘Simon Schama’ on tv this evening - it was nice to see footage of Deerhounds at the hunt of deer, set at a time following the event of King Edwards death. Harold who became king was apparently out hunting at the time he received the news. And if we look at the bayeaux tapestry the event of the hunt is depicted on one of the panels.

Although historically it is more likely to have been the greyhound, as the Normans themselves had specific huntsmen who used greyhounds in pursuit of game (I have more historic detail to post on this issue in a future blog) and with the bayeaux tapestry being the victors depiction of the historical event leading to the battle of Hastings of 1066 and its following events it may portray an altered bias to fact.

Anyway as the rogue says - for enjoyment, try and catch a viewing of the TV documentry with the hounds in action and check out the tapestry panel above and draw your own conclusion as to whether the hounds depicted were our ancient ancestors.