Reynard the Fox

Reynard the Fox appears as the pursued animal at the end of the Lord’s hunting sequence. The chase turns the poem’s ordered hunt into a close encounter between a fleeing fox, a coordinated pack, and the hunter who finally pulls him from the Hounds’ mouths; the captured animal’s coat becomes the hunt’s final prize.

Place in the Hunting Sequence

The Lord is shown hunting across woodland and heath, and the poem gives the hunt a marked procedure: at daybreak, the keepers release the Hounds from their kennel and sound their bugles. In another hunt, the hunters pursue Deer and gather the carcasses for butchering. Reynard’s appearance belongs to this world of organized pursuit, but his chase is narrated with a sharper emphasis on the individual quarry and the pack closing in around him.

The fox hunt is not simply a name for the Lord’s sport. Reynard is followed over a sustained pursuit, and the Lord is still leading his company across the open ground as the chase reaches its end. The sequence moves from the broad activity of the hunting party to the fox’s sudden passage through rough woodland, concentrating the action on the moment when escape gives way to capture.

The Chase and Capture

The Lord has followed Reynard for a long time. As the fox springs over a stretch of ground, the Hounds rush after him, their pursuit audible as they close the distance. Reynard comes through a rough thicket with the pack immediately behind him. The narrator characterizes him as wily, but the scene presents no successful trick or escape: the Hounds reach him in a rush and fall upon him in front of the hunter’s horse.

The Lord dismounts quickly and pulls Reynard out of the Hounds’ mouths, holding him aloft while calling out. The gesture briefly interrupts the pack’s attack, but it does not restore the fox to freedom. Instead, the party rewards the Hounds, and the hunters take Reynard and strip off his coat. His end is rendered through the practical result of the hunt: the animal who had drawn the pack across the ground is reduced to its pelt.

Function and Ending

Reynard’s chase gives the hunting sequence a distinct conclusion. The earlier description of kennel, bugle, pursuit, and butchering establishes collective discipline; here, the action narrows to one quarry, one rapidly closing pack, and the Lord’s intervention at the instant of capture. The contrast makes the fox’s brief flight vivid without turning the episode into a contest he wins.

The hunt ends near nightfall, when the company returns home after taking Reynard’s coat. The fox therefore marks the final movement from pursuit to possession: the Hounds receive their reward, the hunters carry away the quarry’s skin, and the chase is closed by the return indoors.