Hunting did not last. Once the clearances began and the land gave way to pasture in the reign of the third Henry, there was little need of a bow. The hunter had learned to snare using horsehair traps, mainly rabbits and hares, cooking what he needed on a fire lit by striking the back of his knife with a rock on some wood shavings which he kept in a dry pouch. The rest he could easily sell. On this day, he had a couple of hares and was tying them to a pole to take with him to the Cock where they would be strung up in a back room and bought by any who knew what to ask for. Preoccupied, he did not see the reeve and two constables approaching on horseback, and had no time to untie or hide his haul. These were the king’s woods they told him, demanding to know where he had obtained the animals. Lying served no purpose, and while Rollo barked and whined, the hunter was led with a rope around his waist towards the lane that cut through the woods to Willesden. No sooner had they turned off the main track where today a bookmaker takes money from grey, hollow-faced men than he vanished from the end of the rope. Not comprehending, the men returned to find their quarry striding purposefully towards Hendon, hound at his heel. Apprehending him again, they ordered the poacher to walk in front of the horses so that they might keep an eye on him. Again they turned into the lane but had not gone twenty paces before the man vanished like an apparition. After several oaths and imprecations to the Virgin, the men concluded that it must be witchcraft, that the man before them was demon-possessed, a necromancer who must be burned. Resolving that Newgate Gaol was the best place to hold the prisoner before his inevitable death on a bonfire, the lawmen caught up with the hunter once again. This time, they slung him across a horse and tied him to the saddle, making any escape impossible. But no sooner had they turned south towards the city than their captive was standing behind them again, untied. They beat him with sticks and cudgels, the dog sinking his jaws in the reeve’s leg in a desperate bid to save his master. One of the constables took out his knife and in one swift movement, sliced the beast’s throat. Rollo slumped to the ground, a pool of blood darkening the earth around him. Next to his dog, the hunter lay a graceless heap on the dirt. The constables scooped up his broken body and slung him over the horse once again, roping him fast while the reeve attended to the wound on his own leg. One of the men even gripped the hunter’s belt with his hand as they began their southward trail. The posse had not gone ten paces when the constable’s hand was grasping air and the hunter was behind them, bending over the corpse of his dog. At this, one of the constables sank to his knees in prayer, convinced that the man was an angel and that they would be punished for harrying him. The reeve was less superstitious, but also feared what he had seen; this certainly was no ordinary poacher and though the dog had proven mortal, its owner seemed indestructible. Conferring, he and the other constable decided that if it was impossible to bring the prisoner to trial in the city, justice would have to meet him in the field. The reeve pointed his sword at the hunter’s chest and ordered him to his knees. When he failed to obey the constable pushed him down, harshly. A hemp rope was thrown over a branch then looped around the hunter’s neck. By now, the other constable was shouting prayers to the saints to save them all; the man was a wight, he would curse them and rob them of their souls. Turning on his heels he saddled his mare and rode away towards Willesden. Together, the reeve and his henchman hauled on the rope, grunting with exertion as the hunter’s body lifted until his legs straightened and his toes cleared the ground. He twitched for around a minute until he was fully strangled. Rather than drop him, the men bound the rope around the tree to keep their victim suspended. As they watched his limp body hanging, the reeve uttered a short prayer from the epistle to the Romans:

“I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The two men mounted their horses and trotted away, reassured that whatever tricks the man who they had punished for hunting in King Henry’s land had played on them, he was as mortal as the rest of us. Once the plodding of their horses could no longer be heard above the sounds of the birds and the breeze, the hunter’s eyes opened. Reaching into his shirt he pulled out a knife, sliced the rope above his neck and collapsed on the ground as if his body had forgotten how to support itself. He soon roused. Hauling himself to his feet, he lifted the deadweight of his dog and moved him away from the road. Hunting had lost its lustre. He might not die but encounters such as this took their toll. The dog had been good and quiet company, and he knew that his confiscated hares would be eaten by the reeve and his constable, that the king would never hear of this trespass. But if he couldn’t be a hunter, what could he be? A raven landed near the corpse of his dog and he began walking northwards again before the bird began pecking out the animal’s eyes.