When I went to stay with my German cousin and he showed me the room where I’d be sleeping, the first thing I noticed were the hairy hides on the floor and the spears mounted on the wall. ‘Boar skins,’ he told me. ‘The forest is full of them.’ ‘And the spears?’ I asked him. ‘For hunting.’ I was intrigued. ‘Tell me more,’ I said. He didn’t need much prompting. Apparently, there’s not a great deal of skill involved – only nerve. A cornered boar will charge you. If you turn and run, you’ve had it. But if you stand your ground, they’ll impale themselves upon your spear.
This story sprang to mind when I read Alexander Chancellor’s fascinating Spectator column about the growing perils of British wild boar. Hunted to extinction in the Middle Ages, during the last 20 years or so a small but hardy population has re-emerged, mainly in the Forest of Dean, and along the wooded border between Kent and Sussex.
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