Folio 13v - Deer, continued
or large long stretches of water, they place their head on the hindquarters of the deer in front and, following one on the other, do not feel impeded by their weight. When they find such places, they cross them quickly, to avoid sinking in the mire. They have another characteristic, that after eating a snake they run to a spring and, drinking from it, shed their long coats and all signs of old age. The members of the holy Church seem to have a mentality corresponding to that of deer, because while they change their homeland, that is, the world, for love of the heavenly homeland, they carry each other, that is, the more perfect bring on and sustain the less perfect by their example and their good works. And if they find a place of sin, they leap over it at once, and after the incarnation of the Devil, that is, after committing a sin, they run, by their confession, to Christ, the true spring; drinking in his commandments, they are renewed, shedding their sin like old age. Stags, when it is time to rut, rage with the madness of lust. Does, although they may been inseminated earlier, do not conceive before the star Arcturus appears. They do not rear their young just anywhere but hide them with tender care, concealed deep in bushes or grass, and they make them stay out of sight with a tap of the hoof. When the young grow strong enough to take flight, the deer train them to run and to leap great distances. When deer hear the dogs barking, they move upwind taking their scent with them. They are scared rigid by everything, which makes them an easier mark for archers. Of their horns, the right-hand one is better for medical purposes. If you want to frighten off snakes, you should burn either. If deer have few or no teeth, it shows that they are old. In order to tell their age, Alexander the Great ringed a number of deer; when they were recaptured a century later they showed no sign of old age. The offspring of the deer are called hinnuli, fawns, from innuere, 'to nod', because at a nod from their mother, they vanish from sight.
