Hart 275
Magdalen Dano
Historically, hart has also been used generically to mean "deer, antelope", as in the royal antelope, which Willem Bosman called "the king of the harts".[1] The word hart was also sometimes used in the past specifically to describe a stag of more than five years.
In medieval hunting terms, a stag in its first year was called a "calf" or "calfe", in its second a "brocket", in its third a "spayed", "spade", or "spayard", in its fourth a "staggerd" or "staggard", and in its fifth a "stag", or a "great stag".[2][3] To be a "hart" was its fully mature state. A lord would want to hunt not just any deer, but a mature stag in good condition, partly for the extra meat and fat it would carry, but also for prestige. Hence, a hart could be designated "a hart of grease", (a fat stag), "a hart of ten", (a stag with 10 points on its antlers) or "a royal hart" (a stag which had been hunted by a royal personage).[4][5] A stag which was old enough to be hunted was called a "warrantable" stag.
The hart was a beast of venery representing the most prestigious form of hunting, as distinct from lesser beasts of the Chase and beasts of the free warren, the last of which were regarded virtually as vermin. The membership of these different classes varies somewhat across periods and writers, but the red deer is always in the first class, the red fox hardly being regarded at all.[6] Like the fallow deer buck and the wild boar, the hart was normally sought out or "harboured" by a "limer", or Bloodhound hunting on a leash, which would track it from its droppings or footprints to where it was browsing.[7] The huntsman would then report back to his lord and the hunting party would come bringing a pack of raches. These scent hounds would "unharbour" the hart and chase it on its hot scent until it was brought to bay.[2]
Shakespeare makes several references (for example in Twelfth Night), punning on the homophones "hart" and "heart". The word is used several times in The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, when Bilbo Baggins and company pass through Mirkwood Forest. It is alluded to in the Joss Whedon series Angel: the senior partners of law firm Wolfram & Hart are represented, respectively by the wolf, the ram and the hart. It is mentioned in the first of the series of novels by George R. R. Martin Game of Thrones when a "white hart" is sighted in the woods: King Robert Baratheon and other lords seek to hunt the creature (perhaps an allusion to Robert himself becoming something of a white or ghost stag). The "White Hart", a personal emblem of Richard II, and "The Red Hart" remain common English pub names. Arthur C. Clarke's Tales from the White Hart is set at one such pub.
Several places in Great Britain and the United States are named Hart, including the district of Hart in Hampshire, the villages of Hartfield at the edge of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex and Hart Common on the outskirts of Westhoughton in Greater Manchester, and the town of Hartlepool and the nearby village of Hart, in County Durham. Whinfell Forest once contained a landmark tree called the Harthorn.[8]
Hartford (from hart + ford) is the name of many places in the United States and England, including the city of Hartford, Connecticut and various entities located there. Hartford is an English surname of considerable antiquity.[9][better source needed]
Heorot, Herut, and Hert are Old English spellings of hart; thus Heorot, a royal hall in Beowulf, is named for the hart, as is Hertford and Hertfordshire in England (which in turn lent the name to Hartford, Connecticut).
Our Mom passed away peacefully in the late afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day. Surrounded by family who adored her she was lucid, smiling, talking, looking at pictures, and sharing "goodbyes" in the hours before she slipped away. The staff at Care Dimensions Hospice House in Lincoln was amazing.
Our Mother began charting the course of an "empowered Woman who can have it all" long before that concept became a more popular rallying cry in our culture. Earning her Nursing Degree at St Elizabeth's Hospital in the late 1950's she started her career. After marrying the love of her life, our dad Jim, she walked away from Nursing and began making our home. She brought Michael, Kathy, Stephen, Kevin, and Sarah into the world and raised us with old school discipline wrapped in the warmest hug you could ever imagine. She then returned to her Nursing career, leading a team of Earth Angels in the "End of Life" space at St. John of God Hospital in Brighton. Close to where she'd begun her schooling all those years earlier.
One might assume that our mother followed the time honored tradition of carrying the environment she grew up around home to us. This was not the case. Mom's upbringing was not a "Peace in the valley" framework. Far from it. So the arc of her story is truly that of "The Comeback Kid". A turn-around expert.
So... in the end, "Caregiver" wasn't just the nursing career that bookended Mary Ellen's Motherhood. And it wasn't just her safety, strength, deep love, and "be who you are" approach to homemaking....
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