Hart (deer) Hart (deer) Hart is an archaic word for "stag" (from Old English "heorot", "deer" – compare with modern Dutch "hert", medieval French "hart", German "Hirsch" and Swedish/Norwegian/Danish "hjort", also "deer"). Specifically, "hart" was used in medieval times to describe a red deer stag more than five years old. 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". To be a "hart" was its
Deer forest deer can move freely across large tracts of hill country. Boundaries, referred to as "marches", are usually marked by a river, stream, ridge, shoreline or similar natural feature. "Hind forests" and "stag forests" are so called because of the tendencies of red deer to form large, single-sex herds outside the autumn rutting time, and most forests hold either a resident stag herd or a hind herd for much of the year. In "deer forest", the term "forest" is derived from the ancient and medieval use of the Latin word "foris" - "open" or "waste", to denote an extensive outdoor "waste