A stag released for the chaseSourced
London crowds once chased a captured stag on a holiday
Nineteenth-century London tradespeople and workers gathered in Epping Forest on Easter Monday. A previously captured stag was released from a cart for the crowd to chase; the account says it usually escaped unharmed. The last such hunt, in 1882, became a riot dispersed by police.
An annual custom can acquire an unexpected final chapter.
Summary / translation: Unbubly · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Epping Forest · Wikimedia contributors
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Reviewed: 2026-10-10