It is a valuable tradition that each draghunt should be accompanied by hunting horns.

Signal horns are known since the antiquity. Those days, they were made of a horn of an animal. Later, they were built in wood, terra cotta, ivory, glass, or metal. The metal ones became most popular because they proved to be most malleable, solid and durable.

On its way to become an instrument, especially the french horn gradually lengthened, bent and rolled up to reach its shape of a metal tube of more than 4 meters in length, rolled up on itself in several turns.

Originally the horn was used to transmit all the events of the hunt to long distances by means of fanfares, each one having a given significance. The repertory is composed of fanfares for the circumstances of the hunt, fanfares for animals, fanfares for places or forests, fanfares of families and crews, and other fanfares. On the whole, there exist approximately 3500 fanfares. The hunting horn was essential for the communication in impassable densely overgrown areas. This way, everyone could follow the hunt, even without seeing anything.

Furthermore, hunting horns were used to guide and to excite the dogs of the pack.

The tradition of the hunting horn is nowadays during draghunts very popular. Furthermore, most hunting horn musicians ring not only the traditional signals but also great pieces of art. On hunts in Germany, the most frequently used horns were the "Fürst-Pless"-horn and the parforce horns in B and Es, in France the parforce-horn in Es or the trompe de chasse in D, and in England the hunting horn:

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Today, especially the Germans are flexible and use all types of hunting horns, depending on the taste of the organizer of the event.

Because of the signaling function of the hunting horn, formerly, the ringing was reserved for the equipage. This is still the case at all hunts involved in live quarry hunting. Unfortunately, only very few hunting horn musicians make music horseback riding so that the musicians must be positioned at prominent points and the checks of the hunt. So the music and the signals are not always available during the hunt.

A very nice tradtion is the perfomance of a Hubertus-Messe prior to a draghunt. More information on this subject can (soon) be found in the "sanctus-section".

literature:
Christian von Loesch: Die Jagd in Rot; Leitfaden für Reitjagden. Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg
Hubert Bourdon: The cousins of the hunting horn; www.trompes-de-chasse.com