Report from Italy: Close Encounters of the Boar Kind

The Pratomagno countryside gets real

The boars roam the mountains and hillsides. They come out late at night, the old people in the village reassured us. We're afraid of them, of course, but we stay out of their way. They have their schedule, we have ours. This is just how it’s always been.

But, one nonna aged about 90 pulled me aside to hiss, I am terrified of them and won’t go out walking on the old paths. One a horse, yes, but I don’t have a horse anymore. I’ve seen what a boar can do to a person.

I really had very little frame of reference for this comment, aside from the first season of Outlander. I like boar just fine. I like to eat it in sauce, mmm cinghiale! But I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw a boar at close remove. Jason and I did see a shadowy family at dusk in July, three adults and two boarlets, crossing the road by the cemetery northwest of town in gray silhouette. Very methodical, in careful succession. When we reported back this news in town in the following days, the locals tsked and said that it was awfully early for the boars to be out. State attenti, they tsked.

Jason, on the other hand, has seen a boar very recently, driving back to Casale from Florence one warm summer night last month. First he saw a huge red fox, in the lowlands, but coming up the hill and threading his way through hairpins, he turned a corner and found himself squarely stared at by a boar.

What did it look like? I asked with interest, having never encountered one yet. Really, really big belly, he said. Short legs. Angry shiny black eyes. Kind of like a horse belly on stuffy legs? Yes, he said, and immovable. That boar was ready to stare me down and possibly take action. I was terrified, even in the car.

I have been thinking in subsequent weeks of a stubby-legged horse-boar. Adult boars can weigh up to 150-200 pounds. Not a creature to be trifled with. They were overhunted centuries ago, but the remaining Italian boar stock was successfully bred with Hungarian boars. Now they’re unstoppable. They roam around Rome with impunity. There’s a boar hunting season, and on foggy chill mornings in autumn you can hear dogs bay and shots ring out. By my estimation, one adult boar carcass has got to be good for about a thousand jars of sauce.

Last night after dinner (grilled chops and sweet peppers), I bagged up the trash and recycle. I walked it down to the containers at the front of our single-street borgo. Thunk, thunk, first the compost, then the recycle. Well, such a fine night. Don’t mind if I saunter out here under the streetlamps to appreciate the lights of the Valdarno far below, winking in the sultry air. I continued up the hill where the light faded. Well, here’s the path to Casa, the next little borgo up. I fished out my phone and turned on the flashlight. Craggy apple trees going wild grasped as me with twig fingers. The grass-covered lane was even enough, with my light. I leaned back against a mura secca, next to a Madonnina in a niche. The stones were still warm from the late summer sun, and rosemary fragrance hung in the air. Ahhh, so pretty, I breathed, slipping my phone into the back pocket of my jeans.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled. The ground - was it - vibrating? Off to my right in the dark under the squat oaks I hear snuffling and grunting and the exertion of running down a hillside on stubby legs with a horse-round belly. I stopped breathing. My heart stopped.

More than one boar, trampling downward at full speed. More than two, maybe three or more. I flattened myself against the stones. Could they see me? hear me? smell me? make a U-turn to come back and spear me with their twin bone bayonets? I wondered if all adult boars have tusks. I stupidly thought of Outlander. I regretted my townie decision to appreciate the roving boar fields at night.

I never saw the boars. I didn’t have to. I knew what I’d heard and was grateful I’d been spared a sighting, in either direction. I fumbled for my phone and turned the light on, walking away quickly on the grassy lane back to the pool of light from the streetlamp. My knees were weak. I wondered again if they would loop back, but they seemed to have continued their tear down the hill toward the valley. Approximately five thousand jars of sauce on the hoof.

I will more carefully plan my evening forays on the hillside from now on. RESPECT THE BOAR.

“You talkin’ ta me? ‘Cause I don’t see no other boars around here.”

Photo by Max Saeling on Unsplash