Stag and Hen parties

Before I was laid up I went for a walk on one of the only dry days we seem to have had in months and wandered up the hill into the nearby deer park. The views over the Severn Valley are worth the climb, and hardly a soul around.

And in my wanderings I met the game-keeper, who I have met before. He had the advantage of a quad bike but has a lot of ground to cover. And we talked about all sorts of things, the gale damage which was evident all around, and the bloody awful weather making a lot of the place pretty boggy, and of course the deer. The bucks and stags he told me were just over a nearby rise, and the hinds and does in a cover perhaps ¾ of a mile away. They do that after the rut, separate. That seems an eminently sensible thing to do, leave the women on their own to get fat and grumpy and hang out with the lads. I assured him I was not going to spook them having seen to many nut cases with screaming children and barking dogs in the past. Just look and go quietly. You see a lot more that way.

He then said something which I found interesting. He told me that the stags all congregating together is the origin of the term ‘Stag Party’

Now I would love to believe that is true but I was under the impression that the ‘Stag Party’ was a fairly recent invention. However if it is true than can anyone tell me the derivation of the term ‘Hen Party’