To take soil. A hunting term, signifying that the deer has taken to the water. Soil, in French, is the mire in which a wild boar wallows. (Danish, söl, mire; Swedish, söla, to wallow.)
“Fida went downe the dale to seeke the hinde,
And founde her taking soyle within a flood.”
Browne: Britannia’s Pastorals, i. 84
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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