Blooding (hunting)
Blooding is an initiation ritual in hunting. An article on blooding in the British royal family says "Spreading blood on a person’s face is an ancient ritual performed to celebrate a hunter’s first successful kill." The ritual of blooding continues today, among hunters—especially upon children.
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry described how he was forcibly blooded at age 15 by his guide Sandy Masson who cut open the stag Harry had shot, pushed Harry's head inside the carcass, and held it there while Harry struggled to free himself. When Sandy released him, Harry tried to wipe the blood from his face, but Sandy insisted that he "Let it dry.”
It was Sandy Masson, too, who had blooded The Prince of Wales years earlier. Painter André Durand has created "First Blood", a painting imaginatively depicting a 14-year-old Prince William wearing ermine robes and his face blooded, with a dead stag.
Tom Quinn, author of Gilded Youth, a book examining the ways in which members of the royal family raise their children, writes that few expect The Princess of Wales will allow her children, Prince George and Prince Louis to be initiated with the blooding ritual which, in the royal family's tradition, sees young princes smeared with the blood of their first kills.