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.
[6] Painter André Durand has created "First Blood",[7] a painting imaginatively depicting a 14-year-old Prince William wearing ermine robes and his face blooded, with a dead stag.
[8] Tom Quinn, author of Gilded Youth,[9] a book examining the ways in which members of the royal family raise their children, writes that few expect Kate Middleton (the wife of Prince William) will allow her children 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.
[10] In 1914, humanitarian and animal rights campaigner Henry Stephens Salt wrote an essay "The Blooding of Children" declaring that there are no more “loathsome” traditions connected with "sport" than blooding.
[13] Scott Durham, a scientist studying deer, has said: "... it’s theoretically possible that one of a few neurological viral diseases could be contracted if an infected deer’s blood came in contact" with a human's skin.