PLACE AND FIELD NAMES OF DERBYSHIRE, 65 
imposed a tribute upon the King of Wales exacting yearly three 
hundred wolves. This tribute continued to be paid for three 
years, but ceased upon the fourth, decause it was said that he could 
not find any more.’* This qualified statement as to their 
extinction clearly only relates to Wales, for the king of that 
country would never be allowed to hunt them out of his own 
territory. It was not until Edward II.’s time that they ceased to 
infest the Peak Forest. Their final destruction was greatly 
hastened by the Royal appointment of a family to certain lands 
near Wormhill on condition of ‘‘taking the wolves in the forest.” 
Hence this family obtained the hereditary title of Wulfehunt. 
Similar tenures were not uncommon in many other counties. 
Although Derbyshire was fortunate enough to have the wolves 
extirpated in Edward II.’s time, the neighbouring county of 
Nottinghamshire was troubled with them as late as the eleventh 
year of Henry VI. In Ireland, too, they remained till the 
commencement of the sixteenth century.t 
Another extinct animal, Jera, the bear, still maintains its hold 
upon the place-names of the county. It is found at BEaRWARD- 
core (Mickleover), and also perhaps at BrarLey (Ballidon). 
From the old Norse diminutive Jdassz, a little bear, comes 
BassEtwoop (Tissington).t In the time of the Anglo-Saxons 
_ bears were first kept for the purposes of diversion or baiting. 
The officer in charge was called the ‘bearward;” hence 
Bearwardcote points out his place of residence. Lysons, in his 
_HHistory of Derbyshire, writing in 1810, remarks, ‘ Bulls and 
_ badgers, and sometimes bears, are baited at these wakes, and we 
were informed that the persons who kept the bears for that 
pose are still known here by the ancient appellation of 
‘Bearward.” Plutarch mentions these animals being brought over 
“a 
_ *Malmsbury, a Gest Reg. Angl., lib. ii. cap. 8. 
+ Whittaker, Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 97. Gough, Camden’s Britannia, 
‘Vol. ii. p. 314. Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, p. 19. 
__ {Bannister, Glossary of Cornish Names. According to Ferguson’s 7eutonic 
Name System, Berrill is another diminutive of bear. It seems, however, more 
‘probable, when it is a place-name, to derive it from the Anglo-Saxon dyrgels, 
a burial place. There is a BERRILLS BARN near Church Broughton. 
