PLACE AND FIELD NAMES OF DERBYSHIRE. 69 
especially those of prey, are the most common everywhere ; 
whilst small birds, living on the wing, occur less frequently. 
EAGLESTONE Fat (Barlow), EAGLE Tor, and HawksLow 
speak for themselves; but there is further proof of the former 
presence of the eagle in Earncrorr and Earn Hitt (T.C., 
Glossop), earn being Anglo-Saxon for the king of birds. The 
golden eagle has been met with not unfrequently in this county 
even during the present century. In 1823, a full grown specimen 
was shot near Cromford, and a few years later two others were 
captured on Kinder-Scout. Any details with regard to the 
practise of hawking would be out of place in these pages ; but it 
may be mentioned as a curious fact that the Romans learnt the 
_ art from the Celtic inhabitants of this island. The Thracians and 
the Britons were at one time the only followers of this sport. It 
_ was practised with great assiduity by the Anglo-Saxon nobility, 
and presents of hawks and falcons were often interchanged 
_ between the petty kings and princes. A well-trained hawk was 
of great value, ten pounds being mettioned as the price in the 
Domesday Survey, when money was worth about thirty times its 
present value ; whilst a hawk’s aery—aira accip~itris—is returned 
among the most valuable articles of property. The martyrdom of 
St. Edmund, and its connection with his love of hawking, is 
romantically told in verse by John Lydgate, the monk of Bury. 
For a gentleman to part with his hawk, or to lose it, was 
considered the greatest disgrace. The killing of his only hawk 
by the impoverished young lover to provide a dinner for his 
mistress, forms one of the most exquisite tales in the Decameron.* 
Rantor, near Wirksworth, is a corruption of Raven Tor. 
Raven’s Nest (Ashover), a farm, and RAVENSTONE in other parts 
of the county. This bird was the ensign of the Danes. Owt- 
‘CoTES and OwLerR Car obviously refer to the bird of night ; the 
Pliny, lib. x. cap. 8. Whitaker, Hist. of Manchester, vol. ii. p. 100. _ Ellis, 
eduction to Dom. Book, vol. i. p. 340. Boccacio, Decameron, Day v. 
