124 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 
creatures could not find of other beasts sufficient to 
feed upon.”* 
The Saxons also called an outlaw “ wolfs-head,”+t 
as being out of the protection of the law, proscribed, 
and as liable to be killed as that destructive beast. 
“Et tune gerunt caput lupinum, ita quod sine judiciali 
inquisitione rite pereant.” t 
In the “ Penitentiale” of Archbishop Egbert, drawn 
up about A.D. 750, it is laid down (lib. iv.) that, “ if 
a wolf shall attack cattle of any kind, and the animal 
attacked shall die in consequence, no Christian may 
touch it.” 
It is to the terror which the Woif inspired among 
our forefathers that we are to ascribe the fact of 
kings and rulers, in a barbarous age, feeling proud of 
bearing the name of this animal as an attribute of 
courage and ferocity. Brute power was then con- 
sidered the highest distinction of man, and the 
sentiment was not mitigated by those refinements of 
modern life which conceal but do not destroy it. 
We thus find, amongst our Anglo-Saxon kings and 
great men, such names as Ethelwulf, “the Noble 
Wolf;” Berthwulf, “the Illustrious Wolf ;’ Eadwulf, 
“the Prosperous Wolf; Ealdwulf, “the Old Wolf.” 
in Athelstan’s reign, Wolves abounded so in York- 
shire that a retreat was built by one Acehorn, at 
* “ Restitution of Decayed Intelligence,”’ p. 64 (ed. 1673). 
tf Ang.-Sax. Wulvesheofod, that is, having the head of a Wolf. In 
1041, the fugitive Godwin was proclaimed Wulvesheofod, a price being 
set upon his head. The term was in use temp. Henry IT. 
¢ Bracton, “De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliw,” lib. iil. tr. ii. 
c. I1 (1569). See also Knighton, “De Eventibus Angliz,”’ in 
Twysden’s “ Historia Anglican Scriptores Decem,” p. 2356 (1652). 
