THE WOLF. 135 
possessed by William Rufus, which prompted him to 
enforce, during his tragical reign, the most stringent 
and cruel forest laws, is too well known to readers of 
history to require comment. It cannot be doubted 
that in the vast forests* which then covered the 
greater part of the country, and through which he 
continuously hunted, he must have encountered and 
slain many a Wolf. Yet, strange to say, a careful 
search through a great number of volumes has re- 
sulted in a failure to discover any evidence upon 
this point, or indeed any mention of the Wolf in con- 
nection with this monarch. 
Longstaffe, in his account of “ Durham before the 
Conquest,” states that a great increase of Wolves 
took place in Richmondshire during this century, 
and mentions incidentally that Richard Ingeniator 
dealing with property at Wolverston (called Olveston 
in the time of William Rufus) sealed the grant with 
an impression of a Wolf. 
1100-1135. In his passion for hunting wild 
animals, Henry I. excelled even his brother William, 
and not content with encountering and slaying those 
which, like the Wolf and the Wild-boar, were at 
that time indigenous to this country, he “ cherished 
of set purpose sundrie kinds of wild beasts, as bears, 
libards, ounces, lions, at Woodstocke and one or two 
other places in England, which he walled about with 
* “The word ‘forest,’ in its original and most extended sense, 
implied a tract of land lying out (foras), that is, rejected, as of no 
value, in the first distribution of property.”—Wuuitaker, History of 
Whalley, p. 193. 
