CHASE OF THE WILD RED DEER 7 



over the desolate tract and picked up a scanty 

 subsistence on the hills. In the middle almost of 

 the district was a small hamlet called Simonsbath, 

 which, in later years, from circumstances which I 

 shall allude to hereafter, has succeeded to the 

 dignity of a village, and is the centre of the recently 

 created parish of Exmoor.* 



The forest of Exmoor existed as a royal forest 

 in very early times, and the preservation of the red 

 deer was an object of solicitude with William the 

 Conqueror. In the reign of Edward I., lands in 

 Holecote [qiucri Holnicote), in the county of 

 Somerset, were holden by Walter Baron of the 

 king-in-chief, by the service of hanging on a forked 

 block of wood the red deer dying of the murrain 

 in the King's forest of Exmoor, as appears by the 

 following inquisition, found in the thirty-lifth year 

 of King Edward : — ' Walterus Barun tenuit quasdam 

 terras et qusedam tenementa in Villa de Holecote 

 de Rege in capite, pei" servituim pendendi supra 



*' Simonsbath ' derives its name from 'a crystal pool in the river 

 Bade, so called, as is said, from one Simon, an outlaw, who had a 

 stronghold (Simonsbury) in the Somersetshire moors ; and here the 

 dreamer should be informed that this Simon, in all probability, is no 

 other than King Sigmund of the Niebelungen, well known to the 

 Anglo-Saxons ; for this pool in the Barle is a very suitable place for 

 making 'a vision of old romances.' — Handbook of Devon and Corn- 

 wall. 



