AND THE FORESTERS. 



57 



it is spoken of as Mount St. Gilbert, in honour, it is 

 said, of a recluse to whom the Gilbertine monks as- 

 cribe their origin. Whether the saint fixed his 

 abode in the cleft called the Needle's Eye (which 

 tradition alleges to have been made at the Cruci- 

 fixion), or on some other part of the hill, there is no 

 evidence to show ; but that there was a hermitage 

 there at one time, and that whilst the woods around 

 were stocked with game, is clear. It is charitable 

 to suppose, however, that the good man who pitched 

 his tent so high above his fellows abstained from 

 such temptiug luxuries, that on his wooden trencher 

 no king's venison smoked, and that fare more becom- 

 ing gown and girdle contented him ; so at least it 

 must have been reported to Henry III., who, to give 

 the hermit, Nicholas de Denton by name, " greater 

 leisure for holy exercises, and to support him during 

 his Hfe, so long as he should be a hermit on the 

 aforesaid mountain," granted six quarters of corn, 

 to be paid by the Sherifi' of Shropshire, out of the 

 issues of Pendleston Mill, near Bridgnorth. 



That there were, however, poachers upon the 

 king's preserves appears from a criminal prosecution 

 recorded on the Forest Roll of 1209, to the efiect 

 that four of the county sergeants found venison in 



