60 THE WREKIN FOREST 



Among tlie perquisites whicli tlie said Robert 

 Forester was allowed, as Keeper of tlie Haye, all 

 dead wood and windfalls are mentioned, unless more 

 than five oak-trees were blown down at a time, in 

 wbicli case tbey went to the king. The Haye is 

 spoken of here as an " imparkment," wbicb agrees 

 with the descriptions of Chaucer and other old 

 writers, who speak of a Haia as a place paled 

 in, or enclosed, into which deer or other game were 

 driven, as they now drive deer in Xorth America, 

 or elephants in India, and of grants of land made 

 to those whose especial duty it was to drive the 

 deer with their troop of followers from all parts of a 

 wide circle into such enclosure for slaughter. The 

 following description of deer-hunting in the seven- 

 teenth century by Taylor, the Water Poet, as he is 

 called, will enable us to understand the plan pur- 

 sued by the Norman sportsmen : — 



^' Five or six himdred men do rise early in the 

 morning, and they do disperse themselves divers 

 ways ; and seven, eight, or ten miles' compass, they 

 do bring or chase in the deer in many herds (two, 

 three, or four hundred in a herd) to such a place as 

 the noblemen shall appoint them ; then, when the 

 day is come, the lords and gentlemen of their com- 



