28 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



" Feton " (feta) is the term frequently used to signify a fawn, 

 usually of the red deer, in the earlier forest pleas and accounts. 

 It occurs several times in forest proceedings of the High Peak. 

 The author of the Feudal History of Derbyshire makes the 

 amusing mistake of reading it .reton, and expends much 

 learning on the derivation of such a term ! 



The term raskall or raskell occurs in various later forest 

 accounts. It usually means deer out of condition, fit neither 

 to hunt nor kill ; but is occasionally used (as in Rutland 

 accounts) to denote female deer. 



"Murrain" was the generic term in mediaeval England, for 

 almost every form of disease that affected cattle as well as 

 deer. From the records that are extant in various forest 

 proceedings of the deaths of deer from murrain, it is clear 

 that sometimes this term was used to denote a severe form 

 of infectious illness that caused great ravages among the 

 herds ; whilst at other times, when only two or three die in the 

 year from murrain, it would seem to be of the nature of some 

 ordinary ailment. As a rule, the foresters were expected to 

 hang up on the trees of the forest the carcases of those deer 

 that had died of the murrain, and always to keep a strict record 

 of those that thus perished. On several occasions there are 

 instances of foresters being presented and fined, for skinning 

 and taking the hides of those that had died of disease. 



At a later period, as in Duffield Frith, the foresters were 

 ordered to take the more sanitary course of burning the car- 

 cases. From a manuscript book, dealing with the perambula- 

 tions and pleas of Sherwood, in the reigns of Henry III.- 

 Edward III., it appears that the vast number of 350 head of 

 deer (both red and fallow) had fallen victims to the murrain in 

 the year 1286. 



The full records of the Pickering eyre of 1334 give details as 

 to the deer and murrain during each successive keepership 

 since the last eyre in 1280. During the keepership of Richard 

 Skelton upwards of 500 died of murrain. The murrain was 

 severe in the forest of Rockingham during the reigns of 

 Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III., particularly in 

 certain years; 1,400 head of game died of disease during the 

 whole period. In the first five years of Henry VII. the deaths 

 from murrain amounted to 282. In the first year of Henry VII., 



