THE BEASTS OF THE FOREST 31 



most renowned of the animals of the British forests. It appears 

 on ancient British coinage, on various works of art of the later 

 Celtic period, on Romano-British altars, and with frequency 

 on Norman ecclesiastical sculpture. The chroniclers tell us 

 that boar-hunting was a favourite sport of Henry I. Pickering 

 forest had great repute for its wild boars at the beginning of the 

 thirteenth century. King John, in 1214, ordered the constable 

 of the castle on two occasions to render assistance to the royal 

 huntsman, who was coming with his hounds to kill wild boar in 

 that forest. The boars were to be sought in that part of the 

 forest where the king was wont to hunt them. The constable 

 was to see that the meat was well salted, and the heads soaked 

 in wine and dispatched to the king. In 1227, Henry dis- 

 patched his huntsman to Pickering to take twelve wild swine 

 for the royal use. 



King John's anxiety about the preservation of this beast of 

 the forest lasted to the end of his life. In September, 1216, he 

 wrote to the constable of St. Briavel ordering that the cattle were 

 only to be agisted on the fringes of Dean forest, and not in 

 the forest itself, and particularly not in those places frequented 

 by the wild boars. In a list of game taken for Edmund, 

 Edward I.'s brother, in 1279, in Dean forest, under letters 

 patent, mention is made of one wild boar. 



Thomas de Langley, master forester of Wychwood, Oxon., in 

 1217, received the royal command to allow William de Brewere 

 to take wild boars (porcos silvestres] in that forest ; and in 

 1223, the same forester was instructed to take two wild boars 

 and transfer them to the royal park of Havering, which was 

 part of Waltham forest. 



There are several records of wild boar hunting in Clarendon 

 and other Wiltshire forests in the fourteenth century. 



The boar or wild pig roamed through Cranborne Chase as 

 late as the days of Elizabeth. Hutchins cites two fifteenth- 

 century cases noted in the presentments of this chase. Robert 

 TDlare, in 33 Henry VI., was ordered to be distrained for 

 killing four wild pigs on Iwerne Hill. Thomas Robe, vicar of 

 Iwerne, was attached in the following year for killing four 

 wild pigs in Iwerne Wood with his bow and arrow. 



As forests lessened in extent, the wild boar diminished in 

 numbers ; but their survival in Lancashire, Durham, and 



