4-6 History of Animal Plagties. 



aries ; hut a certain sadness had touched many lands, for a 

 very fierce pestilence destroyed every kind of cattle. Joyfully 

 the shepherds drove their flocks and herds to the green fields, 

 from whence, however, but a small portion returned, drooping 

 and heavy, showing symptoms of disease and the near approach 

 of death in their emaciated condition. The greater number lay 

 stretched in the meadows, where they breathed forth their lives 

 amid the sweet herbage. And now the pastures stink from the 



dead bodies spread out on them The stables were cleansed 



with such great labour, that when they saw an animal sick and 

 about to die they preferred rather to slay it. This they did with 

 an iron instrument. Immediately from the bloody wound there 

 flowed the poison which betrayed its effects throughout the 

 whole body. Noricus and the neighbouring regions are said to 

 have suffered most grievously from this plague.^ ^ 



This, in all probability, was another invasion of the dreadful 

 '■ Rinderpest,' which appears to have extended beyond Norica, 

 and to have committed havoc in this country; for we read that 

 ' eight hundred and ten was the year of Christ when the 

 moon turned black on Christmas Day (according to Petrie and 

 Sharp, " Monunienta Historica Britannica," this was in 809), 

 and Menevia was burnt, and there happened the greatest 

 mortality among horned cattle in Britain that is on record.' ^ 

 "^ A mortality among cattle in Britain [mortalitas pecoriim in 

 Britannia).^ ^ 



It would be most interesting if we could trace this disease 

 in its progress to the British isles, but I think there can be no 

 doubt whatever as to the existence of the 'Cattle Plague' in 



o 



Britain at this early period. The Archives of the Imperial 

 Agricultural Society of Southern Russia state that the disease 

 at this period was imported from the Asian shores of the Black 

 Sea into Europe. It appeared in Hungary and Illyria, and from 

 thence spread rapidly throughout Germany, Austria, and Flanders, 

 destroying enormous numbers of cattle. From thence it was 

 probably imported into England. 



1 Poetoe Saxon. Annal. Boitqjiet, vol. v. p. 169, v. 236. 

 - Brut y Tywysogion, or Chronicles of the Prince of Wales. 

 3 Annalcs Cambriie. 



