SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



more packs being out on the war-path, each 

 one desirous of scoring over his rivals ; and it 

 seems rather curious that the sport should have 

 dropped out all at once, after being carried on 

 for a number of years, during which time 

 the country was very much over-hunted, and 

 there appear to have been as many hounds as 

 hunters.' 1 We owe the present scarcity of 

 the animal probably to a combination of both 



of these causes. The foulmart still roams 

 after sundown beneath the hedgerows and 

 along the 'soughs' in the lowland tracts, of 

 which Abbeyholme is the centre, but neither 

 hound nor sportsman follows the drag. The 

 numbers are too few, and their whereabouts 

 are too uncertain to make it worth while to 

 organize a hunt. What was once a ruling 

 passion has completely passed away. 



SWEETMART HUNTING 



The hunting of the mart, sweetmart, clean- 

 mart, cragmart, or pine marten (Afuste/a martei) 

 for the animal is known locally by all these 

 names 2 bears a certain resemblance to the 

 hunting of the foulmart except in the nature 

 of the country in which the sport is obtain- 

 able. The sweetmart is a denizen of our 

 mountainous districts and frequents the pre- 

 cipitous slopes which form the picturesque 

 valleys of Eskdale, Wasdale, Ennerdale, and 

 Borrowdale. It is also found on the hills in 

 the neighbourhood of Keswick and Ulles- 

 water, while individuals have been seen in 

 recent years on the sides of High Pike and 

 Carrick. If his malodorous kinsman was an 

 object of veneration among sportsmen in the 

 plains of Cumberland, the mention of the 

 sweetmart to the dalesman makes his eye to 

 kindle and his tongue to speak of many ad- 

 ventures by fell and field. 



During a portion of the eighteenth century 

 the sweetmart, like the foulmart, was classed 

 as vermin and included in churchwardens' 

 lists as a destructive beast to be exterminated 

 in the public interest. Its name does not 

 figure so often in those accounts owing per- 

 haps to its distribution being confined to a 

 more limited area as well as to the circum- 

 stance that in many of the mountain parishes 

 the annual expenditure of the churchwardens 

 has not been handed down to us. But there 



1 Badminton Magazine, May, 1900, p. 530. 



2 Manwood, writing at the close of the six- 

 teenth century, names the species ' the marterne 

 or martron, as some old foresters or woodmen do 

 call them, being the fowerth beast of chase, where- 

 of we have no great store in these forests on this 

 side Trent, but yet in the county of Westmerland 

 in Martendale there are many ' (4 Treatise of the 

 Forest Lawes, p. 26). Clarke calls it 'the marten,' 

 or 'martern' (Survey of the Lakes, pp. 30, 193, 

 ed. 1789). It is now generally known as 'the 

 mart,' though the reappearance of ' martern ' under 

 its old form unexpectedly occurs in the church- 

 wardens' accounts of Martindale, a parish in West- 

 morland on the Cumbrian border, in the years 

 1825-6 (Fauna of Lakeland, p. Ixx.). 



can be no doubt that its death warrant had 

 been issued and a price set on its head. In 

 the manor of Greystoke it was customary for 

 the bailiff to keep dogs for the purpose of 

 destroying foxes and other vermin which in- 

 fested that neighbourhood, for which protec- 

 tion the tenants were obliged to pay a certain 

 quantity of oats, a manorial rent, which went 

 by the name of ' foresters' corn.' 3 In pro- 

 cess of time the custom became obsolete, 

 though the lord of the manor continued to 

 exact the payment. In consequence the 

 vermin began to increase, and farmers and 

 graziers suffered heavy losses during the lamb- 

 ing season from their depredations. At a 

 vestry meeting called to consider the situation 

 some of the inhabitants were of opinion that 

 the lord should be compelled to keep the 

 hounds as he received their corn for that 

 purpose, ' but the more general opinion was, 

 that since damage was done every night and 

 immediate relief must be had, it was better to 

 hire men to destroy the vermin than risk the 

 precarious issue of a tedious and expensive 

 suit at law.' It was resolved to levy a cess 

 on the parish and to draw up a schedule of 

 rewards to be offered for the slaughter of 

 ' these noxious animals.' For many years 

 afterwards, we are told, this decree remained 

 in force and the following prices were paid 

 by the authorities of that parish : 'To the 

 taker or killer of a fox, i o groats ; of a fox's 

 cub, 3 groats; of an eagle, 5 groats; of a 

 marten, 3 groats ; of a wild cat, 2 groats ; 

 of a raven, I groat.' How the new statute 

 of parish law was first carried into execution 

 will be best described in the words of a com- 

 petent eye-witness, whose father was a tenant 

 of the manor. 'They procured,' he said, 

 4 the swiftest foxhounds from the mountain- 

 ous environs of Keswick, etc.; skilful sports- 

 men were also hired to attend with guns and 

 every other engine for the destruction of these 

 annoyers. Whitsun week, A.D. 1759, was 



8 This manorial tribute was common in many 

 places in the county. 



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