INTRODUCTOKY. 9 



scarcely one of which but is more or less shattered by 

 the storms of nearly a thousand years, are many worth 

 particular notice. The most remarkable of these is the 

 " Major Oak," which stands by the side of the broad 

 riding in Birkland, and, unlike most of its fellows, it is 

 externally unharmed ; it is indeed a noble tree, and 

 covers with its spreading boughs an area of 240 feet 

 in diameter. It is not, however, until the spectator 

 approaches closely that the enormous bulk of both trunk 

 and branches is realized, several of the arms are each of 

 them large enough for a tree of no mean size. The 

 massive trunk, however, which looks so vast and firm, 

 with its huge cable-like roots anchored in the ground, is 

 hollow, the cavity being entered by a cleft only suffi- 

 ciently *wide to admit a person sideways. But though 

 the entrance is narrow, the interior is large enough to 

 contain twelve adults standing closely together, and I 

 have seen twenty-seven school-children stowed at once 

 into its spacious recesses ; indeed on one occasion I 

 remember a party of four actually sitting down to tea 

 within the tree, with a small round table in their midst. 



The " Shambles Oak " in Bilhagh is of almost equal 

 pioportions, and owes its name to the fact that a noto- 

 rious sheep-stealer, who once resided in the village of 

 Clipstone, used its spacious hollow trunk as a place of 

 concealment for the sheep he had stolen and slaughtered. 

 Hundreds of other trees, unknown to fame by any 

 traditional remembrance, are yet worthy of all admira- 

 tion for their picturesque forms and venerable appear- 

 ance. 



Although Sherwood Forest is royal no longer, no 

 part of it now belonging to the Crown, yet it was for 

 some centuries one of the sources from which was drawn 



