li'.it CASSELL'S POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY. 



may trace them to Thessaly, and thence to Greece, where they were so generally and successfully 

 ivared and tended, that Arcadia became the scene of all that the poets could imagine or describe as 

 beautiful in pastoral life. Here, as was feigned, Pan, the god of Arcadia, was born ; and to follow his 

 \\orship from Greece to the colonies .settled in Italy and Spain, is to trace the diffusion of the domesti- 

 cated ilocks and the pastoral people over whom Pan was considered to preside. Varro speaks of the 

 custom of the Athenian shepherds of covering their sheep with skins, in order to improve the fleece ; 

 and the cynic Diogenes, alluding to a similar practice among the shepherds of Megaris, whose children 

 were allowed to run about naked, says, "he would rather be the ram than the son of a Megarcnsian. ' 



From Spain and Italy the breeding of sheep extended into Germany and Gaul. 



The period at which the sheep was introduced to our island cannot be determined. It appears to 

 have existed in England prior to its conquest by the Romans, though it is not mentioned by them in 

 their accounts of the productions of this ultima Thide. But as the Britons of Kent had long 

 traded with the Gauls, who, we know, possessed sheep, and used at an early period a sort of felted 

 cloth, it is reasonable to conclude that flocks tenanted the hills of our country long before the arrival 

 of Julius Ctesar. 



The proof is positive, however, of the antiquity of sheep in the British Islands, though we can 

 scarcely determine whether they were domesticated or not. Boethius describes a wild breed in the 

 Island of St. Kilda, exceeding the largest goat in size, with heavy, massive horns, longer than those of 

 an ox, and as bulky, and with a tail hanging to the ground. Skulls of sheep, apparently belonging to 

 this race, occur in peat-bogs. Pennant remarks, that such an animal as Boethius describes is figured 

 on a bas-relief taken out of the wall of Antoninus, near Glasgow. 



Wool has been regarded, from the earliest times of English history, as our great national ru\v 

 material for woven goods. The mother of Alfred the Great is described, like the virtuous woman in 

 the Book of Proverbs, as diligently occupied in spinning wool. An old chronicler says of Edward the 

 Elder, "He sette his sons to schole, his doughtershe sette to woll-werke." As to Edward III., Fuller 

 quaintly relates : " The king and state began now to grow sensible of the great gain the Netherlands 

 got by our English wool : in memory whereof, the Duke of Burgundy, not long after, instituted the 

 order of the Golden Fleece ; wherein, indeed, the fleece was ours, the ijolden their' s so vast their 

 emolument by the trade of clothing. Chir king, therefore, resolved, if possible, to reduce the trade I" 

 his own country, who, as yet, were ignorant of that art, as knowing no more what to do with their 

 wool thau the sheep that wear it, as to any artificial and curious drapery their best clothes being no 

 better than friezes, such their coarseness for want of skill in their making." In the same style, Fuller 

 describes the expedients adopted and their success : " Persuaded with the premisses, many Dutch 

 servants leave their masters, and make over for England. Their departure thence (being picked here 

 and there) made no sensible vacuity ; but their meeting here all together amounted to a considerable 

 fulness. With themselves, they brought over their trade and their tools namely, such as could not 

 be as conveniently made in England. Happy the yeoman's house into which one of these Dutchmen did 

 enter, bringing industry and wealth along with them ! Such who came in strangers within their doors 

 si PI in after went out bridegrooms, and returned sons-in-law, having married the daughters of their land- 

 lords who first entertained them. Yea, those yeomen, in whose houses they harboured, soon proceeded 

 gentlemen, gaining great estates to themselves, arms and worship to their estates." 



Dyer says, in his once well-known poem, " The Fleece :" 



" If tliy farm extends 

 Near Cotswohl Downs 

 Regard this sort, and hence thy sire of lambs select." 



These sheep appear to have been so called from the cots or sheds in which they were housed either a; 

 iiight or during the winter ; and the wolds, or open, hilly grounds, in which they were pastured in the 

 summer. This mode of protecting sheep seems to have been, in some former period, generally practised 

 in the contiguous counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. It was not always, 

 however, that a rude kind of protection was afforded; for these cots, according to Camden, were long 

 ranges of buildings, three or four storeys high, with low ceilings, and with a slope at one end of each 

 floor reaching to the next, and by which the sheep were enabled to ascend to the topmost one. 



Stowe, in his " Chronicle," has the following passage : " Shepe transported into Spain. In this 



