310 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



eight cows were to be forfeited, while if goats were found there 

 at large, one was to be hung up by the horns in a tree. 

 Yet in the twelfth century Caithness still possessed the woods 

 it now lacks, for the Orkneyinga Saga relates how at that 

 time the Yarls Harald and Rognvald were accustomed 

 nearly every summer to fare to Caithness, and there to go 

 up into the woods and wastes to hunt. 



From this time onwards Scots laws and charters make 

 frequent reference to forests throughout the country, but it 

 is necessary to bear in mind in interpreting the significance 

 of these references that their " forests " were not our forests. 

 The old "forest" was an area given over to hunting, and is 

 perhaps best denned by the negative statement that it con- 

 tained no arable land. It bore some resemblance to the 

 "deer forests" of the present day: it did indeed contain 

 woodland and covert for the shelter of its wild inhabitants, 

 but it also contained open areas of browsing pasture or 

 "vert," as it was termed. The "forest" of Scots law must not 

 be regarded as an area entirely covered with dense woods. 

 Thus when we read of a vast forest in southern Scotland 

 extending from Chillingham tp Hamilton, a distance of 

 about eighty miles as the crow flies, and including the 

 famous Ettrick Forest and many others, we may imagine no 

 more than a stretch of wild and desolate country given over 

 to wild beasts, and containing many extensive woods, but 

 containing also stretches of barren moor and lush meadow. 



An idea of the extent of woodland in the early days of 

 the consolidation of Scotland may be gained by reference to 

 two widely separated areas selected almost at random. 



IN DUMFRIESSHIRE 



The names of many places in Dumfriesshire Mouswald, 

 Thortorwald, Tinwald clearly indicate the former presence 

 of wald or wood, where none now exists. In a Charter of 

 Alexander II (1214-1249) Richard de Bancori quits claims 

 to his lord, Robert de Brus, of the woods of Musfaud or 

 Mouswald ; and substantial tradition asserts that a great 

 oak forest spread from that place, by Thortorwald to Tin- 

 wald, so dense that a man could have traversed the distance 

 from tree to tree without putting foot to ground. The extent 

 of this wood probably exceeded twenty square miles. 



