1 8 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE RED DEER 



of the Saark, making for Red Kirk in Dumfriesshire. 

 The stag turned homewards from that point, and 

 again ran all along the wooded banks of the Eden 

 until it reached the outside of Brougham Castle. 

 The poor animal found strength to clear the park 

 palings, but expired upon alighting within the en- 

 closure. The noble hound which had made all the 

 running alone was too worn out to clear the palings 

 in his stride. He leapt, but fell backwards, and died 

 upon the outside of the palings. This stirring inci- 

 dent occurred in 1333 or 1334, when Edward Baliol 

 was staying in Westmorland as the guest of the 

 Lord Robert Clifford. The antlers of the stag which 

 showed sport so worthy of a Scottish sovereign were 

 nailed up upon the trunk of a fine oak which 

 grew close to the spot where the stag died. There 

 they remained until the year 1648, when one of the 

 antlers was 'broken down by some of the army.' 

 The tree itself, which had so long been known as 

 ' Hartshorn Tree,' succumbed to the ravages of time 

 in the seventeenth century, but the fame of the extraor- 

 dinary feat of stag and hound has been handed down 

 to successive generations in the simple distich : 

 ' Hercules kill'd Hart a-greese, 

 And Hart a-greese kill'd Hercules.' 



