EVIDENCE OF THE LEGEND. 85 



early period — as strong a proof, perhaps, as there is of 

 their existence in Scotland in a wild state a hundred 

 years later. This writer of about the year 1400, relating 

 events which took place about the year 1200, makes the 

 " fierce wild " cow, supposed to be utterly irreclaimable — 

 ranging through " the desert," according to one version 

 of the story; in "the forest," according to another * — a 

 principal actor in the narrative. I feel sure that the 

 narrator was quite aware that such cattle existed in the 

 times of which he wrote, and, in all probability, in the 

 age in which he himself lived, and that those for whose 

 benefit he wrote knew this full well. If this had not 

 been the case, his narrative would have been destitute of 

 the first elements of credibility; and knowing, as we 

 do, what the forest breed was on all sides, we may 

 safely assume that this wild cow was of the same de- 

 scription and colour also : for, as the wild cattle were 

 always alike in that respect, ancient writers seldom 

 thought it necessary to mention that particular. Le- 

 land, for instance, never names the colour of the wild 

 bulls he speaks of, but we know from subsequent writers 

 that those in the very places where he mentions their 

 existence were white; and many other examples might 

 be given. I think this, then, a very strong and 

 stout link in the chain of my argument. 



Advancing farther northwards, through a country 

 thickly studded with ancient parks, and leaving on the 

 left the wildest and most mountainous part of the North 

 Riding, we come, at the distance of about thirty miles, 

 to the River Tees, the southern boundary of the county 

 of Durham, and whose vale has produced the most 



* Such an extensive forest as that of Knaresborough then was, must 

 have included, besides its woods, much wild and " desert " ground. 



