Prior Existence of the Castor Fiber in Scotland. 83 



Anglo-Saxon era, it had already ceased to be familiarly 

 known in England. 



We have proof of a more direct nature of the actual exist- 

 ence of the beaver in Wales, at this early period of the civil 

 history of our country, but nearly expiring period of the his- 

 tory of the English beaver. *= In the code of Hywel Dda, 

 framed towards the commencement of the tenth century, and 

 therefore considerably before the time of iElfric, we findt 

 the animal valued at 120 pence ; and, as in the following 

 section we find the skin {croen Llosdlydan) appreciated alone 

 at precisely the same amount, we infer that the latter merely 

 was regarded, and that neither the carcass as food, nor the 

 castoreum as medicine, was then held in esteem by the Welsh. 

 But to show how highly the skin was prized, and of course as 

 a fur, we may contrast this valnation with that of the ox and 

 deer, each of which is rated at eightpence ; while that of the 

 goat or sheep is rated at only a penny. An oak tree was as 

 precious to the mountaineers ; for, if sound, it was valued 

 also at 120 pence. Among the tolls licensed to be levied at 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the time of Henry 1., we find the 

 tymbra beveriorum fixed at fourpence ; and this, it is im- 

 portant to note, appears to have been an export duty.^ At 

 least half-a-century after the period of Henry, and more than 

 two centuries after that of Hywel Dda, we have the evidence 

 of a witness of remarkable intelligence, that the beaver still 

 survived as indigenous in Wales. Silvester Giraldus, travel- 

 ling in that country in 1188 with Archbishop Baldwin of 

 Canterbury, who preached there that crusade in which he 

 afterwards followed Richard Coeur de Lion to the Holy Land, 

 and perished at Acre, tells us, in speaking of the river I'eivi, 

 that it retained a special notability : " inter universos namque 

 Cambriae seu etiam LoegriBe fiuvios, solus hie castores habet." 

 He then proceeds to give an account of the habitat of the 

 animal at some deep and still recess of the stream ; describes 

 its dams and huts, and its methods of construction, with 

 considerable minuteness ; and records the dangers to which 

 it is liable on the score of its skin, which is coveted in the 

 west, and the medicinal part of its body, which is coveted in 

 the east : while he adds, though with evident scruple as to 



* Of a more remote but wholly uncertain antiquity, yet worth mentioning, is 

 the circumstance that the beaver seems to have occupied a prominent place in 

 the old Druidical mythology of Wales, especially in relation to the tradition of a 

 general deluge. It is said to have been even an object of worship in ancient 

 Persia. 



f Leges Wallicae, curante Wotton, lib. iii., cap. v., sect. xi. 40 ; sect, xii., 10, 

 De pretiis animalium ferorum et cicurium. 



+ Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vol. i. ; preface, p. 34. 



