THE BEAR. 



19 



as the animal rose to grapple with the dogs, or with 

 their master. Bear hunting must have been always 

 a dangerous sport, in this respect and if ever the 

 great Cave Bear was an object of the hunters' attack, 

 the boar-hunt of Calydon, as described by Ovid, 

 could alone have furnished a parallel. 



That bears were to be found in Britain during the 

 eighth century may be inferred from the fact that 

 in the " Penitentiale" of Archbishop Egbert, drawn 

 up about A.D. 750, it is laid down (lib. iv.) that " if 

 any one shall hit a deer or other animal with an arrow, 

 and it escapes and is found dead three days afterwards, 

 and if a dog, a wolf, a fox, or a hear, or any other wild 

 beast hath begun to feed upon it, no Christian shall 

 touch it."* 



In the time of Edward the Confessor, as we learn 

 from " Domesday," the town of Norwich furnished 

 annually one Bear to the king, and six dogs for the 

 baiting of it.t 



Baiting wild animals was a favourite pastime with 



sixtt centuries (but the small MS. containingthem all seems to have been 

 copied about 500 years ago), as also of several others valuable in their 

 kind." In a subsequent letter to Dr. Eobinson, dated lihan Byvodog, 

 Glamorganshire, Sept. 22, 1697, he says : — " I had no sooner received 

 your last but was forced to retire in a hurry to the mountainous parts 

 of this county, in order to copy out a large Welsh MS. which the 

 owner was not willing to spare above two or three days, and that in 

 his neighbourhood. It was written on vellum about 300 years since, 

 and contained a collection of most of the ancient writers mentioned by 

 Dr. Davies at the end of the Welsh dictionary. So I thought it 

 better trespassing on the gentleman's patience that lent it, than lose 

 such an opportunity as perhaps will not occur again in my travels. 

 This is the occasion of my long silence — the transcribing of that book 

 taking up two months of our time." 



* Migne, " Patrolngi® Cursus Completus," tom. lixxix. p. 426. 



t Gale, vol. i. p. 777 ; Blount, " Ancient Tenures," p. 315 (ed. 1815). 



