SWAN UPPING 191 



ing them, for there would be no cygnets at that 

 season, but with the object of penning them and 

 feeding them at a time when, by reason of the 

 frost, they would be unable to obtain their natural 

 food. At the present day many of the Thames 

 swans are taken up in winter, turned into barns 

 and outhouses, and fed, the caretakers being 

 rewarded by the swanherds for their pains. 



Why only two of the city companies should 

 have been thus privileged to keep swans and 

 mark them is now not easy to ascertain. The 

 Dyers' Company received their charter from 

 Edward IV. in 1473; that of the Vintners' 

 Company, granted in the same reign, was renewed 

 by Henry VI., and it has been suggested that, as 

 the last-named monarch was fond of swans, 

 it might have been good policy on his part to 

 interest two powerful city guilds, both having 

 their halls on the river side, where they still remain 

 (Dyers' Hall Wharf and Vintry Wharf in Upper 

 Thames Street), in the preservation of the birds 

 by a grant of arms and swan marks. But this is 

 more or less a matter of conjecture, for all the 

 early records of the Dyers' Company were unfor- 

 tunately destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. 



In the summer of 1895, having been invited 

 by the Swan Warden of the Vintners' Company 

 to assist at the ceremony of " swan-upping," I 

 was not slow to avail myself of the privilege, and a 

 more animated or picturesque -scene could hardly be 

 witnessed. The weather was propitious, the river 

 at its best, the banks in the upper reaches being 



