CRANES AT CHRISTMAS 313 



as a British bird, is tliat which carries us back to 

 Saxon times, and occurs in a letter addressed by 

 King Ethelbertto Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence, 

 who died in 755. In this letter, a copy of which 

 has been preserved, the king asked him to send 

 over two falcons that would do to fly at the Crane ; 

 for, said he, " there are very few birds of use for 

 this flight in this country" — that is, in Kent. In 

 other words, there were Cranes enough in Kent in 

 those days to afford sport to a falconer, but no 

 hawks powerful enough to take them. He wanted 

 Jerfalcons. 



It is related of William the Conqueror, who was 

 a great gourmand in his way, that on one occasion, 

 when at dinner, William Fitz-Osborne, who, as 

 dapifer, or steward of the household, had the charge 

 of the curey, served him with the flesh of a Crane 

 scarcely half roasted. The king was so vexed, 

 that he raised his fist and would have struck him, 

 had not Eudo, who was appointed dapifer im- 

 mediately afterwards warded ofif the blow.^ 



In the twelfth century Cranes were reported to 



be very common in Ireland. Giraldus Cambrensis, 



who travelled there in 1183, and again in 1185-1186, 



in company with Prince John, noted in his journal 



[Topographia Hibernica, G.d. Dimock, M.R. series, 



p. 46) that they were so numerous, that as many as 



a hundred or thereabouts might often be seen in 



one flock. This is also recorded by Ranulphus 



'^ Pegge's Form of Curey : a Roll of Ancient English Cookery. 

 1780. See also Warner's Antiquitates Culinarice ; or. Curious 

 Tracts relating to the Culinary Affairs of the old English, 4to. 

 1791. 



