86 



Saveruahe Forest. 



" Fence-montli," i.e., the time of fawning : fifteen days before and 

 fifteen days after Midsummer, The name "Fence-month" is merely 

 an abbreviation of " de-fence " month." During* that time no one 

 was allowed to gather rushes, pick berries or nuts, or let cattle, that 

 were being driven along the roads, wander aside to graze. 



To dogs of all kinds the King's officers (like modern gamekeepers) 

 had a violent antipathy. Some kinds, however, were allowed to be 

 kept, either for safety of property or as being not likely to disturb 

 the King's beasts ; but spaniels and greyhounds could only be kept 

 under the King's license. If found unlicensed, they immediately 

 underwent the operation of " hock-sinewing/' " hambling," or 

 " hoxing," as it was called, i.e., the sinew of a hinder leg was 

 cut so as to prevent their doing further mischief. But the most in- 

 tolerable was the English mastiff. 1 He was dealt with by a very 

 formal and solemn process. The foresters, going their rounds, re- 

 ported all mastiffs to the local court, or swain-mote. The owners 

 of the dogs were all summoned to appear at the next court day and 

 bring the mastiffs with them. A judicial sentence was pronounced, 

 and an operator then called in for the act of " expedition/' or 

 "lawing," i.e., laming them for life according to forest-to?. The 

 mastiff was persuaded to set one of his fore feet, for a moment, upon 

 a block of wood eight inches thick and a foot square : then the man, 

 with a mallet, setting a chisel of three inches broad upon the three 

 claws of the fore foot, smote them, at one blow, clean off. This 

 sounds like wanton cruelty, but one's feelings are soothed by con- 

 sidering that if the fierce mastiff had caught hold of a poor deer he 

 would have torn him to pieces and have inflicted ten times the 

 torture which he himself had undergone. This law was most 

 rigorously enforced : and it was quite impossible for any person, 

 even of the highest rank, to keep dogs of that kind ^-maimed, 

 unless he could first shew his perfect right, derived from very ancient 



1 Old Man wood (Forest Laws, cap. 16, p, 251) quaintly says, " Budseus calleth 

 a Mastive Molossus : in the old British speech they do call him a Maze-thefe 

 and by that name they do call all manner of Barking Curres that do use to bark 

 about men's houses in the night, because that they do maze and fear away thieves 

 from the houses of their masters." 



