The Byeland Breed. 
141 
“ Men were wont ones off shepe to fede, 
Shepe now eate men on dowtfull dede, 
This wollwysshe shepe, this rampyng beast, 
Consumeth all thorow west and est. 
The blacke shepe, &c. 
“ Halfe Englande ys nowght now but shepe, 
In everye corner they playe boe pepe ; 
Lorde, them confownde by twentye and ten, 
And fyll their place with Cristen men. 
The blacke shepe, &c.” 
(Percy Society , vol. xiii., 1845.) 
Topsell perhaps refers to this ballad when he writes 
(p. 626): — 
“ Till now I thought the common proverb did but jest. 
That saies a blacke shepe is a biting beast.” 
The short-woolled breed of sheep was the most abun¬ 
dant, and was found in every county. According to Mr. 
Low the Ryeland breed, so called from their living on 
certain sandy tracts of country devoted to the production 
of rye, situated southward of the river Wye, was the 
breed which extended over most of the western counties. 
As there is no historical record of the introduction 
of this variety, he assumes that it was indigenous beyond 
all memory to the districts which it inhabited. It 
was admirably suited, from its endurance of scanty 
fare, to the commons, waste lands, and woods where it 
abounded. For, though that district of England is now 
rich and fertile, at this time it was still for the most part 
wild and barren, and incapable of affording rich pasture. 
“The wool of the Ryeland breed,” writes Mr. Low, “was long 
regarded as the finest that the British islands produced. The ancient city 
of Leominster, being surrounded by a country producing this kind of 
wool, and being the market-town to which it was brought for sale, 
gave the name to the wool of the county, which was termed Lemster 
wool, or Lemster ore. Camden, describing the town of Leominster, 
says, ‘ The greatest name and fame is of the wool in the territories 
