Page:The Hog.djvu/31

Rh by Sharon Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, we find the right of pasturage for swine conveyed by deed:—"I give food for seventy swine in that woody allotment which the countrymen call Wolferdinlegh." The locality of the swine's pasturage, as here described, has a somewhat ominous title, referring as it does to the haunt of an animal, from incursions of which, on flocks of sheep and herds of swine, during the Saxon period of our history, both the shepherd and the swineherd had to preserve their respective charges. The men employed in the duties—generally thralls, or borne slaves of the soil—were assisted by powerful dogs, capable of contending with a wolf, at least until the swineherd came with his heavy quarter-staff or spear to the rescue. In Sir Walter Scott's novel of Ivanhoe, the character of Gurth is a true, but of course somewhat overcolored picture of an Anglo-Saxon swineherd, as is that of his master of a large landed proprietor, a great proportion of whose property consisted in swine, and whose rude but hospitable board, was liberally supplied with the flesh.

Long after the close of the Saxon dynasty, the practice of feeding swine upon the mast and acorns of the forest was continued, till our forests were cut down and the land laid open for the plough; even yet, in some districts, as the New Forest of Hampshire, the custom is not discontinued, and in various parts of the country, where branching oaks in the hedgerow overshadow the rural and secluded lanes, the cottagers turn out their pig or pigs, under the care of some boy, to pick up the fallen acorns in autumn. Pigs turned out upon stubble fields after harvest, often find in oak copses, in October and November, a welcome addition to their fare.

The large forests of England were formerly royal property; nevertheless the inhabitants of the adjacent towns, villages, and farms enjoyed both before and long after the Conquest, under certain conditions of a feudal nature, and probably varying according to circumstances, and the tenures by which lands were held, the right of fattening their swine in these woodlands. The lawful period for depasturing swine in the royal forests extended from fifteen days before Michaelmas, to forty days afterwards, and this was termed the pawnage month. This term was not, however, very strictly adhered to; many herds were suffered to remain in the forest during the whole year, the consequence of which was that numbers became feral, and were not collected by their owners without difficulty. Little damage would be done in the woods by these swine, but, no doubt, like their wild progenitors, they would take every opportunity of invading the cultivated grounds, and of rioting in the fields of green or ripening corn.