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Greece and the neighboring islands, swine were common at an early period, and were kept in large droves by swineherds; for we read in Homer's Odyssey, which is supposed to have been written upwards of 900 years B.C., that Ulysses, on his return from the Trojan war, first sought the dwelling of Eumæus, his faithful servant, and the keeper of his swine: and that office must then have been held in high esteem, or it would not have been performed by that wise and good old man.

The rude tables of the ancient Britons were chiefly supplied from their herds of swine, and the flesh of these animals furnished them with a great variety of dishes. (Cæsar, book i. chap 1.)

Sharon Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, while enumerating their live stock, states they had "great abundance of swine;" and adds, that although horned cattle are occasionally mentioned in grants, wills, and exchange of property, swine are most frequently spoken of. The country then abounded with woods and forests, and these are seldom particularized without some mention being made of the swine fed in them. These animals appear in fact to have constituted a considerable item in the wealth of an individual, for legacies of them often occur in wills. Thus Alfred, a nobleman, bequeathed to his relatives a hide of land with one hundred swine, and directs that another hundred shall be given for masses for the benefit of his soul; and to his daughters he leaves two thousand. So Elfhelm left land to St. Peter's at Westminster, on the express condition that they should feed a herd of two hundred swine for the use of his wife.

In the original Doomsday-Book for Hampshire, where an estimate of the value of the lands and forests belonging to the king, the monasteries, the hundreds, and other divisions is given, the number of hogs which can be fed on each separate portion is invariably specified.

In the oldest of the Welsh Triads, (which treat of the events of Britain in general,) we find evidence of the early domestication of swine, for one of these contains a recital of the actions of three powerful swineherds in the Isle of Britain, "over whom it was not possible to prevail or gain," and who restored the swine to their