Page:The child's pictorial history of England; (IA childspictorialh00corn).pdf/57

 about this time that bells began to be used in England, and they were highly valued.

10. Dunstan persuaded the kings and rich noblemen, to rebuild the monasteries that had been plundered and destroyed by the Danes, and endow them with lands; so that, at last, nearly one-third of all the landed property in the kingdom belonged to the clergy.

11. There was a king named Edgar, the fourth after Athelstan, who did many useful things for the country; and, among others, he thought of a plan to destroy the wolves, which were so numerous in all the forests, that the people were in constant alarm for the safety of their sheep, and even of their little children.

12. Edgar, therefore, ordered that each of the princes of Wales, who had to pay tribute to the kings of England, should send, instead of money, three hundred wolves' heads every year; so they were obliged to employ huntsmen to go into the woods to kill those dangerous animals, which were so generally destroyed in a few years that they have seldom been found in England ever since.

13. Then Edgar kept the Danes away by having as many as three hundred and sixty vessels always ready for service; but, when he