I.--The memorable Westmorland Forest, or Park of Whinfell,
anciently written Qwynnefel, was a grant to Robert de Veteripont
from King John. This grant restrained him from committing waste in
the woods, and from suffering his servants to hunt there in his
absence during the king's life. Till the beginning of last century
it was famous for its prodigious oaks; a trio of them, called The
Three Brothers, were the giants of the forest; and a part of the
skeleton of one of them, called _The Three Brothers' Tree_, which
was thirteen yards in girth, at a considerable distance from the
root, was remaining until within a very recent period.
On the east side of this park is Julian's Bower, famous for its
being the residence of Gillian, or Julian, the peerless mistress of
Roger de Clifford, about the beginning of the reign of Edward III.
The Pembroke memoirs call it "a little house hard by Whinfell-park,
the lower foundations of which standeth still, though all the wall
be down long since." This record also mentions the Three Brother
Tree and Julian's Bower, as curiosities visited by strangers in
the Countess of Pembroke's time, prior to which a shooting seat
had been erected near these ruins, for she tells us, that her
grandson, Mr. John Tufton, and others at one time, "alighted on
their way over _Whinfield_ park at Julian's Bower, to see all the
rooms and places about it." Its hall was spacious, wainscotted,
and hung round with prodigious stags' horns, and other trophies of
the field. One of the rooms was hung with very elegant tapestry;
but since it was converted into a farm-house all these relics of
ancient times have been destroyed.
A large portion of the park was divided into farms in 1767; and
the remainder in 1801, when its deer were finally destroyed. It
was thus stripped of its giant trees, and consigned to its present
unsheltered condition.
II.--A fine oak formerly stood by the way side, near Hornby Hall,
about four miles from Penrith on the road to Appleby, which, from
a pair of stag's horns being hung up in it, bore the name of
Hart's-Horn Tree. It grew within the district which to this day is
called Whinfell Forest. Concerning this tree there is a tradition,
confirmed by Anne, Countess of Pembroke in her memoirs, that a
hart was run by a single greyhound (as the ancient deer hound was
called) from this place to Red-Kirk in Scotland, and back again.
When they came near this tree the hart leaped the park paling, but,
being worn out with fatigue, instantly died; and the dog, equally
exhausted, in attempting to clear it, fell backwards and expired.
In this situation they were found by the hunters, the dog dead on
one side of the paling, and the deer on the other. In memory of
this remarkable chase, the hart's horns were nailed upon the tree,
whence it obtained its name. And as all extraordinary events were
in those days recorded in rhymes, we find the following popular
one on this occasion, from which we learn the name of the dog
likewise:--
Hercules killed Hart-o-Grease,
And Hart-o-Grease killed Hercules.
This story appears to have been literally true, as the Scots
preserve it without any variation, and add that it happened in the
year 1333 or 1334, when Edward Baliol King of Scotland came to hunt
with Robert de Clifford in his domains at Appleby and Brougham, and
stayed some time with him at his castles in Westmorland. In course
of time, it is stated, the horns of the deer became grafted, as it
were, upon the tree, by reason of its bark growing over their root,
and there they remained more than three centuries, till, in the
year 1648, one of the branches was broken off by some of the army,
and ten years afterwards the remainder was secretly taken down by
some mischievous people in the night. "So now," says Lady Anne
Clifford in her Diary, "there is no part thereof remaining, the
tree itself being so decayed, and the bark so peeled off, that it
cannot last long; whereby we may see time brings to forgetfulness
many memorable things in this world, be they ever so carefully
preserved--for this tree, with the hart's horn in it, was a thing
of much note in these parts."
The tree itself has now disappeared; but Mr. Wordsworth, "well
remembered its imposing appearance as it stood, in a decayed state
by the side of the high road leading from Penrith to Appleby."
This remarkable chase must have been upwards of eighty miles, even
supposing the deer to have taken the direct road.
Nicolson and Burn remark, when they tell the story, "So say the
Countess of Pembroke's Memoirs, and other historical anecdotes. But
from the improbable length of the course, we would rather suppose,
that they ran to Nine Kirks, that is the Church of Ninian the
Scottish Saint, and back again, which from some parts of the park
might be far enough for a greyhound to run." These writers have
overlooked the circumstance, that the animal which in those days
was called a greyhound was the ancient deerhound, a large species
of dog having the form of the modern greyhound, but with shaggy
hair and a more powerful frame. The breed is not yet extinct: Sir
Walter Scott's Maida was of the species.
Dr. Burn deals another blow at the tradition; for he goes on
to say, "And _before_ this time there was a place in the park
denominated from the _Hart's horns_; which seem therefore to have
been put up on some former occasion, perhaps for their remarkable
largeness. For one of the bounder marks of the partition aforesaid
between the two daughters of the last Robert de Veteripont is
called _Hart-horn sike_".
III.--Dr. Percy, referring to the expression _hart-o-greece_ in a
verse given below from the old ballad of "Adam Bell," explains it
to mean a fat hart, from the French word _graisse_.
"Then went they down into a lawnde,
These noble archarrs thre;
Eche of them slew a hart of greece,
The best that they cold se."
Clarke, in an appendix to his "Survey of the Lakes," speaking
of the Red Deer which is bred upon the tops of the mountains in
Martindale, gives _Hart of Grease_ as the proper name of the male
in the eighth year.
In Black's "Picturesque Guide to the English Lakes," it is
stated in a note upon this subject, that there is an ancient
broadside proclamation of a Lord Mayor of London, preserved in the
Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, in which, after denouncing "the
excessyve and unreasonable pryses of all kyndes of vytayles," it is
ordered that "no citizen or freman of the saide citie shall sell or
cause to be solde," amongst other things, "Capons of grece above
XXd. or Hennes of grece above VIId."