litigation in practically every parish in England. The Assize Rolls of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries teem with actions for trespass, for thefts of wood from parks, or fish from ponds, in reply to which the offenders pleaded ancient customary rights. The records of the Privy Council in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are full of petitions containing complaints and counter-complaints of illegal enclosure and illegal fence-breaking; when the incensed owners, like Justice Shallow, "made a Star Chamber matter of it." Often it is plain that the invasion of private enclosures was made simply for the purpose of testing or asserting a customary right of common. Now this, I submit, was the probable object of the owl and squirrel hunts. Observe that the incursions are not undertaken in pursuit of game birds or beasts. That would have rendered the hunters amenable to the game-law or forest-law. The quarry is worthless when captured, and nothing is recorded of its eventual fate. But the annual entry of a crowd into an enclosed park would be sufficient to prevent any customary right-of-way from lapsing. Conversely, owners of private roads sometimes still lock their gates once a year, to prevent a right-of-way from being acquired.[1]
It is in this way that I would explain the Good Friday squirrel-hunt in Shervage Wood, on the slope of the Quantock Hills (Folk-Lore, vol. xix., p. 41), and the similar hunt at the November Wake by Duffield men in Kedleston Park, enclosed no one knows when or by what authority from the Forest of Duffield Frith, In the latter case the raiders were accompanied by "rough music,"—clanging of pots and pans, as in that well-known form of popular legal demonstration, "riding the stang," (Folk-Lore, vol, xiv., p. 185.)
- ↑ A particular date is often chosen for this. An old gentleman in Cheshire, who died in 18—, always locked his gates on All Fools' Day, April 1st. I have myself been stopped on New Year's Day by a locked gate, in Shropshire. Staple Inn in London is always closed to casual wayfarers on Ascension Day.
