One of the great recreations of the Anglo-Saxons was hunting, for which the immense forests, which then covered a great portion of this island, gave a wide scope. The most austere and pious, as well as the most warlike, of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, were passionately attached to the pleasures of the chase. According to the writer who has assumed the name of Asser, the great Alfred was so attached to this amusement, that he condescended to teach his “falconers, hawkers, and dog-keepers” himself. His grandson, king Ethelstan, as we learn from William of Malmesbury, exacted from the Welsh princes, among other articles of tribute, “as many dogs as he might choose, which, from their sagacious scent, could discover the retreats and hiding-places of wild beasts; and birds trained to make prey of others in the air.” The same writer tells us of the sainted Edward the Confessor, that “there was one earthly enjoyment in which he chiefly delighted, which was, hunting with fleet hounds, whose opening in the woods he used with pleasure to encourage; and again, with the pouncing of birds, whose nature it is to prey on their kindred species. In these exercises, after hearing divine service in the morning, he employed himself whole days.” It is evident from the ecclesiastical laws, that it was difficult to restrain even the clergy from this diversion. One of the ecclesiastical canons passed in the reign of king Edgar, enjoins “that no priest be a hunter, or fowler, or player at tables, but let him play on his books, as becometh his calling.” When the king hunted, it appears that men were employed to beat up the game, while others were placed at different avenues of the forest to hinder the deer from taking a direction contrary to the wishes of the hunter. Several provisions relating to the employment of men in this way, occur in the Domesday survey. A contemporary writer of the Life of Dunstan gives the following description of the hunting of king Edmund the Elder, at Ceoddri (Chedder). “When they reached the forest,” he says, “they took various directions along the woody avenues, and the varied noise of the horns, and the barking of the dogs, aroused many stags. From these, the king with his pack of hounds chose one for his own hunting, and pursued it long, through devious ways with great agility on his horse, with the hounds following. In the vicinity of Ceoddri were several steep and lofty precipices hanging over deep declivities. To one of these the stag came in his flight, and dashed headlong to his destruction down the immense depth, all the dogs following and perishing with him.” The king with difficulty held in his horse. [Illustration: _No. 43. Anglo-Saxon Dogs._]