At length the gallant brute came trotting on its onward path, and, seeing the passage barred, rushed headlong on the vile pitfall to meet its death. It is generally believed that this champion of Cleves sleeps in Merrington churchyard, beneath a coffin-shaped stone, rudely sculptured with the instruments of the victory--a sword and spade on each side of a cross. Another stone, supposed to be the remnant of a cross, stands on the hill near the farm of Cleves Cross, and is said to have probably been raised on the same occasion. It was not unusual, in England or abroad, when a man had slain a boar, wolf, or spotted pard, to bear the animal as an ensign in his shield. We believe that the seal of Roger de Ferry still remains in the treasury at Durham, exhibiting his old antagonist, a boar passant. The seal of his daughter Maud, wife of Alan of Merrington, shows the boar’s head erased. _The Pollard Boar._ A family of the name of Pollard was seated at an early period in the parish of Bishop Auckland; and one of their estates was called Pollard’s Dene, and the ceremony of presenting a falchion to the Bishop soon after his entrance into the See was performed by the possessors of Pollard’s lands. The legend of how a Pollard gained this land runs as follows: The King offered to anyone who would bring the head of a wild boar, which destroyed man and beast, to his palace "a princely guerdon," and the Bishop of Durham, who passed the greater part of the year at Auckland Castle, having also promised a large reward, a member of the ancient family of Pollard determined to kill the brute, or die in the attempt. So this courageous knight armed himself, mounted his trusty steed, and rode to the lair of the boar, and noted its track. After tying his horse to a tree, out of its regular course, he climbed a beech-tree under which the monster often passed, and shook down a large quantity of ripe beechmast.