[It was a good law of King Canute, which said that every free man in England might hunt in his own woods and grounds, and hunt as much as he list, provided only he interfered not with the royal parks and demesnes. But the Norman princes, not content with spreading their parks all over the country, and with seizing upon the lands of the church and the poor to make them great hunting-grounds and deer-parks, established cruel laws therewith, so that whosoever slew a hart or a hind should be deprived of his eyesight; and Duke William forbade men to kill the hart or the boar, and, as our Saxon chronicler saith, he loved the tall deer as if he were their father! and likewise he decreed that none should kill so much as a hare, and at this the rich men bemoaned and the poor men shuddered. Old England will not be England until these un-Saxon laws be entirely gone from us!][151] From this good sport Lord Hereward returned to the house about an hour before the sun reached the meridian, and then was served the abundant dinner in the hall; and the not stinted dinner in the kitchen for the churls and serfs followed the dinner in the hall. If the weather was fine, the lady as well as the lord went out in the afternoon to hawk, or to fish, or to see the pleasant and profitable sport of their expert fenners who snared the wild fowl, or took the animals of the chace by means of _fovea_ or deep pitfalls which they cunningly dug in the ground in the likeliest places, and still more cunningly concealed by laying across them sticks, and twigs, and moss, and turf. As the sun set they returned again to the house and sang in concert with all the household the _Ave Maria_ or they went into the little church and heard the full service of Vespers. Upon these duties of religion there followed a slight _merenda_ or afternoon’s drinking, or refection between dinner and supper; and then Elfric or some other skilful wight made music in the hall by playing upon the harp and singing; or Alefricus, that learned clerk, brought down a book and read in it, or the freedmen and elders of the township gathered round the cheerful hearth with the lord and ladie, and related tales and legends of the old times, or took counsel with Hereward as to the future. If a Saxon gleeman came that way he was ever welcome; and these evening hours were often made to pass away the more pleasantly by the arrival of such a stranger, who, mayhap, could sing a new song, or tell an unheard tale, or give some little intelligence of what was passing in the upland country and in the world beyond the fens. No Saxon chief of fame ever stinted the bard; and whether he went south or north, east or west, the menestrel found every hall open to him, and had but to speak his wants and to raise his grateful voice, and all and more than he wanted was given unto him. When he entered a house they brought him water to wash his hands and warm water for his feet, or they prepared for him the