“Five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways; and seven, eight, or ten miles’ compass, they do bring or chase in the deer in many herds (two, three, or four hundred in a herd) to such a place as the noblemen shall appoint them; then, when the day is come, the lords and gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wandering up to the middle through bourns, and rivers; and then, they being come to the place, do lie down on the ground till those foresaid scouts, which are called the Tinkheldt, do bring down the deer. Then, after we had stayed three hours or there abouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a wood), which being followed close by the Tinkheldt, are chased down into the valley where we lay; then all the valley on each side being waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as occasion serves upon the herd of deer, that with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours fourscore fat deer were slain.”
Hunting matches were sometimes made in these forests, and one, embittered by some family feud respecting a fishery, terminated in the death of a bold and ancient knight, an event recorded upon a stone covering his remains in the quaint and truly ancient church at Atcham.
“The bugle sounds, ’tis Berwick’s lord O’er Wrekin drives the deer; That hunting match—that fatal feud— Drew many a widow’s tear.
“With deep-mouthed talbe to rouse the game His generous bosom warms, Till furious foemen check the chase And dare the din of arms.
“Then fell the high-born Malveysin, His limbs besmeared with gore; No more his trusty bow shall twang, His bugle blow no more.
“Whilst Ridware mourns her last brave son In arms untimely slain, With kindred grief she here records The last of Berwick’s train.”
Robert Forester appears to have had charge not only of the Haye of the Wrekin, but also of that of Morfe, for both of which he is represented as answering at the Assizes in February, 1262, for the eight years then past. A Robert Forester is also described as one chosen with the sheriff, the chief forester, and verderers of Shropshire in 1242, to try the question touching the _expeditation_ of dogs on the estates of the Lilleshall Abbey, and his seal still remains attached to the juror’s return now in possession of the Sutherland family at Trentham.