Note 2h — PART I—PREHISTORIC. HORNCASTLE—ITS INFANCY.

Some idea of the extent of these forests, even in later times, may be formed from the account given by De la Prime (Philosophical Transactions, No. 75, p. 980) who says “round about the skirts of the wolds are found infinite millions of the roots and bodies of trees of great size.” Pliney tells us that the Britons had “powerful mastiffs” for hunting the wild boar, and Manwood in an old Treatise on Forest Laws (circa 1680) states (p. 60) that the finest mastiffs were bred in Lincolnshire. Fuller, in his Worthies of England (p. 150) mentions that a Dutchman (circa 1660) coming to England for sport, spent a whole season in pursuit of wild game “in Lincolniensi montium tractu,” by which doubtless were intended the wolds. A writer in the Archæological Journal (June, 1846) says “the whole country of the Coritani (i.e. Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, &c.) was then, and long after, a dense forest.” The name “Coritani,” or more properly Coitani, is the Roman adaptation of the British “Coed,” a wood, which still survives in Wales in such place-names as “Coed Coch,” the red wood, “Bettws y Coed,” the chapel in the wood, &c. This was their distinguishing characteristic to the Roman, they were wood-men.