This flight must be 600 miles at least.
Dame Julian Barnes, in her book of Hunting and Hawking, says that the
hawk's bells must be in proportion to the hawk, and they are to be
equiponderant, otherwise they will give the hawk an unequall ballast:
and as to their sound they are to differ by a semitone, which will
make them heard better than if they were unisons.
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William of Malmesbury sayes that, anno Domini 900, tempore Regis
Alfredi, hawking was first used. Coteswold is a very fine countrey for
this sport, especially before they began to enclose about Malmesbury,
Newton, &c. It is a princely sport, and no doubt the novelty, together
with the delight, and the conveniency of this countrey, did make King
Athelstan much use it. I was wont to admire to behold King Athelstan's
figure in his monument at Malmesbury Abbey Church, with a falconer's
glove on his right hand, with a knobbe or tassel to put under his
girdle, as the falconers use still; but this chronologicall
advertisement cleares it. [The effigy on the monument here referred
to, as well as the monument itself, have no reference to Athelstan, as
they are of a style and character some hundreds of years subsequent to
that monarch's decease. If there were any tomb to Athelstan it would
have been placed near the high altar in the Presbytery, and very
different in form and decoration to the altar tomb and statue here
mentioned, which are at the east end of the south aisle of the nave.
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