holden every third year [&c &c]
* * * * * * *
3. The Court of Swainmote is to be holden
before the Verderors as judges by the Steward of
the Swainmote thrice in every year [&c]
* * * * * * *
4. ------ The Court of the Justice Seat holden
before the Chief Justice of the Forest ---- aptly
called Justice in eire ------ and this Court of
the Justice Seat cannot be kept oftener than
every third year.
* * * * * * *
[319] _For the antiquity of such Forests within England
as we have treated of the best and surest argument
therof is that the Forests in England (being in
number 69) except the New Forest in Hampshire
erected by William the Conqueror as a conqueror,
and Hampton Court Forest by Hy 3, by authority
of Parliament, are so ancient as no record or
history doth make any mention of any of their
Erections or beginnings._

Here then we have clear evidence that nearly seven hundred
years ago the Verderer's Court was being held at periods of
time that bore no relation to any division of the year known
to the Normans or Plantagenets, or, before them, to the Saxons,
or even, still earlier, to the Romans. We are, therefore,
driven back to the period before the Roman invasion in Britain,
and when the Forest legislation was, as Caesar found it, in
the hands of the Druids. In his brief and vivid account of
these people he tells us that they used the Greek alphabet;
and as he also says they were very proficient in astronomy,
it seems clear that they had their astronomy from the same
source as their literature. Their astronomy involved of necessity
their notation of time. And the Greeks, in turn, owed their
astronomy to the Egyptians, with whom the year was reckoned
as of three hundred and sixty days; and this three hundred
and sixty-day year gives us the clue to the forty-day period
for holding the Forest Courts in Ancient Britain.

We cannot fail to be struck, as we examine the old Forest
customs, with the constant use of the _number three,_ as a
sacred or "lucky" number, on every possible occasion. We
have just seen the role it plays in the Mine Court, with its
_three_ presiding officials, its jury of multiples of _three_
(twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight); its holly stick oath sworn
by _three_ witnesses. We have notice the