[Sca-cooks] Rude and Barbarous Kingdom

[Terry Decker]

>  Of all these
> grains the country yieldeth very sufficient and overplus quantity, so that
> the wheat is sold sometime for two *altyny* or ten pense sterling the
> chetvert, which maketh almost three English bushels." [144 lbs of grain]

144 pounds of wheat in Elizabethean measure would be approximately 2.5 
Winchester bushels (an occasionally changing standard measure in use from 
the 8th to the 17th Centuries) rather than the 3 bushels stated.

> and the tedder, a large bird with the
> coloring of a pheasant (a wild turkey or bustard perhaps?) that lived in
> the "fir woods".
>
>
> AEschwynne

Turkeys are New World in origin.and by 1580 they were being farmed in 
Western Europe.  There in no evidence they were present in Russia.  There 
are four species of bustard found in Russia, the Great Bustard (Otis tarda), 
the Houbara Bustard (Chalmydotis undulata), McQueen's Bustard (Chalmydotis 
macqueenii) and the Little Bustard (Tetrax tetrax).  However, these are 
primarily found on the Steppes and other open areas rather than in the 
forest.  So far, I haven't found a good match.

Bear