Sackerson
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/ee/Sackerson.jpg/220px-Sackerson.jpg)
"Sackerson loose" by Robert William Buss
Sackerson was a famous brown bear which was baited in the Beargarden in the late 16th century.[1]
The bear appears in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor in which Slender boasts to Anne Page that, "That’s meate and drinke to me now: I have seene Sackerson loose, twenty times, and have taken him by the Chaine: but (I warrant you) the women have so cride and shrekt at it, that it past:"[2]: 103
Such bears were named after their owners. John Sackerson (1541–95) was the landlord of the in Nantwich and kept a stable of bears and so may have supplied this one.[2]: 105
References[]
- ^ Judith Woolf (2019), "Milkmaid Bears and Savage Mates", Anthrozoös, 32 (3): 305–318, doi:10.1080/08927936.2019.1598650
- ^ a b Nick de Somogyi (2011), "Shakespeare and the Three Bears", New Theatre Quarterly, 27 (2): 99–113, doi:10.1017/S0266464X1100025X
Categories:
- Individual bears
- Animal stubs