We use the expression By Hook Or By Crook to explain achieving something by any means possible, honestly or otherwise. In this context, a hook is a blunt billhook and a crook is a curved shaft a shepherd uses to gather his Hock. In feudal England, a decree was passed banning the cutting down of trees or lopping of branches in order to gather firewood. However, the law allowed the poor to gather dead wood from forests and considered anything they could collect with a blunt hook or shepherd's crook was permissible. The Bodmin Register of 1525 asserts that, “Dynmure Wood is open to the inhabitants of Bodmin... to bear away on their backs a burden of lop, hook, crook and bag wood”.