"By Hook or by Crook."

I imagine that the expression "By hook or by crook" is in very general use throughout England. It was familiar to my ear forty years ago in Surrey, and within these four years its origin was (to my satisfaction at the moment) brought home to my comprehension in the North of Devon, where the tenant of a certain farm informed me that, by an old custom, he was entitled to take wood from some adjoining land "*by hook and crook*;" which, on inquiry, I understood to include, first, so much underwood as he could cut with the *hook* or bill, and, secondly, so much of the branches of trees as he could…