CHEVY-CHASE.

[Percy, Earl of Northumberland, had vowed to hunt for three days in the Scottish border, without condescending to ask leave from Earl Douglas, who was either lord of the soil or lord warden of the Marches. This provoked the conflict which was celebrated in the old ballad of the "Hunting o' the Cheviot." The circumstances of the battle of Otterbourne (A. D 1388) are woven into the ballad, and the affairs of the two events are confounded. The bal lad preserved in the Percy Reliques is probably as old as 1574. The one following is a modernized form, of the time of James I.]

GOD prosper long our noble king,

Our lives and safeties all;

A woful hunting once there did In Chevy-Chase befall.

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took his way;

The child may rue that is unborn
The hunting of that day.

The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer days to take,

The chiefest harts in Chevy-Chase
To kill and bear away.
These tidings to Earl Douglas came,
In Scotland where he lay ;

Who sent Earl Percy present word

He would prevent his sport. The English earl, not fearing that, Did to the woods resort,

With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chosen men of might,
Who knew full well in time of need
To aim their shafts aright.

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran
To chase the fallow deer;
On Monday they began to hunt,
When daylight did appear;

His host he parted had in three,

As leader ware and tried ;
And soon his spearmen on their foes
Bore down on every side.

Throughout the English archery
They dealt full many a wound;
But still our valiant Englishmen
All firmly kept their ground.

And throwing straight their bows away,
They grasped their swords so bright;
And now sharp blows, a heavy shower,
On shields and helmets light.

They closed full fast on every side,
No slackness there was found;
And many a gallant gentleman
Lay gasping on the ground.

In truth, it was a grief to see

How each one chose his spear,
And how the blood out of their breasts
Did gush like water clear.

At last these two stout earls did meet ;
Like captains of great might,
Like lions wode, they laid on lode,
And made a cruel fight.

Then leaving life, Earl Percy took

The dead man by the hand;
And said, "Earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I had lost my land.

"In truth, my very heart doth bleed
With sorrow for thy sake;
For sure a more redoubted knight
Mischance did never take."

A knight amongst the Scots there was
Who saw Earl Douglas die,
Who straight in wrath did vow avenge
Upon the Earl Percy.

Sir Hugh Mountgomery was he called,
Who, with a spear full bright,
Well mounted on a gallant steed,
Ran fiercely through the fight;

And past the English archers all,
Without a dread or fear;
And through Earl Percy's body then
He thrust his hateful spear.

With such vehement force and might
He did his body gore,

The staff ran through the other side
A large cloth-yard and more.

So thus did both these nobles die,
Whose courage none could stain.
An English archer then perceived
The noble earl was slain.

He had a bow bent in his hand,

Made of a trusty tree; An arrow of a cloth-yard long To the hard head haled he.

Against Sir Hugh Mountgomery
So right the shaft he set,

The gray goose wing that was thereon
In his heart's blood was wet.

This fight did last from break of day

Till setting of the sun;

For when they rung the evening-bell The battle scarce was done.

With stout Earl Percy there were slain
Sir John of Egerton,

Sir Robert Ratcliff, and Sir John,
Sir James, that bold baron.

And with Sir George and stout Sir James,
Both knights of good account,
Good Sir Ralph Raby there was slain,
Whose prowess did surmount.