English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VII

Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts

Of fifteen hundred Englishmen,
      Went home but fifty-three;
    The rest were slain in Chevy-Chace,                                215
      Under the green-wood tree.

    Next day did many widows come,
      Their husbands to bewail;
    They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears,
      But all would not prevail.[L220]                                 220

    Their bodies, bath'd in purple blood,
      They bore with them away:
    They kiss'd them dead a thousand times,
      When they were clad in clay.

    This news was brought to Edinburgh,                                225
      Where Scotland's king did reign,
    That brave Earl Douglas suddenly
      Was with an arrow slain.

    "O heavy news," King James did say;
      "Scotland can witness be,                                        230
    I have not any captain more
      Of such account as he."

    Like tidings to King Henry came,
      Within as short a space,
    That Piercy of Northumberland                                      235
      Was slaine in Chevy-Chace.

    "Now God be with him," said our king,
      "Sith 't will no better be;
    I trust I have within my realm
      Five hundred as good as he.                                      240

    "Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland say,
      But I will vengeance take,
    And be revenged on them all,
      For brave Earl Piercy's sake."

    This vow full well the king perform'd,                             245
      After, on Humbledown;
    In one day, fifty knights were slain,
      With lords of great renown.

    And of the rest, of small account,
      Did many thousands dye:                                          250
    Thus endeth the hunting of Chevy-Chace,
      Made by the Earl Piercy.

    God save the king, and bless the land
      In plenty, joy, and peace;
    And grant henceforth, that foul debate                             255
      'Twixt noblemen may cease!

62. since.--O. B.

123. Percy has _lions wood_.

137. To.

187. Sc. the Curfew bell, usually rung at eight o'clock; to which the
modernizer apparently alludes, instead of the "Evensong bell," or bell
for vespers of the original author, before the Reformation.--PERCY.

198. "I, as one in deep concern, must lament." The construction here
has generally been misunderstood.--P.

This phrase may help us to determine the date of the authorship of the
ballad. "Doleful dumps" suggested nothing ludicrous to a writer of the
age of Elizabeth, but not long after became burlesque. The observation
is Percy's.

220. They.--O. B.





SIR ANDREW BARTON.

From Percy's _Reliques_, ii. 193.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VII

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