In the reign of Knut the Dane, the Scots obtained the whole of Lothian from the Saxon earl of Northumberland, and the vast possessions of St. Cuthbert beyond the Tweed seemed about to be lost to the church of Durham. Accordingly, the clergy called upon all the people of St. Cuthbert from the Tees to the Tweed—all those, that is, who dwelt on lands granted by various donors to the church of St. Cuthbert—to rise and march northward to fight for their lands. This great company set out, in the autumn of 1018, and reached Carham on the Tweed, where they were met by Malcolm king of the Scots. A comet had been seen in the sky for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots. From whatever cause it arose, when the two forces joined in battle a panic spread among the followers of St. Cuthbert. They were utterly routed, and most of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were slain—thus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle of Carham. For the next three hundred years Northumberland was swept by successive waves of raid and reprisal, in the course of which occurred the two well-known events, the attack of William the Lion of Scotland on Alnwick Castle, and the more famous affair still, the struggle between Percy and Douglas known as the battle of Otterburn, which was fought in “Chevy Chase” (Cheviot Forest). More important poetically than politically, it stands out more vividly in the records of the time than many other conflicts of larger import. The personal element in the fight, the deeds of gallantry recorded, the sounding roll of the chief knights’ names, and the high renown of the two leaders, throw a glamour around this particular contest which is kept alive by the ballads that chant the praises of Percy or Douglas according as the singer was Scot or Saxon. Sir Philip Sidney, that “verray parfit gentil knight” and discriminating _litterateur_, said “I never heard the old song of Percie and Douglas that I found not my hart mooved more than with a trumpet: and yet it is sung but by some blynd Crowder,[11] with no rougher voyce than rude stile! which beeing so evill apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivill age, what wolde it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindare!” [11] Crowder = fiddler.