Ballads; Great Britain -- History; Scotland -- History
But before the peep of dawn, up spake a little page: "Waken ye, waken
ye, my good lord; the Percy is upon us!" "Ye lie, ye lie," shouted
Douglas; "yesterday, Percy had not men enough to fight us. But if thou
lie not, the finest bower in Otterbourne shall be thy reward, and if
what thou sayest prove false, thou shalt be hanged on the highest tree
in Otterbourne. Yet I have dreamed a dreary dream; I dreamed that a
dead man won a battle and that I was that dead man."
So Douglas belted on his good broadsword, and ran to the field, but
forgot his helmet, and Percy and the Douglas fought with their swords
together till the blood ran down like rain, and the Douglas fell,
wounded on the brow.
Then he called to him his little foot-page and told him to run quickly
and bring to him his sister’s son, Sir Hugh Montgomery.
"My good nephew," said Douglas, "the death of one matters not; last
night I dreamed a dreary dream, but yet I know the day is thine. My
wound is deep; take thou the vanguard; bury me in the bracken high that
grows on yonder lea, and let no man living know that a Scot lies there.
And know that I am glad to die in battle, like my good forefathers, and
not on a bed of sickness."
Montgomery lifted up his noble lord, while his eyes wept salt tears, and
hid him in the bracken bush that his followers might not see, and before
daylight the Scots slew many a gallant Englishman. The good Gordons
steeped hose and shoes in the blood of the English; the Lindsays flew
about like fire till the battle was ended, and Percy and Montgomery
fought till the blood ran down between them.
"Now, yield thee, yield thee, Percy," cried Sir Hugh, "or I vow I will
lay thee low!"
"Since it must be so," quoth Earl Percy, "to whom shall I yield?"
"Thou shalt not yield to me or to any lord, but to the bracken bush that
grows on yonder lea!"
"I will not yield to briar or bracken bush, but I would yield to Lord
Douglas or to Sir Hugh Montgomery, if he were here."
Then Montgomery made himself known, and as soon as Percy knew that it
was Montgomery, he struck the point of his sword into the ground, and
Montgomery, who was a courteous knight, took him up by the hand.
This deed was done at Otterbourne at daybreak, where Earl Douglas was
buried by the bracken bush, and Percy led captive into Scotland, and it
is said that Hotspur, for his ransom, built for Montgomery the castle of
Penoon, in Ayrshire.
But the English version of these stirring events can also claim to be
heard; the ballad upon it is called _Chevy Chase_, which means the Chase
on the Cheviots; and so popular was this ballad that its name was given
to a boys’ game, which is so called even to this day. It tells how the
Percy, from his castle in Northumberland, vowed that within three days
he would hunt on the mountains of Cheviot in spite of the doughty
Douglas and his men, and that he would kill and carry away the fattest
deer in Cheviot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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