Ballads, novels, chapbooks, and songs, have also given their contingent. Thus, for instance, the BLIND BEGGAR OF BETHNAL GREEN--still a public-house in the Whitechapel Road--has decorated the signpost for ages. The ballad was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but the legend refers to Henry de Montfort, son of the Earl of Leicester, who was supposed to have fallen at the battle of Evesham in the reign of Henry III. Not only was the Beggar adopted as a sign by publicans, but he also figured on the staff of the parish beadle; and so convinced were the Bethnal Green folks of the truth of the story, that the house called Kirby Castle was generally pointed out as the Blind Beggar’s palace, and two turrets at the extremity of the court wall as the place where he deposited his gains. Still more general all over England is GUY OF WARWICK, who occurs amongst the signs on trades tokens of the seventeenth century: that of Peel Beckford, in Field Lane, represents him as an armed man holding a boar’s head erect on a spear. The wondrous strange feats of this knight form the subject of many a ballad. In the Roxburgh Collection there is one headed, “The valiant deads of chivalry atchieved by that noble knight, Sir Guy of Warwick, who, for the love of fair Phillis, became a hermit, and dyed in a cave of a craggy rock a mile distant from Warwick. In Normandy stoutly won by fight the Emperor’s daughter of Almayne from many a valiant, worthy knight.”[90] His most popular feat is the slaying of the DUN COW on Dunsmore Heath, which act of valour is commemorated on many signs. “By gallant Guy of Warwick slain Was Colbrand, that gigantick Dane. Nor could this desp’rate champion daunt A dun cow bigger than elephaunt. But he, to prove his courage sterling, His whinyard in her blood embrued; He cut from her enormous side a sirloin, And in his porridge-pot her brisket stew’d, Then butcher’d a wild boar, and eat him barbicu’d.” _Huddersford Wiccamical Chaplet._ A public-house at Swainsthorpe, near Norwich, has the following inscription on his sign of the Dun Cow:-- “Walk in, gentlemen, I trust you’ll find The Dun Cow’s milk is to your mind.” Another on the road between Durham and York:-- “Oh, come you from the east, Oh, come you from the west, If ye will taste the Dun Cow’s milk, Ye’ll say it is the best.” The KING AND MILLER is another ballad-sign seen in many places. It alludes to the adventure of Henry II. with the Miller of Mansfield.[91] Similar stories are told of many different kings: of King John and the Miller of Charlton, (from whom Cuckold’s Point got its name;) of King Edward and the tanner of Drayton Basset; of Henry VIII.; of James V. of Scotland, (the guidman of Ballageich;) of Henry IV. of France and the pig-merchant; of Charles V. of Spain and the cobbler of Brussels; of Joseph II.; of Frederick the Great; and even of Haroun-al-Raschid, who used to go about _incognito_ under the name of Il Bondocani.