ANONYMOUS-The Battle of Chevy Chase

The Battle of Chevy Chase

THE PERCY out of Northumberland,

An avow to God made he

That he would hunt in the mountains

Of Cheviot within days three,

In the maugre° of doughty° Douglas,

And all that e’er with him be.

The fattest harts in all Cheviot

He would kill and carry away.

‘By my faith’, said the doughty Douglas again,

‘I will let that hunting if I may!’

Then the Percy out of Banborowe1 came,

With him a mighty meinye,°

With fifteen hundred archers bold

Chosen out of shirès three.

This began on a Monday at morn,

In Cheviot the hills so hye;°

The child may rue that is unborn,

It was the more pitye.

The drivers through the woodès went

[All] for to raise the deer,

Bowmen bicker’d upon the bent

with their broad arrows clear.

Then the wild° thoro’ the woodès went

On every sidè shear;°

Grayhounds thoro’ the grevès glent°

For to kill their deer.

This began on Cheviot the hills abune°

Early on a Monenday;

By that it drew to the hour of noon

A hundred fat harts dead there lay

They blew a mort° upon the bent,

They ’sembled on sidès shear;°

To the quarry° then the Percy went

To the brittling° of the deer.

…..