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BALLADS AND LYRICS.

CHEVY CHASE.1

Gon prosper long our noble King,
Our lives and safeties all!

A woeful hunting once there did
In Chevy Chase befall.

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took the way:

The child may rue that is unborn

The hunting of that day!

The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer's days to take;

The chiefest harts in Chevy Chase
To kill and bear away.

1 This famous ballad was written probably during the fif Leenth century. It may refer to the battle of Pepperden, fought n 1436, between the Earl of Northumberland and the Earl Douglas of Angus, but this is uncertain. The Percies and the Douglas family were always coming in conflict, and this ballad is the great epic of the continual warfare which was waged for centuries on the English and Scottish border. The version given here is from Bishop Percy's Folio MSS., vol. ii., p. 7.

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