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Chevy Chase
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Who was the original Chevy Chase? (Not the ghastly films) In the foreword to Wuthering Heights it mentions that that Emily Bronte would have been familiar with him.
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Chevy Chase is an etching by Bewick, (the son) but also this: a children's ballad
The Ballad of Chevy Chase
At least two English ballads known as The Ballad of Chevy Chase exist, but the nature of ballads mean that many more versions of this once popular song may not have survived.
The extant songs apparently reflect the events of the Battle of Otterburn in 1388, although the account of the battle lacks historical accuracy and may relate to border skirmishes up to fifty years later. A third ballad named "The Battle of Otterburn" assuredly does reflect the historical battle.
The first of the two ballads of Chevy Chase took shape perhaps as early as the 1430s but the earliest record we have of it appears in The Complaynt of Scotland one of the first printed books from Scotland. The Complaint of Scotland, printed about 1540, calls the ballad The Hunting of Cheviot.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586) wrote in his Defence of Poetry of this early ballad:
"I never Heard the old song of Percie and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet"
This seems to have sparked renewed interest in the old ballad and the second of the ballads appears to have emerged shortly afterwards, perhaps around 1620. The second version also attracted high praise: Addison called it "the favourite of the common people of England" and Ben Jonson went as far as to say that he had rather penned it than all of his actual works.
The ballads themselves tell the story of a hunting party in the Cheviot hills 'the chevy chase' by Percy, the English Earl of Northumberland. The Scottish Earl Douglas had forbidden this hunt and the defiance caused a bloody battle which only 110 people survived.
Sir Hugh Montgomery was he called,
Who, with a spear full bright,
Well mounted on a gallant steed,
Ran fiercely through the fight;
And past the English archers all,
Without all dread or fear,
And through Earl Percy's body then
He thrust his hateful spear.
This fight did last from break of day
Till setting of the sun;
For when they rung the evening bell
The battle scarce was done.
And the Lord Maxwell in like case
Did with Earl Douglas die;
Of twenty hundred Scottish spears
Scarce fifty-five did fly;
Of fifteen hundred Englishmen
Went home but fifty-three;
The rest were slain in Chevy Chase
Under the greenwood tree.
Next day did many widows come
Their husbands to bewail;
They washed their wounds in brinish tears,
But all would not prevail.
Their bodies bathed in purple gore
They bore with tbem away;
They kissed their dead a thousand times
When they were clad in clay.
God save our king, and bless this land
With plenty, joy and peace,
And grant henceforth that foule debate
'Twixt noblemen may cease
....... and here is the slain Earl Douglas guarded by his ever faithful hounds (the original still hangs in Cragside and is about 10 feet by 6 feet).
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