Up then rose the kemperye men,
And loud they gan to crye:

Ah! traytors, yee have slayne our kyng,
And therefore yee shall dye.

Kyng Estmere threwe the harpe asyde,
And swith he drew his brand;
And Estmere he, and Adler yonge
Right stiffe in stour did stand.'

And aye their swordes soe sore can byte,

Throughe help of Gramaryé,

That soone they have slayne the kempery men, Or forst them forth to flee.

Kyng Estmere tooke that fayre ladyè,
And marryed her to his wiffe,

And brought her home to merry England.
With her to leade his life.

Fierce in the fight.

FYTTE THE FIRST.

Ireland ferr over the sea

IN There dwelleth a bonnye kinge

And with him a yong and comlye knighte
Men call him syr Cauline.

The kinge had a ladye to his daughter
In fashyon she hath no peere;
And princely wightes that ladye wooed
To be theyr wedded feere.

Syr Cauline loveth her best of all
But nothing durst he saye;

Ne descreeve' his counsayl to no man
But deerlye he lovde this may.

1 Discover.

Till on a daye it so befell,
Great dill to him was dight;1

The maydens love removde his mynd,
To care-bed went the knighte.

One while he spred his armes him fro
One while he spred them nye:
And aye! but I winne that ladyes love,
For dole now I must dye.

And whan our parish-masse was done,
Our kinge was bowne2 to dyne:
He sayes, Where is syr Cauline,
That is wont to serve the wyne?

Then answerde him a courteous knighte,
And fast his handes gan wringe:
Sir Cauline is sicke, and like to dye
Without a good leechinge."

Fetche me downe my daughter deere,

She is a leeche fulle fine:

Goe take him doughe, and the baken bread, And serve him with the wyne soe red; Lothe I were him to tine.4

1 Great grief was upon him.

2 Ready, prepared.

3 Cure by medicine.

4 Lose.

Fair Christabelle to his chaumber goes,
Her maydens followyng nye:

O well, she sayth, how doth my lord?
O sicke, thou fayr ladỳe.

Nowe ryse up wightlye, man, for shame,
Never lye soe cowardlee;

For it is told in my fathers halle.
You dye for love of mee.

Fayre ladye, it is for your love
That all this dill I drye:

For if you wold comfort me with a kisse,
Then were I brought from bale to blisse,
No lenger wold I lye.

Sir knighte, my father is a kinge,
I am his onlye heire;

Alas! and well you knowe, syr knighte,

I never can be youre fere.

O ladye, thou art a kinges daughtèr,

And I am not thy peere,

But let me doe some deedes of armes
To be your bacheleere.

Some deedes of armes if thou wilt doe
My bacheleere to bee,—

(But ever and aye my heart wold rue,

Giff harm shold happe to thee,)

Upon Eldridge hill there groweth a thorne,
Upon the mores brodìnge;1

And dare ye, syr knighte, wake there all nighte Untill the fayre morninge?

' Wide downs or moors.-Percy. Spreading on the downs. Motherwell.

A certain knight, called "Le Sire de la Noire Espine," occurs in the romance of Ywaine and Gawaine; and the mysterious tree that shadowed the fountain of Barenton was, according to the same romance, a thorn :

"So thick it was with leues grene

That might no rayn com ther bitwene;

And that grene lastes ay,

For no winter dere it may."

Sir Beaumains, in his way to the Castle of the Lady Lyones, who is apparently identical with the Lady of the Fountain, of the Welsh legend, and the

"Ryche Lady Alundyne

The Duke's doghter of Landuit"

of the English version, encounters four knights, arrayed severally in black, green, red, and blue; the black knight is thus described: "Ande then they came to a blacke land, and ther was a blacke hawthorne, and thereon hung a blacke baner, and on the other syde ther hung a blacke shield; and by it stood a blacke spear and a long, and a great blacke horse, couered with silke, and a blacke stone fast by it." Morte d'Arthur, part i. ch. 125.

This "knight of the black lands" is the same as the mysterious opponent of the knights who poured water on the "Emerald stone" in the forest of Broceliand: and it is not impossible but that the "Eldridge knight" of the ballad is another version of the same legend.