The Battle of Shiver Chase- Clark (ME-MA) c.1808 Barry
[From Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, British Ballads from Maine, 1929. Their (Barry's) notes follow.
This version dates back through the family to the 1700s.
R. Matteson 2015]
CHEVY CHASE
(The Hunting of the Cheviot, Child 162)
"The Battle of Shiver Chase." Written out by Mr. D. Cromett Clark, Winter-Hill, Mass., as he was taught it in his boyhood by his grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Leonard Morton of Buckfield, Maine, when she was eighty-four years old. Mrs. Morton, born in Middleborough, Mass., in 1798, learned it of her father in her childhood.
Mr. Clark writes: "About ten years ago I wrote out the poem, laid it aside, and went over it several times at intervals of several months. Three or four years ago I picked a second-hand book and discovered in it what is called the 'modern version' of Chevy chase, Then I was of having written out the remembered version before seeing Mr. Clark has accompanied his text with such full and discriminating notes upon its variations from the usual printed form that there is no question of his version representing precisely what he learned from his grandmother. In order to get he full value of the caesural pause, we have printed Mr. Clark's long two-line stanzas in the more usual short four-line stanzas
The Battle of Shiver Chase
1. God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safety all;
A woeful hunting once there did
At Shiver Chase befall.
2. To drive the deers with hound and horn
Earl Percy went his way.
The child may rue that is, inborn
The hunting of that day.
3. The gird Lord of Northumberland
A vow to God did make
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer days to take,
4. The chiefest harts at Shiver Chase
To kill and bear away.
These tidings to Earl Douglas sped
In Scotland where he lay.
5. He sent Earl Percy of his word,
He would prevent that sport.
But England's earl, no fear of that,
Did to those woods resort.
6. His fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chosen men of might.
Who knew full well in time of need
To aim their shafts aright.
7. His gallant grayhounds swiftly ran
To chase the fallow deer.
On Monday they began to hunt
Ere daylight did appear.
8. Yea, long before high noon they had
A hundred fat bucks slain.
They having dined, the drove-yers went
To rouse the deers again.'
[Stanzas 9-12 are missing]
13. Lo! yonder doth Lord Douglas come,
With men in armor bright:
Full twenty hundred Scottlsh spears
A-marching into sight.
14. Oh, cease your sports, Earl Percy said,
And take your-bows with speed;
Ye men of pleasant Tivetdale,
Fast bY the river Tweed.
15. And now with me, my countrymen,
With courage, never fear;
I durst encounter anv man
With him to break a spear.
[Stanza 16 is consolidated with 15]
17. Earl Douglas on his milk-white steed
Wast he a baron bold;
Rode foremost of his companee-
Whose armor shawn like gold.
18. Show me, he said, whose men Ye be
Was noble Percy he,
Who said, We list not to declare
Nor tell what men we be.
19. The first man that did answer make
Was noble Percy he.
Who said, We list not declare
Nor tell what men we be.
20. Yet we will spend our dearest blood
Thy chiefest harts to slay,
Then Douglas swore-a-mighty oath
And thus in rage did say:
21. Ere thus I will out-braved be,
One of us twain shall die;
I know thee well, thou art an earl,
Lord Percy, 'So am I.'
[Stanza 22 is missing]
23. Let thou and I the battle try,
And save our men aside,
Cursed be he, Earl Percy said,
BY whom this is denied.
24. Then stepped a gal-yant squire a-forth,
Withrington was his name,
Who said,"I would not have it told
To our King Henry's shame,
25. That e'er my captain fought on foot
And I stood looking on,
You be two earls' said Withrington,
And I a squire alone,
26. But I'll do all that do I may,
While I have strength to stand,
While I keep power to wield my sword,
I'll fight with heart and hand.
[Stanzas 27 and 28 missing]
29 The fight did last from high noonday
Till setting of the sun;
For when they rung the evening bell
The battle scarce was done.
30 Oh! God! it was a grief to see,
And likewise for to hear,
The cries of men fast in their gore
And scattered there and here.
31 With stout Earl Percy there was slain
Sir John of Edgerton,
Sir Robert Ratscliff, and Sir John,
Sir James the bold baron.
32 Likewise Sir George and stout Sir James,
Both knights of good account;
And Sir Ralph Rabby there was slain
Whose courage none surmount.
33 For Withrington all hearts were sad
And lost in doleful dumps,
Yet when both legs were smitten ofi
He fought upon the stumps.
34 Of fifteen hundred Englishmen
Went home but fifty-three,
The rest were dead at Shiver Chase
Beneath the greenwood tree.
35 Next day did many widows came
Their husbands to bewail;
To wash the wounds and shed salt tears,
But all without avail.
36 The bodies stiff in purple gore
They bare with them away,
They kissed them dead a thousand times
Ere they were wrapped in clay.
37 God save our king and bless our land
With plenty, joy, and peace;
And grant that henceforth fool debate
Twixt noble lords may cease.
We have given the omissions as Mr. Clark gave them in his text. In reality, when compared with any standard text of 256 lines, this one of only 116 lines will be seen to be less than half the length of the received version. We may complete the collation as follows. Stanza 29 corresponds to Child B 47 stanza 30 corresponds to Child B 30 (c, d, e); stanzas 31-33 correspond to Child B 48-50; stanzas 84-86 correspond to Child B 54-56, stanza 37 corresponds to child B 64.
Barring the omissions, this text is very close to Child B, from old English sheets. seeing that the omissions- did not hurt the story, Mr. Clark suggested that possibly the text had been cut down purposely to fit it to some small American broadside. We have seen no American "Chevy Chase" broadsides except the four Massachusetts prints listed by Ford. Two of these we had examined and saw nothing notable in them. But to test Mr. Clark's suggestion, we asked Dr. Clarence S. Brigham of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass., to have Ford, 3011 a, of the Isaiah Thomas Collection critically examined. Miss Nourse, of the staff, reports that the broadside has 256 lines, just the number in the standard English text, but in dislocation. There are also other differences which show that Coverly's text was traditional and not in very good form. The imprint, "Boston, 1811," shows that it could hardly have been printed before Mrs. Morton had already committed the lines to memory, while the fact that she was taught them by her father is proof enough that she did not get them from Coverly. The inference is that hers is an old traditional form of the ballad independent of any known American text.
The tune of "Chevy Chase" was a very favorite one in New England. Numerous songs were set to it, among them one upon the capture of Louisburg in 1745. That it might be used in derision is illustrated by the Revolutionary parody of "The Cow Chase" and by the following anecdote of the battle of Lexington, recorded by Dr. William Gordon, at that time minister of the church at Jamaica Plain:
"The brigade marched out, playing, by way of contempt, Yankee Doodle, a song composed in derision of the New Englanders, scornfully called Yankees. A smart boy, observing it as the troops passed through Roxbury, made himself extremely merry with the circumstance, jumping and laughing so as to attract the notice of his lordship, who, it is said, asked him at what he was laughing so heartily, and was answered: 'To think how you will dance by-and-by to Chevy Chase.'" (History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America, by William Gordon, D. D. [London, 1788], I, 481.)