The Ballad of Chevy Chase
"The Ballad of Chevy Chase" is an English ballad, catalogued as Child Ballad 162 (Roud 223[1]). There are two extant ballads under this title, both of which narrate the same story. As ballads existed within oral tradition before being written down, other versions of this once-popular song also may have existed.
Its tune has been used by other, unconnected songs.
Synopsis
The ballads tell the story of a large hunting party upon a parcel of hunting land (or chase) in the Cheviot Hills, a range of rolling hills straddling the Anglo-Scottish border between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders—hence, Chevy Chase. The hunt is led by Percy, the English Earl of Northumberland, against the wishes of the Scottish Earl Douglas, who had forbidden it. Douglas interprets the party's arrival as an invasion of Scotland and attacks. Only 110 people survive the bloody battle that follows.
Historical basis
Thomas Percy and scholar Francis J. Child noted similarities with the older "The Battle of Otterburn", about the 1388 Battle of Otterburn. Neither set of lyrics is completely historically accurate.[2] Versions of either ballad often contain parallel biographical and historical information; nonetheless, the differences led Child to believe that they did not originally refer to the same occurrence.[3]
Simpson suggests that the music of "Chevy Chase" was identical to the tune of "Flying Flame", in which the former superseded the latter by the beginning of the seventeenth century.[4]
Both ballads were collected in Thomas Percy's Reliques. The first of the ballads is in Francis James Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Different versions were collected in England, Scotland, and the United States.[1]
Versions of "The Ballad of Chevy Chase" exist in several ballad collections, including the Roxburghe Ballads, the Pepys Library, the Huntington Library Miscellaneous, the Glasgow University Library, and the Crawford Collection at the National Library of Scotland. The ballads in these collections were printed with variations between 1623 and 1760.[5] Online facsimiles of the ballad are also available for public consumption at the English Broadside Ballad Archive and other online repositories.
First ballad
The first of the two ballads of Chevy Chase may have been written as early as the 1430s, but the earliest record we have of it is in The Complaynt of Scotland, printed around 1549. One of the first printed books in Middle Scots, the book calls the ballad The Hunting of Cheviot.
The first manuscript version of the ballad was written around 1550 (MS Ashmole 48, Bodleian Library).[6]
In the seventeenth century, the tune was licensed in 1624 and again in 1675.[7]
Second ballad
In 1711, Joseph Addison wrote in The Spectator:
The old song of "Chevy-Chase" is the favourite ballad of the common people of England, and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse of Poetry [The Defence of Poesie], speaks of it in the following words: "I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung by some blind crowder with no rougher voice than rude style, which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" For my own part, I am so professed an admirer of this antiquated song, that I shall give my reader a critique upon it without any further apology for so doing.[8]
Apparently, Addison was unaware that the ballad, which he proceeded to analyze in detail, was not the same work praised by Sidney and Jonson.[8] The second of the ballads appears to have been written in modernized English shortly after Sidney's comments, perhaps around 1620, and to have become the better-known version.
Cultural references
William Hutton, in A Journey from Birmingham to London (1785), mentions "the old song of Chevy Chace" and its tale about "the animosity between England and Scotland".[10]
In Sir Walter Scott's Rob Roy (1817), the main character, Frank, upon seeing the trophies on the walls of Osbaldistone hall, imagines them being from the Chevy Chase.
An early and popular painting of 1825–6 by Edwin Landseer was titled The Hunting of Chevy Chase.
In Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847), Catherine Heathcliff (née Catherine Linton) scorns Hareton Earnshaw's primitive attempts at reading, saying, "I wish you would repeat Chevy Chase as you did yesterday; it was extremely funny!"[11]
In Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1855), on hearing the conversation between Mr. Thornton and her father, Margaret Hale wonders, “How in the world had they got from cog-wheels to Chevy Chace?”[12]
In F. Anstey's Vice Versa (1882), the boys at Dr. Grimstone's boarding school are required to play a game called "chevy" (a version of "prisoners' base" or "darebase"), "so called from the engagement famed in ballad and history".[13]
Legacy
A tract of land in British America was named "Cheivy Chace" by 1725, and was in the 1890s and early 1900s developed into the affluent areas of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C. A golf club in the Maryland Chevy Chase inspired the name of Chevy Chase, Lexington, Kentucky.
A shopping mall in the Eldon Square Shopping Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne is named "Chevy Chase" in allusion to the ballad.[14]
The ballad inspired the childhood nickname and adult stage name of the American comedian and actor Chevy Chase (born Cornelius Crane Chase, 1943).
The ballad has given the English language the verb to chivvy, meaning to pester or encourage someone to perform a task.[15][16]
Further reading
- Chappell, William (1859). Popular Music of the Olden Time. London: Cramer, Beale, & Chappell.
- Quiller-Couch, Arthur (1910). The Oxford Book of Ballads. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Watt, Tessa (1991). Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521382556.
Notes
- ^ a b See here
- ^ Child, Francis James (1962). The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. New York: Cooper Square Publishers. pp. 289–293.
- ^ Child 1962, p. 303–307.
- ^ Simpson, Claude (1966). The British Broadside Ballad and its Music. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. p. 97.
- ^ "English Broadside Ballad Archive". University of California, Santa Barbara. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
- ^ Newton, Diana (2006). North-East England, 1569-1625: Governance, Culture and Identity. Boydell Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-84383-254-6.
- ^ Simpson, Claude (1966). The English Broadside Ballad and its Music. Rutgers University Press. p. 99.
- ^ a b The Works of Joseph Addison: Complete in Three Volumes: Embracing the Whole of the "Spectator," &c, Harper & Brothers, 1837, p.117
- ^ Henderson, Tony (14 September 2015). "Newcastle master carver's work up for auction in rare sale". ChronicleLive. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
- ^ Hutton, William (1785). A Journey from Birmingham to London. Birmingham. pp. 152–53.
- ^ Brontë, Emily: Wuthering Heights, Chapter 31 (Wikisource link)
- ^ "North and South", Chapter 10 (Wikisource link)
- ^ Anstey, F. (1981) [1882]. Vice Versa. Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 83–4, 165.
- ^ "Ballad lyrics and MIDI". Retrieved 8 July 2017.
- ^ "chevy / chivy, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ "chivvy". en.oxforddictionaries.com. Archived from the original on 2 October 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
External links
- Straight Dope Staff Report: Who or what is Chevy Chase?
- Ballad lyrics and MIDI
- Copies of Chevy Chase Ballads at the English Broadside Ballad Archive of the University of California, Santa Barbara
- Simpson, Claude. The British Broadside Ballad and its Music. Rutgers University Press. p. 97.
- v
- t
- e
- Sir Aldingar
- Alison and Willie
- Allison Gross
- Andrew Lammie
- Archie o Cawfield
- Kinmont Willie
- Auld Matrons
- Babylon
- The Baffled Knight
- The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington
- Barbara Allen
- The Battle of Otterburn
- The Beggar-Laddie
- Adam Bell
- The Bent Sae Brown
- Bessy Bell and Mary Gray
- Blancheflour and Jollyflorice
- The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood
- Bonnie Annie
- The Bonnie Earl O' Moray
- Bonnie George Campbell
- Bonny Baby Livingston
- Bonny Bee Hom
- The Bonny Birdy
- The Bonny Hind
- The Bonnie House of Airlie
- The Bonny Lass of Anglesey
- Bonny Lizie Baillie
- The Boy and the Mantle
- Broom of the Cowdenknowes
- The Broomfield Hill
- Broughty Wa's
- Brown Adam
- The Brown Girl
- Brown Robin
- Brown Robyn's Confession
- Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane
- Burd Isabel and Earl Patrick
- Captain Ward and the Rainbow
- Captain Wedderburn's Courtship
- The Carnal and the Crane
- The Cherry-Tree Carol
- The Ballad of Chevy Chase
- Child Maurice
- Child Owlet
- Child Waters
- Christopher White
- Clerk Colvill
- Clerk Saunders
- The Clerk's Twa Sons o Owsenford
- The Crafty Farmer
- Crow and Pie
- The Cruel Brother
- The Cruel Mother
- The Daemon Lover
- The Death of Parcy Reed
- The Death of Queen Jane
- Dick o the Cow
- Dives and Lazarus
- The Dowie Dens o Yarrow
- Dugall Quin
- The Duke of Athole's Nurse
- The Duke of Gordon's Daughter
- Earl Brand
- Earl Crawford
- The Earl of Errol
- The Earl of Mar's Daughter
- Earl Rothes
- Edom o Gordon
- Edward
- The Elfin Knight
- Eppie Morrie
- Erlinton
- Fair Annie
- The Fair Flower of Northumberland
- Fair Janet
- Fair Margaret and Sweet William
- Fair Mary of Wallington
- The False Lover Won Back
- The Famous Flower of Serving-Men
- The Farmer's Curst Wife
- Fause Foodrage
- The Fause Knight Upon the Road
- The Friar in the Well
- The Gardener
- The Gay Goshawk
- Geordie
- The George Aloe and the Sweepstake
- A Gest of Robyn Hode
- Get Up and Bar the Door
- Gil Brenton
- Glasgerion
- Glasgow Peggie
- Glenlogie
- The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry
- The Grey Cock
- Gude Wallace
- The Raggle Taggle Gypsy
- Battle of Harlaw
- The Heir of Linne
- Hind Etin
- Hind Horn
- Hobie Noble
- Hughie Graham
- James Hatley
- Jamie Douglas
- Jellon Grame
- Jock o' the Side
- Jock the Leg and the Merry Merchant
- John Dory
- John of Hazelgreen
- Johnie Cock
- Johnie Scot
- Johnnie Armstrong
- The Jolly Beggar
- The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield
- Judas
- Katharine Jaffray
- The Keach i the Creel
- Kemp Owyne
- Kempy Kay
- King Arthur and King Cornwall
- King Edward the Fourth and a Tanner of Tamworth
- King Estmere
- King Henry
- King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France
- King John and the Bishop
- The King's Disguise, and Friendship with Robin Hood
- The King's Dochter Lady Jean
- Lang Johnny More
- The Kitchie-Boy
- The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter
- The Knight's Ghost
- The Knoxville Girl
- The Lads of Wamphray
- Lady Alice
- Lady Diamond
- Lady Elspat
- Lady Isabel
- Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
- Lady Maisry
- The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea
- The Laird o Drum
- The Laird o Logie
- Lamkin
- The Lass of Roch Royal
- Leesome Brand
- Sir Lionel
- Little John a Begging
- Lizie Lindsay
- Lizie Wan
- The Lochmaben Harper
- Lord Ingram and Chiel Wyet
- Lord Lovel
- Lord Maxwell's Last Goodnight
- The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward
- Lord Randall
- Lord Saltoun and Auchanachie
- Lord Thomas and Fair Annet
- Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret
- Lord Thomas Stuart
- Lord William
- The Maid and the Palmer
- The Maid Freed from the Gallows
- The Marriage of Sir Gawain
- Mary Hamilton
- Matty Groves
- The Mermaid
- The Mother's Malison
- The New-Slain Knight
- The Noble Fisherman
- Northumberland Betrayed By Douglas
- Old Robin of Portingale
- Sir Orfeo
- Prince Heathen
- Prince Robert
- Proud Lady Margaret
- Queen Elanor's Confession
- The Queen of Elfan's Nourice
- The Queen of Scotland
- The Rantin Laddie
- Redesdale and Wise William
- Richie Story
- Riddles Wisely Expounded
- Robin Hood and Allan-a-Dale
- Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
- Robin Hood and Little John
- Robin Hood and Maid Marian
- Robin Hood and Queen Katherine
- Robin Hood and the Beggar
- Robin Hood and the Bishop
- Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford
- Robin Hood and the Butcher
- Robin Hood and the Curtal Friar
- Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow
- Robin Hood and the Monk
- Robin Hood and the Pedlars
- Robin Hood and the Potter
- Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon
- Robin Hood and the Ranger
- Robin Hood and the Scotchman
- Robin Hood and the Shepherd
- Robin Hood and the Tanner
- Robin Hood and the Tinker
- Robin Hood and the Valiant Knight
- Robin Hood Newly Revived
- Robin Hood Rescuing Three Squires
- Robin Hood Rescuing Will Stutly
- Robin Hood's Birth, Breeding, Valor, and Marriage
- Robin Hood's Chase
- Robin Hood's Death
- Robin Hood's Delight
- Robin Hood's Golden Prize
- Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham
- Robyn and Gandeleyn
- The Rose of England
- Rose the Red and White Lily
- Saint Stephen and Herod
- Sheath and Knife
- Sir Cawline
- Sir James the Rose
- Sir Patrick Spens
- The Suffolk Miracle
- The Sweet Trinity
- Sweet William's Ghost
- Tam Lin
- Thomas o Yonderdale
- Thomas the Rhymer
- The Three Ravens
- Tom Potts
- A True Tale of Robin Hood
- The Twa Brothers
- The Twa Magicians
- The Twa Sisters
- The Unquiet Grave
- Walter Lesly
- The Wee Wee Man
- The West Country Damosel's Complaint
- The White Fisher
- The Whummil Bore
- The Wife of Usher's Well
- The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin
- Will Stewart and John
- Willie and Earl Richard's Daughter
- Willie and Lady Maisry
- Willie o Douglas Dale
- Willie o Winsbury
- Willie's Fatal Visit
- Willie's Lady
- Willie's Lyke-Wake
- The Wylie Wife of the Hie Toun Hie
- Young Andrew
- Young Beichan
- Young Benjie
- The Young Earl of Essex's Victory over the Emperor of Germany
- Young Hunting
- Young Johnstone
- Young Peggy
- Young Ronald
- Young Waters