EVEN-TOED UNGULATES (aRTIODACTYLA) 219 



ride, bat such hunting would never have inspired 

 the songs and ballads of the chase with which our 

 literature is so rich. The famous ballad of ^' Chevy 

 Chase ^^ tells of the feud between Earl Percy of 

 Northumberland and Earl Douglas, which arose 

 because — 



" The Perse owt of Northombarlande* 

 And avowe to Gode mayd he. 

 That he wokl hiinte in the mountayns 

 Off Chyviat within dayes thre. 

 In the niaggerf of donghte Dogles, 

 And all that ever with him be. 

 The fattiste hartes in all Clieviat 

 He sayd he wold kyll, and cary them away : 

 ' Be my feth/' sayd the dongheti Doglas agayn, 

 ' I wyll \iitX that hontyng yf that I may/ " 



As the Percy family are said to have owned 

 twenty-one parks and 5500 head of deer, it seems 

 unnecessary to have gone over the Border to take 

 the Douglas^ deer and to have killed the Douglas 

 into the bargain. 



Ossian, the mythical poet of the Highlands, whose 

 poems James Macpherson claimed to have collected 

 and translated, makes his son Oscar say — § 



" King of Inis-thona," said Oscar, ^' How fell the 

 children of youth ? The wild boar rushes over their 

 tombs, but he does not disturb their repose. They 



* " The Hunting of the Cheviot," English and Scotch popular 

 Ballads/ E. 1. Child, vol. iii, p. 307, 1888. 



t In sjjite. X Prevent. 



§ Linder, ' Poems of Ossian,' translated by James Macpherson 

 (London, 1806), vol. i, p. 130. 



