YEW-TREE. 353 



border frays, none have been better sung than the en- 

 counter of Earls Percy and Douglas. 



With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, 



All chosen men of might, 

 Who knew full well, in time of need, 



To aim their shafts aright. 



c Lo ! yonder doth Earl Douglas come, 



His men in armour bright ; 

 Full twenty hundred Scottish spears, 

 All marching in our sight. 



c Our English archers bent their bows, 

 Their hearts were good and true ; 

 At the first flight of arrows sent, 

 Full three-score Scots they slew." 



Hence, therefore, the planting of our trees for purposes 

 of archery, and their association with places of historic 

 interest. Of these some still remain, beside the ruined 

 homes they once embellished, or on sites where scarcely 

 a stone remains of those stern fortresses that once held 



2 A 



