ABSTRACT
The ballad of "Chevy Chase" is a very old ballad, probably dating back to the fifteenth century and referring to events that transpired in the middle of that century or even back to the fourteenth century. The border ballads, of which "Chevy Chase" is such a venerable example, are thus an expression of life on a frontier not only in medieval times but also in feudal-Renaissance times. The ballad of "Chevy Chase" is about a battle fought in the borderlands between the forces of Northumberland's Earl Percy and Scotland's Earl Douglas. Sir Walter Scott includes a ballad called "The Battle of Otterbourne" in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in which the brave Scots rout the English. If the ballad of "Otterburn" was constructed and sung from the Scots point of view, so the Anglophilia of the ballad of "Chevy Chase" is evident in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. "Chevy Chase" is also about the tragic absurdity of war.
