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Title: Sir Pall, Sir Bear, And Sir Liden
Author: George Borrow [
More Titles by Borrow]
Liden he rode to the Ting, and shewed
His bloody gashes there:
“And these were done by no other one
But my dear brother Bear.”
With humble air upstood Sir Bear,
And for leave to speak he cried:
“I’ll give thee gold and silver to hold,
And my good broad lands beside.”
“Keep thou thyself thy silver pelf,
And thy good broad lands for me;
By God I swear this little hand fair
Thy death, brother Bear, shall be.”
Home to their hall ride Bear and Pall.
With unsuspicious mind;
In wrathful mood, with five swains good,
Followed Liden close behind.
Sir Pall, and Sir Bear, and Sir Liden, three were,
And they met the boughs beneath:
’Twas sad to view how quick out-flew
Their faulchions from the sheath.
First Pall he slew his brother true,
Then Bear to death he smote;
I tell to ye for verity
His own death wound he got.
They took up with care Sir Pall and Sir Bear,
To the city them they bore;
Beneath the skies in the greenwood lies
Sir Liden amid his gore.
To the earn and the owl and the beasts that prowl
Sir Liden’s corpse they left;
When that was said to his plighted maid
She died of sense bereft.
Had he paid heed to his mother’s rede,
And himself to the law address’d,
His brothers twain had remained unslain,
And their feud had been laid at rest.
In piteous mode wept Mettelil proud,
The death of her three sons bold:
“Woe’s me,” cried she, “That e’er my eyes
Should this sad hour behold.”
For Pall she wept sore, and still, still more
For Bear the good and brave;
But most of all for Sir Liden’s fall,
For he had no hallowed grave.
[The end]
George Borrow's poem: Sir Pall, Sir Bear, And Sir Liden
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