The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

I would ride my horse an hundred miles
To finde one could match with thee.

This brought a laugh from Will Scarlet, who declared:—

There lives a curtal frier in Fountains Abby
Will beat both him and thee.

Robin Hood could not rest until he found the friar, walking by the waterside near the abbey. A conflict followed in which the friar threw Robin into the stream. After Robin had shot all his arrows at the friar without effect,—

They took their swords and steel bucklers
And fought with might and maine;

From ten oth' clock that day,
Till four ith' afternoon.

Then Robin blew three blasts of his horn and called half a hundred yeomen. The friar whistled with fist in his mouth and half a hundred ban-dogs answered. The end of the battle proved the stout friar well qualified to join the band of merry men.

This curtal frier had kept Fountains Dale
Seven long years or more;
There was neither knight, lord, nor earl
Could make him yield before.

An arched recess, of stone, well covered with foliage, by the side of the path along the river, marks the traditional site of this famous combat, and is known as 'Robin Hood's Well.' The following lines were written by Sir Walter while a guest at Studley Royal, and the manuscript is now in the possession of the Marquess of Ripon:—

Beside this crystal font of old,
Cooled his flushed brow an outlaw bold,
His bow was slackened while he drank,
His quiver rested on the bank,
Giving brief pause of doubt and fear
To feudal lords and forest deer.