Like to the prikke of a N’unicorn.
And men have doubelettez full schert,
Bare legget and light to stert.—P. 1231.
Purchas supposes this very curious poem to have been written about 200 years before he published it, i. e. about 1425. It is probably much older. In entering Castille from Elvas, the author says,
Now into Castell schall we fare
Over the river, the land is bare.
Full of heath and hunger also,
And Sarasynez Governouriz thereto.
Now Badajoz and that part of the country was finally recovered from the Moors in the early part of the thirteenth century. Purchas perhaps judged from the age of the manuscript, which may have been written about the time on which he fixes, and the language modernised by the transcriber.