This ballad is found in The Melancholie Knight, by Samuel Rowlands, 1615; in the Antidote to Melancholy, 1661; in Merry Drollery Complete, 1661; in Dryden's Miscellany Poems, iv. 104; in the "Bagford and Roxburghe collections of Ballads," &c. (Chappell.) The various editions differ considerably. The following is from Ritson's Ancient Songs, (ed. 1790,) p. 211, where it was reprinted from a black-letter copy dated 1672.
Sir Eglamore, that valiant knight,
With his fa, la, lanctre down dilie,
He fetcht his sword and he went to fight,
With his fa, la, lanctre, &c.
As he went over hill and dale,
All cloathed in his coat of male,
With his fa, la, lanctre, &c.
A huge great dragon leapt out of his den, 5
Which had killed the Lord knows how many men;
But when he saw Sir Eglamore,
Good lack had ye seen how this dragon did roare!
This dragon he had a plaguy hide,
Which could both sword and spear abide; 10
He could not enter with hacks and cuts,
Which vext the knight to the very hearts blood and guts.
All the trees in the wood did shake,
Stars did tremble, and men did quake;
But had ye seen how the birds lay peeping, 15
'Twould have made a mans heart to fall a-weeping.
But it was too late to fear,
For now it was come to fight dog, fight bear;
And as a yawning he did fall,
He thrust his sword in, hilt and all. 20
But now as the knight in choler did burn,
He owed the dragon a shrewd good turn:
In at his mouth his sword he bent,
The hilt appeared at his fundament.
Then the dragon, like a coward, began to fly 25
Unto his den, that was hard by;
And there he laid him down and roar'd;
The knight was vexed for his sword.
"The sword, that was a right good blade,
As ever Turk or Spaniard made, 30
I for my part do forsake it,
And he that will fetch it, let him take it."
When all this was done, to the ale-house he went,
And by and by his two pence he spent;
For he was so hot with tugging with the dragon, 35
That nothing would quench him but a whole flaggon.