page_title: The Ballad of Chevy Chase
section_title: Synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: The Ballad of Chevy Chase / Synopsis
caption_attribution_description: English: Earl Douglas Advancing with His Men. Illustration to the Ballad of Chevy Chase by F. Tayler.
context_page_description: "The Ballad of Chevy Chase" is an English ballad, catalogued as Child Ballad 162. There are two extant ballads under this title, both of which narrate the same story. As ballads existed within oral tradition before being written down, other versions of this once popular song also may have existed. Moreover, other ballads used its tune without necessarily having any connection to "The Ballad of Chevy Chase".
context_section_description: The ballads tell the story of a large hunting party upon a parcel of hunting land (or chase) in the Cheviot Hills (a range of rolling hills straddling the Anglo-Scottish border between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders), hence the term, Chevy Chase. The hunt is led by Percy, the English Earl of Northumberland. The Scottish Earl Douglas had forbidden this hunt and interpreted it as an invasion of Scotland. In response he attacked, causing a bloody battle after which only 110 people survived. Both ballads were collected in Thomas Percy's Reliques and the first of the ballads in Francis James Child's Child Ballads. Different versions were collected in England, Scotland, and the US.
caption: Earl Douglas advancing with his men. Illustration by F. Tayler.
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