“A ballad, a ballad,” said the hermit, “against all the ocs and ouis of France . Downright English am I, Sir Knight, and downright English was my patron St. Dunstan, and scorned oc and oui , as he would have scorned the parings of the devil’s hoof⁠—downright English alone shall be sung in this cell.”

“I will assay, then,” said the knight, “a ballad composed by a Saxon glee-man, whom I knew in Holy Land.”