Murie sing cuccu.

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu cuccu,
Ne swike thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!"*

*Ritson's Ancient Songs.

BOOKS TO READ

Stories of Robin Hood, by H. E. Marshall. Stories of the
Ballads, by Mary Macgregor. A Book of Ballads, by C. L. Thomson.
Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (Everyman's Library).







Chapter XIX "PIERS THE PLOUGHMAN"

DURING the long years after the Norman Conquest when English was
a despised language, it became broken up into many dialects. But
as time went on and English became once more the language of the
educated as well as of the uneducated, there arose a cultured
English, which became the language which we speak to-day.

In the time of Edward III England was England again, and the