Richmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in
'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way
of getting rid of such a terrible beast, that

'Ralph of Rokeby, with goodwill,
The fryers of Richmond gave her till.'

Friar Middleton, who with two lusty men was sent to fetch the sow from
Rokeby, could scarcely have known that she was

'The grisliest beast that ere might be,
Her head was great and gray:
She was bred in Rokeby Wood;
There were few that thither goed,
That came on live [= alive] away.

'She was so grisley for to meete,
She rave the earth up with her feete,
And bark came fro the tree;
When fryer Middleton her saugh,
Weet ye well he might not laugh,
Full earnestly look'd hee.'

To calm the terrible beast when they found it almost impossible to hold
her, the friar began to read 'in St. John his Gospell,' but

'The sow she would not Latin heare,
But rudely rushed at the frear,'

who, turning very white, dodged to the shelter of a tree, whence he saw