Page:The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Scott (1805).djvu/238



"By my fayth," sayd the Duke of Lancaster (to a Portuguese squire), "of all the feates of armes that the Castellyans and they of your countrey doth use, the castynge of their dartes best pleaseth me, and gladly I wolde se it; for as I here say, if they strike one aryght, without he be wel armed, the dart will perce him thrughe." "By my fayth, Sir," sayd the squyer, "ye say trouth; for I have seen many a grete stroke given with them, which at one tyme cost us derely, and was to us great displeasure; for at the said skyrmishe, Sir John Laurence of Coygne was striken with a dart in such wise, that the head perced all the plates of his cote of mayle, and a sacke stopped with sylke, and passed thrughe his body, so that he fell down dead." , vol. ii. ch. 44.—This mode of fighting with darts was imitated in the military game called Juego de las canas, which the Spaniards borrowed from their Moorish invaders. A Saracen champion is thus described by Froissart: "Among the Sarazyns, there was a yonge knight calld Agadinger Dolyferne; he was always wel mounted on a redy and a lyght horse; it seemed, whan the horse ranne, that he did flye in the ayre. The knighte semed to be a good man of armes by his dedes, he bare always of usage three fethered dartes, and rychte well he coulde handle them; and according to their custome, he was clene armed with a long white towell aboute his heed. His apparell was blacke, and his own colour