The countess, who, with her damsels,
kept her station on the battlements, and affected to wipe off with her
handkerchief the dust raised by the stones, hurled from the English
machines, awaited the approach of this new engine of assault. "Beware,
Montague," she exclaimed, while the fragment of a rock was discharged
from the wall--"Beware, Montague! for farrow shall thy sow!"[94] Their
cover being dashed to pieces, the assailants, with great loss and
difficulty, scrambled back to their trenches. "By the regard of suche
a ladye," would Froissart have said, "and by her comforting, a man
ought to be worth two men, at need." The sow was called by the French
_Truie_.--See _Hailes' Annals_, Vol. II. p. 89. _Wintown's Cronykil_,
Book VIII. _William of Malmesbury_, Lib. IV.
The memory of the _sow_ is preserved in Scotland by two trifling
circumstances. The name given to an oblong hay-stack, is a _hay-sow_;
and this may give us a good idea of the form of the machine. Children
also play at a game with cherry stones, placing a small heap on the
ground, which they term a _sowie_, endeavouring to hit it, by throwing
single cherry-stones, as the sow was formerly battered from the
walls of the besieged fortress. My companions, at the High School of
Edinburgh, will remember what was meant by _berrying a sowie_.
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