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The youth in glittering squadrons start;
Sudden the flying jennet wheel,
And hurl the unexpected dart.—St. VIII. p. 40.
"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." Froyssart, 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
