Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine Part 2

?I see a great light upon the plain, although all around is blackest night.?

He paused; then, at her bidding, proceeded again:

?I see an immense concourse of wild animals?the lion, the tiger, the spotted pard, the elephant, the unicorn?ah! they are coming this way?they will devour us!? and he turned to flee in great terror.

Basina bade him stay in peremptory tones and again to look out over the plain. In a voice of alarm he cried out:

?I see bears and wolves, jackals and hyenas. Heaven help us, the others are all gone!?

Heedless of his terror, the queen bade him look again and, for the last time, tell her what he saw.

?I see now dogs and cats and little creatures of all kinds. But there is one small animal?smaller than a mouse?who commands them all. Ah! he is eating them up?swallowing them all?one after another.?

As he looked the light, the plain, the animals all vanished, and darkness fell. Basina then read to him the meaning of his vision.

?The first vision you saw indicated the character of our immediate successors. They will be as bold as lions, terrible as tigers, strong as elephants, uncommon as unicorns, beautiful as the pard. These are the men of an age; for a century shall they rule over the land.?

At this Childeric was delighted and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a fervent ?Praise be to the G.o.ds!?

?The second,? pursued Basina, ?are the men of the following century?our more remote descendants?rude as the bear, fell as the wolf, fawning as the jackal, cruel as the hyena?the curse of their people and?themselves.

The last one?the following century?they will be weak, timid, irresolute?the prey of every base and low thing, the victims of violence, deceit, and cunning; vanquished and destroyed at last by the smallest of their own subjects.?

Such was Childeric?s vision and his queen?s interpretation.

As she had predicted, the Merovingian dynasty lasted three hundred years, when it was overturned by one Pepin of Heristal, the smallest man of his day?at least, so tradition tells.

At the death of Clovis his sons split up the kingdom, and from that epoch a deadly war was waged between the rival kingdoms of Neustria and Austrasia, the west and the east.

The wars of Neustria and Austrasia (Ost Reich, the Eastern Kingdom, which has, of course, no connexion with the modern Austria) are related by Gregory of Tours in his Ecclesiastical History of the Franks, one of the most brilliant pieces of historical and biographical writing to be discovered among the literature of Europe in the Dark Ages. Metz was the capital of this kingdom-province. Fredegonda, the queen of Chilperic of Neustria, had a deadly blood-feud with her sister-in-law of Austrasia, and in the event put her rival to death by having her torn asunder by wild horses (A.D. 613). Later Austrasia became incorporated with Franconia, which in 843 was included in the kingdom of Louis the German.

The Great Race of Charlemagne

The race of the Carolingians, whose greatest monarch was the famous Charlemagne, or Karl der Grosse, sprang from a family of usurpers known as the ?Mayors of the Palace,? who had s.n.a.t.c.hed the crown from the rois faineants, the last weakly shoots of the mighty line of Merovig. He was the elder son of Pepin the Short, and succeeded, on the death of his father in A.D. 768, to a kingdom which extended from the Low Countries to the borders of Spain. His whole life was one prolonged war undertaken against the forces of paganism, the Moors of Spain who hara.s.sed his borders to the south, and the restless Saxon tribes dwelling between the Rhine, Weser, and Elbe. Innumerable are the legends and romances concerning this great, wise, and politic monarch and statesman, who, surrounding himself with warriors of prowess whom he called his paladins, unquestionably kept the light of Christianity and civilization burning in Western Europe. He was, however, quite as great a legislator as a warrior, and founded schools and hospitals in every part of his kingdom. He died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 814, and was buried there.1

[Note 1: For numerous critical articles upon Charlemagne and the epics or chansons des gestes connected with him see the author?s Dictionary of Medieval Romance.]

The ?Song of the Saxons?

One of the most stirring of the romances which tell of the wars of Charlemagne in the Rhine country is the Song of the Saxons, fifth in number of the Romans des Douze Pairs de France, and composed by Jean Bodel, a poet of Artois, who flourished toward the middle of the thirteenth century. Charles, sitting at table in Laon one Whitsuntide with fourteen kings, receives news of an invasion of the Saxons, who have taken Cologne, killed many Frankish n.o.bles, and laid waste the country. A racy epitome of the events which follow has been given by Ludlow in his Popular Epics of the Middle Ages (1865) as follows: ?Charles invades Saxony, and reaches the banks of ?Rune the Deep,?

beyond which lies Guiteclin?s palace of ?Tremoigne? (supposed to be Dortmund, in Westphalia). The river is too deep to be crossed by the army, although the two young knights, Baldwin and Berard, succeed in doing so in quest of adventure. The Saxons will not attack, trusting that the French will be destroyed by delay and the seasons. And, indeed, after two years and four months, the barons represent to the Emperor the sad plight of the host, and urge him to call upon the men of Herupe (North-west France) for performance of their warlike service. This is done accordingly, and the Herupe barons make all haste to their sovereign?s aid, and come up just after the Saxons have made an unsuccessful attack. They send to ask where they are to lodge their troops. The Emperor points them laughingly to the other side of the Rune, where float the silken banners of the Saxons, but says that any of his men shall give up their camping-place to them. The Herupe men, however, determine to take him at his word and, whilst the Archbishop of Sens blesses the water, boldly fling themselves in and cross it, and end, after a tremendous struggle, in taking up the quarters a.s.signed to them; but when he sees their prowess the Emperor recalls them to his own side of the river.

?A bridge is built, the army pa.s.ses over it, the Saxons are discomfited in a great battle, and Guiteclin is killed in single combat by Charlemagne himself.

?By this time the slender vein of historic truth which runs through the poem may be considered as quite exhausted. Yet the real epic interest of the work centres in its wholly apocryphal conclusion, connected essentially with its purely romantic side.

?Sebile, the wife of Guiteclin, is a peerless beauty, wise withal and courteous; ?hair had she long and fair, more than the shining gold, a brow polished and clear, eyes blue and laughing, a very well-made nose, teeth small and white, a savourous mouth, more crimson than blood; and in body and limbs so winning was she that G.o.d never made the man, howsoever old and tottering, if he durst look at her, but was moved with desire.??

Fair Helissend, the daughter of the murdered Milo of Cologne, is her captive at once and her favourite, and when the French host takes up its position before the Rune, names and points out young Baldwin to her.

With her husband?s sanction, Sebile has her tent pitched on the bank, and establishes herself there with her ladies to act as decoys to the Franks; for ?fair lady?s look makes men undertake folly.? She is taken, however, in her own toils; falls in love with Baldwin one summer?s day on seeing him ride forth with hawk on wrist, and makes Helissend invite him over the river, under a very frank pledge that ?she will be his, for loss or gain.? Their first meeting apparently takes place in the presence of Sebile?s ladies, and so little mystery is attached to their love that, on Baldwin?s return to the Frank host after killing and despoiling of his armour a Saxon chief, he not only tells his adventure publicly to the Emperor, but the latter promises in a twelvemonth to have him crowned king of the country and to give him Sebile for wife, forbidding him, however, to cross the river any more?a command which Baldwin hears without meaning to obey. Nay, when Baldwin has once broken this injunction and escaped with great difficulty from the Saxons, the Emperor imposes on him the brutal penance of entering Sebile?s tent to kiss her in the sight of the Saxons, and bringing back her ring?which Baldwin contrives to fulfil by putting on the armour of a Saxon knight whom he kills. As in The Taking of Orange, it never seems to occur to the poet that there can be any moral wrong in making love to a ?Saracen?s? wife, or in promising her hand in her husband?s lifetime; and, strange to say, so benignant are these much-wronged paynim that Guiteclin is not represented as offering or threatening the slightest ill-treatment to his faithless queen, however wroth he may be against her lover; nor, indeed, as having even the sense to make her pitch her tent further from the bank. The drollest bit of sentimentality occurs, however, after the victory of the Franks and Guiteclin?s death, when Sebile is taken prisoner. After having been bestowed in marriage on Baldwin by the Emperor, she asks one boon of both, which is that Guiteclin?s body be sought for, lest the beasts should eat it?a request the exceeding n.o.bleness of which strikes the Emperor and the Frank knights with astonishment. When the body is found and brought to Sebile, ?the water of her eyes falls down her chin. ?Ha, Guiteclin,? said she, ?so gentle a man were you, liberal and free-spending, and of n.o.ble witness! If in heaven and on earth Mahomet has no power, even to pray Him who made Lazarus, I pray and request Him to have mercy on thee.?? The dead man is then placed in a great marble tomb; Sebile is christened, marries her lover, and is crowned with him as Queen of Saxony, Helissend being in like manner given to Berard.

?It is now that the truly tragical part of the poem commences. Charles and his host depart, the Emperor warning his nephew to be courteous, loyal, and generous, to keep true faith to his wife, yet not to spend too much time in her arms, but to beware of the Saxons. The caution is needed, for already the two sons of Guiteclin, with one hundred thousand Russians and Bulgarians, and the giant Ferabras of Russia, a personage twelve feet high, with light hair plaited together, reddish beard, and flattened face, are within a day and a half?s journey of ?Tremoigne,?

burning to avenge Guiteclin. One Thursday morning their invasion is announced to the young king, who has but fifteen thousand men to oppose to them. Sebile embraces her husband?s knees, and entreats him to send at once for help to his uncle; the barons whom he has called to counsel favour her advice. ?Barons,? said Baldwin, ?I should fear the dishonour of it. It is too soon to seek and pray for succour. We have not yet unhorsed knights, cut arms from bodies, made bowels trail; we are fifteen thousand young men untried, who should buy our praise and our honour, and seize and acquire strange lands, and kill and shame and grieve our enemies, cleave the bright helmets, pierce the shields, break and tear the hauberks of mail, shed blood and make brains to fly. To me a pleasure it seems to put on hauberk, watch long nights, fast long days. Let us go strike upon them without more delay, that we may be able to govern this kingdom.? The barons listen with an ill-will to this speech; Baldwin himself, on viewing the paynim host, is staggered at their numbers, and lets Sebile persuade him to send a messenger to his uncle. However, with five thousand men he makes a vigorous attack on the vanguard of the Saxons, consisting of twenty thousand, and ends by putting them to flight. On the news of this repulse the two sons of Guiteclin come out, apparently with the bulk of the army. The French urge the young king to re-enter the city, but he refuses?Sebile would hold him for a sleepy coward. He kills Ferabras, unhorses one of Guiteclin?s sons. But the disparity of numbers is too great; the French are obliged to retreat, and shut themselves up in the city.

?Meanwhile the messenger had reached Charlemagne at Cologne with the news of the renewal of the war. Whilst all his barons are summoned, the Emperor starts in haste himself for Saxony with ten thousand men.

Baldwin was seated in his tower, looking out upon a league of hostile tents, complaining to Sebile, who ?comforts him as a worthy lady,?

bidding him trust in his uncle?s succour. She is the first to descry the French host and to point it out to her husband. ?Ah, G.o.d!? said Charles?s nephew, ?fair Father Creator, yet will I avenge me of the pagan people.? He goes down from his palace, and cries to his men, ?Arm ye, knights! Charles is returned.?

?The besieged prepare at once for a sally. Sebile places the helmet on her husband?s head and kisses him, never to see him more alive.

The enemy are disarmed; three thousand of them are killed by the time Baldwin cuts his way to his uncle, to whom, as his liege lord, he makes complaint against the Saxons. The Emperor?s answer contains little but philosophic comfort: ?Fair nephew, so goes war; when your day comes, know that you will die; your father died, you will not escape. Yonder are your enemies, of whom you complain; I give you leave, go and strike them.? Uncle and nephew both perform wonders. But Berard is killed by Feramor, one of Guiteclin?s sons, and the standard which he bore disappears under him. Baldwin engages Feramor; each severely wounds the other; the fight is so well contested that Baldwin offers to divide the land with him if he will make peace. The Saxon spurns the offer, and is killed.

?But ?Baldwin is wounded in the breast grievously; from thence to the spur his body is b.l.o.o.d.y.? Saxons, Lusatians, Hungarians perceive that his blows lessen and fall slow. ?Montjoie!? he cries many a time, but the French hear him not. ?When Baldwin sees that he will have no succour, as a boar he defends himself with his sword.... Who should have seen the proud countenance of the king, how he bears and defends himself against the paynim, great pity should surely take his heart.? Struck with fifteen wounds, his horse killed under him, he offers battle on foot. They dare not approach, but they fling their swords at him, and then go and hide beneath a rock. Baldwin, feeling death approaching, ?from the fair eyes of his head begins to weep? for sorrow and rage. He now addresses an elaborate last prayer to G.o.d; but whilst he is on his knees, looking toward the East, a Saxon comes to cut off his head.

Baldwin, furious, seizes his sword, which had fallen from his hand on the green gra.s.s, and with a last blow cleaves the Saxon to the shoulders, then dies.

?The news is carried to the Emperor, who laments his ill fate. Rest he has never had; the paynim folk have killed him the flower of his friends, Roland at Roncevaux and now Baldwin. ?Ha, G.o.d! send me death, without making long delay!? He draws his sword, and is about to kill himself when Naymes of Bavaria restrains him and bids him avenge his nephew?s death. The old man, however, exposes his life with such recklessness, the struggle is so unequal, that Naymes himself has to persuade him to leave the battle and enter the city until the Herupe n.o.bles come to his aid. ?Dead is Count Roland and Count Oliver, and all the twelve peers, who used to help in daunting that pride which makes us bend so; no longer at your right hand is Baldwin the warrior; the paynim have killed him and Berard the light; G.o.d has their souls.... If you are killed ... in your death alone a hundred thousand will die.?

?They lead him away, unwilling, from the field. Baldwin?s corpse is carried by him on his shield. Sebile comes to meet the Emperor and asks of her husband. Charles bids her look at him. She faints to the ground.

There is true pathos (though somewhat wire-drawn) in her lament, when she comes to herself:

??Sir King Baldwin, for G.o.d?s sake, speak! I am your love, mistake me not. If I have offended you in aught, it shall be made amends for wholly to your pleasure; but speak to me. For you was my body baptized and lifted; my heart leans on you, and all my affections, and if you fail me, it will be ill done. Too soon it seems to me, if already you repent.

Baldwin, is it a trick? Are you deceiving me? Speak to me, friend, if you can.... I see your garments dyed and b.l.o.o.d.y, but I do not believe that you are killed; there is no man so bold or so outrageous who ever could kill you; he durst not do so. But I think by such a will you wish to try me, how I should behave if you were departed. Speak to me, for G.o.d?s sake who was born of virgin, and for that lady who kept chast.i.ty, and for the holy cross whereon Jesus suffered! Try me no more, friend, it is enough; I shall die now if you tarry longer,? ?Naymes,? says the king, ?take this lady away; if I see her grief any more, I shall go mad.?

?That night he ate no bread nor drank wine, but had the city watched, and rode the rounds himself, with helmet closed, his great buckler hanging to his neck, his sword in his fist. All the night it rained and blew; the water ran through the joints of his hauberk, and wetted his ermine pelisse beneath. His beard swayed, whiter than flax, his long moustache quivered; until dawn he lamented his nephew, and the twelve peers, and all his next-of-kin who were dead. From the gate at morn a Saxon, King Dyalas, defies the old man, swearing that he will wear his crown in Paris. The Emperor has the gate opened, and sallies forth to meet him. They engage in single combat; the old Emperor kills the Saxon?s horse, disarms him, and only spares his life on condition of his embracing Christianity and yielding himself prisoner.

?The rest of the poem has comparatively little interest. Old Naymes in turn kills his man?a brother of Guiteclin?in single combat, Dyalas, the Emperor?s new va.s.sal, ?armed in French fashion,? performs wonders in honour of his new allegiance. Finally the Herupese come up, and of course overthrow the Saxons. An abbey is founded on the field of battle, which Sebile enters; Dyalas, baptized as ?Guiteclin the convert,?

receives charge of the kingdom, and the Emperor returns, bearing with him the bodies of Baldwin and Berard; after which ?well was France in peace many a year and many a day; the Emperor found not any who should make him wroth.??

Fastrada: a Legend of Aix-la-Chapelle

Fastrada, we are told, was the fourth wife of the Emperor Charlemagne and the best beloved. Historians have judged that the lady was by no means worthy of the extraordinary affection bestowed upon her by her husband, some maintaining that she practised the arts of sorcery, others crediting her with political intrigues, and still others roundly a.s.serting that she was not so virtuous as she should have been.

History failing to account for Charlemagne?s devotion to his fourth wife, the task has devolved upon tradition. Once upon a time (so runs the tale), when Charlemagne dwelt at Zurich, he had a pillar erected before his house, and on the top of the pillar a bell was placed, so that any one desiring justice had but to ring it to be immediately conducted before the Emperor, there to have his case considered.

One day, just as Charlemagne was about to dine, the bell was rung loudly. He at once dispatched his attendants to bring the importunate claimant into his presence. A moment later they re-entered with the a.s.surance that no one waited outside. Even as they spoke the bell rang again, and again the attendants withdrew at the bidding of their royal master. Once more they returned with the information that none was to be seen. When the bell rang for the third time the Emperor himself rose from the table and went outside to satisfy himself as to the ringer?s ident.i.ty. This time the mystery was solved; for twining round the pillar was a great snake, which, before the astonished eyes of the Emperor and his suite, was l.u.s.tily pulling the bell-rope.

?Bring the snake before me,? said Charlemagne. ?Whether to man or beast, I may not refuse justice.?

Accordingly the snake was conducted with much ceremony into the Emperor?s presence, where it was distinctly observed to make a low obeisance. The Kaiser addressed the animal courteously, as though it were a human being, and inquired what it wanted. Whereupon the snake made a sign which the company took to indicate that it desired the Emperor to follow it. Charlemagne did not hesitate, but followed the creature to the sh.o.r.es of the lake, attended by all his courtiers.

Straight to its nest went the snake, and there, among the eggs, was an enormous toad, puffing out its bloated body and staring with gla.s.sy eyes at the company. The reason for the snake?s appeal was at once apparent.

?Take away that toad,? said the Emperor, as gravely as though he were p.r.o.nouncing judgment in an important human case; ?take away that toad and burn it. It has taken unlawful possession of the snake?s nest.?

The court listened to the Emperor?s decree in respectful silence, and immediately carried out the sentence. The company thereupon re-entered the royal abode, and thought no more of the incident.

On the following day, however, at about the same hour, the serpent entered the chamber in which Charlemagne sat, and glided swiftly toward the table. The attendants were somewhat astonished at the unexpected appearance, but the Kaiser motioned to them to stand aside, for he was very curious to see what the reptile would do. Raising itself till its head was on a level with the table, it dropped into his plate a magnificent diamond of the first water, gleaming with the purest light.

This done, the serpent bowed low, as on the previous occasion, and quitted the room as silently as it had entered.

The diamond, set in a gold ring of exquisite workmanship, Charlemagne presented to his wife, the beautiful Fastrada. But besides being a thing of beauty and of great value, the diamond was also a charm, for whoever received it from another received with it a wealth of personal affection. So was it with Charlemagne and Fastrada. On presenting the ring to his wife the Emperor straightway conceived for her a pa.s.sion far more intense than he had hitherto experienced. From that time to the day of her death he was her devoted slave, blind and deaf to all her faults.