Page:Aucassin and Nicolette (Bourdillon).pdf/14

10 into French and we have Aucassin. And to reverse the rôles of Christian and heathen is a very usual device for a story-teller transplanting a story from another country to his own.

Though the scene is nominally laid in Provence there are a good many signs of a Spanish origin in the places mentioned. By Carthage is meant, not the city of Dido, but Carthagena; and thus the husband devised for Nicolette is "one of the greatest kings in all Spain." Valence again might originally have been not the Valence on the Rhone, but Valence le grand, or Valentia. And it is curious to observe that Beaucaire is closely connected with Tarascon&mdash;a bridge across the Rhone unites them&mdash;and that this latter name nearly resembles Tarragona, a place which in other French romances is actually called Terrascoigne. The shipwreck which in the story takes place, impossibly, at Beaucaire, may have originally happened, quite naturally at Tarragona. Even the nonsense-name, Torelore, might easily have had its rise in Torello. Again, though it has been shown that all modern