Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/285

Rh for him the position of a popular hero, and earned him the crown of myth, within little more than half a century of his death. (He died 962, Adémar ends 1028.) Here are Adémar's words:

"William Taillefer, who won this cognomen from the fact that after a certain battle with the Normans in which neither party yielded, on the next day by agreement (or, for the sake of a truce, pacti causa) he engaged in single combat with their king Storim, and with a short sword, named Durissimus, which Walander the smith had forged, he cleft him at one blow right through the breast, breastplate and all."

If Adémar's fearless acceptance of this story awakes the satire of the historian, how much it inspires the gratitude of the folklorist and lover of romance! How delightfully tell-tale is the introduction of Wayland the smith! But for his name we might have passed this little story by, not without suspicion perhaps, but with no certainty that it was not a bit of genuine history; and indeed it may—probably does—contain a nucleus of fact, as hero-tales usually do—some grain of sand which has provoked the growth of the pearl of legend. But plainly Adémar derives it not from history but from legend, and it is not going too far to see here a proof of a considerable popular fame, which following so shortly after the hero's death must clearly mean a considerable actual reputation. And thus the historian's chronicling of a half-fabulous tale does in fact give us a clearer idea of William Taillefer's real personality than his account of facts which have more claim to be historical, such as the restoration of the relics and the grant of lands to the Church. It is interesting to notice the form of the name Wayland. It is not the French form Véland, but the Norse Vœlundr with the vowels slightly modified, Walander. But the French language was formed by this time. It is nearly 200 years later than the Strasburg oaths. And, besides, I believe I am