Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/287

Rh popular tales; while the loss of the tithes to the churches in Oléron and the restoration of the Abbey of St. Jean d'Angély would be the church traditions. The explanation of the name Taillefer, and the sword forged by Walander, have here disappeared. Possibly this is because of the very evident desire of the writer to treat Taillefer de Léon as not merely a hero of romance, but a real man, a successful soldier, and a powerful noble. Probably, too, the feat and the sword were alike attributed to the earlier Taillefer, who by this time had been projected into the twilight of the Charlemagne cycle. For one of the curious features of the romance and legend hero is that his ancestors are often his own offspring.

We have in this little understudy a typical example of the growth of a romance hero, and the way in which hero traditions grew up. Any hero whose name became at all celebrated was certain in time to be confused with others of the same name both before him and after him. Thus we find Charlemagne credited with stories told of his grandfather, Charles Martel, and with the doings of his grandson, Charles the Bald. I mentioned before that there were altogether four Counts of Angoulême called William Taillefer; and it is quite certain that in popular tradition a great confusion would arise, and that to the popular mind the Taillefer most recent or even actually living would be supposed to be the one celebrated in popular song. Just as in Tom Brown's School Days, the younger boys thought it was the captain of their school who was the Broke who

in the ballad of "The Chesapeake and Shannon;" while even the older boys thought it was an uncle of his. Now William Taillefer the Third seems to have himself been a man of some note. His exact date is not known, but he