Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/291

Rh Again, when Taillefer de Léon is said to have built Mauléons, there is perhaps a confusion with William Taillefer, son of Trullus, Viscount of Thouars and Poitou, who was called de Podio Fagi, and is said to have had land in confinio terræ de Malo-Leone.

As to the absurd relationships by which Otto the Great is made son of Taillefer de Léon, and grandfather of Geoffrey Martel, founder of Vendôme, it is enough to note that the name Otho, or Otto, or Odo, occurs abundantly in the tenth and eleventh centuries; that William Taillefer, son of Trullus, was a cousin (or brother) to Otho, Viscount of Thouars and Poitou, mentioned above; and that Agnes, wife of Geoffrey Martel, was daughter of Otho cognomento Willelmus, successor et heres Henrici, ducis Burgundiæ. Such indications were ample for our historian.

Dry and barren as these small facts are, they are yet interesting to the student of romance as showing how a legend-hero gets built up, how composite is often his personality, and how perpetually that elusive "other man of the same name" comes across us when we try to trace legend into history. The times with which we have been dealing are very dull and difficult history, and I should be quite unequal to the task of investigating them. All I have tried to do is to point out the few possible historical facts and persons which seem to have given birth to this legend-hero Taillefer de Léon, and to show that there are enough grounds for thinking that he had a real original or prototype. Whether there are enough grounds for picturing any popular hero-songs in his honour, any embryo of a chanson de geste which never found its earthly close, and which was known to the compiler of the Chronique Saintongeaise, it is difficult to say. Certainly the little account of his feats with the sword made by Walander has all the air of being taken from a hero-lay, and would