Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/34

viii Nature brightens the fancy equally with the flowers—borrowed it from the colder conceptions of the Northern bards. Many parts of the Old Testament, demonstrate familiarity with spells; and Solomon (which proves a traditional intercourse, at least between the Jews and other people of the East) by universal consent, has been enthroned sovereign of the Genii, and lord of the powerful Talisman. In David and Goliah, we trace the contests of knights with giants: in the adventures of Sampson, perhaps, the miraculous feats attributed to the heroes of chivalry. In the apocryphal book of Tobit, we have an angel in the room of a, enchantments, antidotes, distressed damsels, demons, and most of the other machinery of the occidental romance. Parts of the Pentateuch; of Kings,