Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/146

128 by the courtier. The king thereupon repudiates his queen, but the latter is rescued by a strange knight — a plot often used in both rhymed and unrhymed songs and romances. The only prose story of any magnitude in the Danish language from this time is the history of Charlemagne. The manuscript written in 1480 is probably a retelling from memory (and in a very much abridged form) of the Norwegian "Karlamagnussaga," while the latter is itself an adaptation of the numerous poems belonging to the Charlemagne circle of legends as they were developed in the course of the middle age, continually getting further and further away from the historical background. The history of Charlemagne was printed in 1501 by Gotfred von Ghemen, and together with Flores and Blanseflor was one of the first books printed in Denmark. For a long time the book was a favorite with readers, to which fact the circumstance doubtless contributed that the work, despite its fabulous contents, was regarded as authentic history.

Among the rhymed poems of purely Danish origin from the close of the middle age the most important is the, which describes the career of the Danish kings from Humble to Christian I. Each king is introduced to relate his own story, and tells not only of his life but also of his death and burial. It has no historical value. It follows Saxo's chronicle as far as that goes, and after that depends wholly on dry conventual annals. Its contents are correspondingly meagre, and yet the work is in some passages marked by a peculiar and rather attractive directness and originality. In regard to the origin of the Rhyme Chronicle opinions are greatly divided. Molbech, the first editor of the work in modern times, relying on a remark in a Low-German manuscript translation of the Rhyme Chronicle attributes the compilation of the work to the monk of Sorö, Neils (died 1481). On the other hand, the celebrated