Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/378

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL MAY 11, 1901.

But am I going to blame the transcriber for his slip? Mr) yevotTo ! absit! absit! As in olden days the vestal virgins nourished the fire which they fondly deemed to be eternal, so did the cowled brethren keep the sacred lamp of knowledge burning through the ages when barbarian hordes invaded and ravaged the lands, and hand it on to us un- quenched. If we assume that they produced little or nothing original in literature, they were most certainly the faithful custodians of all that had hitherto been given to the world, and to them we owe a debt of such infinite value that it can never be repaid.

Returning to the first part of the query, I may say that I thought the story had refer- ence to St. Bernard of Clairvaux. If Thomas Nash had not omitted the word "monachus," and if the Globe edition of Chaucer had been furnished with an index of proper names, which its editors might have borrowed from PROF. SKEAT, to whose learned labours they are so much indebted, I should have had no doubt as to the identity of the Bernard mentioned by the mercurial writer whom I quoted ; but it is of another that I am in search. In that ancient and curious poem entitled 'The Turnament of Tottenham,' printed in Bishop Percy's ' Reliques,' I find the following line :

May I mete wyth Bernard on Bayard the blynde. I am quite aware that this poem is considered to be "a humorous burlesque" of chivalry, just as Chaucer's ' Tale of Sir Thopas ' was written in ridicule of romance, yet I take it that the line refers to some old story, and therefore ask, Who was this famous warrior, and when and where did he bestride the peerless battle - horse 1 I have somewhere read of a " Duke Bernard " who crossed the Alps where the hospice now stands ; but 1 have been unable to find that there was any one of the name among the paladins and peers who flocked to the Court of Charle- magne to learn warfare under the most renowned leader of the age. In his ' Spanish Ballads ' Lockhart says : " Of Bernardo del Carpio we find little or nothing in the French romances of Charlemagne." Nevertheless, one is tempted to believe that the future cham- pion of his country may have served in his early youth under the banner of the great emperor, and learnt those lessons of war which he afterwards turned with such terrible effect against the Frankish army on the day

When Rowland brave and Olivier,

And every Paladin and Peer

On Roncesvalles died.*

sion differs from that given in Dr. Sheppard's ' The
 * I quote the lines from Lockhart, but his ver-

If he were the Bernard (and I can think of no other), when did he ride the steed whose history is one of the wonders of romance ? As there were heroes before Agamemnon, so no doubt there were famous battle-horses before

Baiardo, quel destrier che non ha pare,

as Ariosto sings (' Orlando Furioso,' xxxi. 90). For example, have we not read in the * Iliad ' (xix. 400-18) of the immortal horses Balios and Xanthos (Dapple and Chestnut), which bore their master's chariot into the thickest of the fight 1 Xanthos is the ancient Bayard, as the word may very well be rendered, and was more famous than his yokefellow ; for to him alone was given the power of speech, so that he might warn Achilles of his overshadowing doom. But, as we know, the impetuous warrior, caring nothing for "portents and prodigies," rushed wildly, blindly to his fate. Though little acquainted with hippology, I understand that animals of a bay colour have always been held in great esteem for war, because they are strong, hardy, and spirited. This preference seems to be justified by the fact that

" the parent-stock from which all the varieties are supposed to be derived is represented by the Equus caoallus, whose original habitat appears to have been in Central Asia, where herds of wild horses are still to be found, most 'of them of a reddish- brown hue."*

However that may be, I prefer to think, in the spirit of romance, that it was from Xanthos, the offspring of Podarge and Zephyros, that Bayard, Baiardo, "Bayarte, que fue el (caballo) de Reinaldos de Mont- alban " (' Don Quijote,' p. ii. c. xl.), drew his descent. He was the most wonderful of horses, without an equal in strength and speed. He could bear not only one, but the four sons of Aymon, in which latter case he elongated his bod}^ so that he might carry the quadruple burden. Of one of these journeys Skelton speaks in the following lines :

Of quarter fylz Amunde

And how they were sommond

To Rome to Charlemayne

Upon a great payne

Fall of Rome and the Rise of the New Nation- alities ' (London, 1861), which (p. 509) runs as follows :

Roland the brave, and Olivier,

And many a paladin and peer,

At Roncesvalles died.

Which is correct, and from what poem is it taken ? The war-horse in' the Apocalypse, vi. 4, is of a " red" colour.
 * My authority is the ' Oracle Encyclopsedia.'