Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/164

132 BOOK I. The ro- mance of Roland.

the poet, and his seat under the hnden tree is covered with furs and samite, while the wind which whispers through the branches comes from bellows black as a coal. In this garden is waged the same furious fight which fills Etzel's slaughter hall with blood in the Nibe- lung Lay; but the battle assumes here a form so horrible and so wantonly disgusting that we need only mark the more modern vein of satire which has used the myth for the purpose of pointing a jest against the monastic orders. The monk Ilsan, who, putting aside his friar's cloak, stands forth clad in impenetrable armour and wield- ing an unerring sword, is Odysseus standing in beggar's garb among the suitors ; but the spirit of the ancient legend is gone, and Ilsan appears on the whole in a character not much more dignified than that of Friar Tuck in Ivanhoe.

The same wonderful armour is seen again in the beautiful romance of Roland. How thoroughly devoid this romance is of any materials of which the historian may make use, it is scarcely necessary to say ; that many incidents in the legend may have been suggested by actual facts in the lifetime of Charles the Great, is an admission which may be readily made. When Charles the Great is made to complain on the death of Roland that now the Saxons, Bulgarians, and many other nations, as those of Palermo and Africa, will rebel against him, it is possible that the story may point to some redoubtable leader whose loss left the empire vulnerable in many quarters :' but we do not learn this fact, if it be a fact, from the romance, and the impenetrable disguise which popular fancy has thrown over every incident makes the idea of verifying any of them an absurdity. Whatever may have been the cause of the war, Roland plays in it the part of Achilleus. The quarrel was none of his making, but he is ready to fight in his sovereign's cause ; and the sword Durandal which he wields is manifestly the sword of Chrysaor. When his strength is failing, a Saracen tries to Test the blade from his hand, but with his ivory horn Roland strikes the infidel dead. The horn is split with the stroke, and all the crystal and gold fall from it. The night is at hand, but Roland raises himself on his feet, and strikes the recovered sword against a rock. " Ha ! Durandal," he cries, " how bright thou art and white ! how thou shinest and flamest against the sun ! Charles was in the vale of Mauricane when God from heaven commanded him by his angel that he should give thee to a captain ; wherefore the gentle king, the great, did gird thee on me." ^ This is the pedigree of no earthly weapon, and to the list

' The address of Roland to his sword "Chronicle of Turpin," Ludlow, Ibid. is more magniloquently given in the i. 425.