Legends of the Middle Ages. H. A. Guerber

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      PREFACE.

      The object of this work is to familiarize young students with the legends which form the staple of mediaeval literature.

      While they may owe more than is apparent at first sight to the classical writings of the palmy days of Greece and Rome, these legends are very characteristic of the people who told them, and they are the best exponents of the customs, manners, and beliefs of the time to which they belong. They have been repeated in poetry and prose with endless variations, and some of our greatest modern writers have deemed them worthy of a new dress, as is seen in Tennyson's "Idyls of the King," Goethe's "Reineke Fuchs," Tegnér's "Frithiof Saga," Wieland's "Oberon," Morris's "Story of Sigurd," and many shorter works by these and less noted writers.

      These mediaeval legends form a sort of literary quarry, from which, consciously or unconsciously, each writer takes some stones wherewith to build his own edifice. Many allusions in the literature of our own day lose much of their force simply because these legends are not available to the general reader.

      It is the aim of this volume to bring them within reach of all, and to condense them so that they may readily be understood. Of course in so limited a space only an outline of each legend can be given, with a few short quotations from ancient and modern writings to illustrate the style of the poem in which they are embodied, or to lend additional force to some point in the story.

      This book is, therefore, not a manual of mediaeval literature, or a series of critical essays, but rather a synopsis of some of the epics and romances which formed the main part of the culture of those days. Very little prominence has been given to the obscure early versions, all disquisitions have been carefully avoided, and explanations have been given only where they seemed essential.

      The wealth and variety of imagination displayed in these legends will, I hope, prove that the epoch to which they belong has been greatly maligned by the term "dark ages," often applied to it. Such was the favor which the legendary style of composition enjoyed with our ancestors that several of the poems analyzed in this volume were among the first books printed for general circulation in Europe.

      Previous to the invention of printing, however, they were familiar to rich and poor, thanks to the scalds, bards, trouvères, troubadours, minstrels, and minnesingers, who, like the rhapsodists of Greece, spent their lives in wandering from place to place, relating or reciting these tales to all they met in castle, cottage, and inn.

      A chapter on the Romance literature of the period in the different countries of Europe, and a complete index, will, it is hoped, fit this volume for handy reference in schools and libraries, where the author trusts it may soon find its own place and win a warm welcome.

      I. BEOWULF

      II. GUDRUN

      III. REYNARD THE FOX

      IV. THE NIBELUNGENLIED

      V. LANGODARDIAN CYCLE OF MYTHS

      VI. THE AMBLINGS

      VII. DIETRICH VON BERN

      VIII. CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS PALADINS

      IX THE SONS OF AYMON

      X. HUON OF BORDEAUX

      XI. TITUREL AND THE HOLY GRAIL

      XII. MERLIN

      XIII. THE ROUND TABLE

      XIV. TRISTAN AND ISEULT

      XV. THE STORY OF FRITHIOF

      XVI. RAGNAR LODBROK

      XVII. THE CID

      XVIII. GENERAL SURVEY OF ROMANCE LITERATURE

      LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

BEOWULF.

       Table of Contents

      "List! we have learnt a tale of other years,

       Of kings and warrior Danes, a wondrous tale,

       How aethelings bore them in the brunt of war."

       Beowulf (Conybeare's tr.).

      The most ancient relic of literature of the spoken languages of modern Europe is undoubtedly the epic poem "Beowulf," which is supposed to have been composed by the Anglo-Saxons previous to their invasion of England. Although the poem probably belongs to the fifth century, the only existing manuscript is said to date from the ninth or tenth century.

      This curious work, in rude alliterative verse (for rhyme was introduced in England only after the Norman Conquest), is the most valuable old English manuscript in the British Museum. Although much damaged by fire, it has been carefully studied by learned men. They have patiently restored the poem, the story of which is as follows:

      [Sidenote: Origin of the Skioldungs.] Hrothgar (the modern Roger), King of Denmark, was a descendant of Odin, being the third monarch of the celebrated dynasty of the Skioldungs. They proudly traced their ancestry to Skeaf, or Skiold, Odin's son, who mysteriously drifted to their shores. He was then but an infant, and lay in the middle of a boat, on a sheaf of ripe wheat, surrounded by priceless weapons and jewels. As the people were seeking for a ruler, they immediately recognized the hand of Odin in this mysterious advent, proclaimed the child king, and obeyed him loyally as long as he lived. When he felt death draw near, Skeaf, or Skiold, ordered a vessel to be prepared, lay down in the midst on a sheaf of grain or on a funeral pyre, and drifted out into the wide ocean, disappearing as mysteriously as he had come.

      [Sidenote: Construction of Heorot.] Such being his lineage, it is no wonder that Hrothgar became a mighty chief; and as he had amassed much wealth in the course of a long life of warfare, he resolved to devote part of it to the construction of a magnificent hall, called Heorot, where he might feast his retainers and listen to the heroic lays of the scalds during the long winter evenings.

      "A hall of mead, such as for space and state

       The elder time ne'er boasted; there with free

       And princely hand he might dispense to all

       (Save the rude crowd and men of evil minds)

       The good he held from Heaven. That gallant work,

       Full well I wot, through many a land was known

       Of festal halls the brightest and the best."

       Beowulf (Conybeare's tr.). The inauguration of this hall was celebrated by a СКАЧАТЬ