Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race
ill: I know by the sound of Roland's horn he has not long to live!
Ride on faster, and let all our trumpets sound, in token of our
approach." Then sixty thousand trumpets sounded, so that mountains
echoed it and valleys replied, and the heathen heard it and trembled.
"It is Charlemagne! Charles is coming!" they cried. "If Roland lives
till he comes the war will begin again, and our bright Spain is
lost." Thereupon four hundred banded together to slay Roland; but he
rushed upon them, mounted on his good steed Veillantif, and the
valiant pagans fled. But while Roland dismounted to tend the dying
archbishop they returned and cast darts from afar, slaying Veillantif,
the faithful war-horse, and piercing the hero's armour. Still nearer
and nearer sounded the clarions of Charlemagne's army in the defiles,
and the Saracen host fled for ever, leaving Roland alone, on foot,
expiring, amid the dying and the dead.
Turpin Blesses the Dead
Roland made his way to Turpin, unlaced his golden helmet, took off his
hauberk, tore his own tunic to bind up his grievous wounds, and then
gently raising the prelate, carried him to the fresh green grass,
where he most tenderly laid him down.
"'Ah, gentle lord,' said Roland, 'give me leave
To carry here our comrades who are dead,
Whom we so dearly loved; they must not lie
Unblest; but I will bring their corpses here
And thou shalt bless them, and me, ere thou die.'
'Go,' said the dying priest, 'but soon return.
Thank God! the victory is yours and mine!'"
With great pain and many delays Roland traversed the field of
slaughter, looking in the faces of the dead, till he had found and
brought to Turpin's feet the bodies of the eleven Peers, last of all
Oliver, his own dear friend and brother, and Turpin blessed and
absolved them all. Now Roland's grief was so deep and his weakness so
great that he swooned where he stood, and the archbishop saw him fall
and heard his cry of pain. Slowly and painfully Turpin struggled to
his feet, and, bending over Roland, took Olifant, the curved ivory
horn; inch by inch the dying archbishop tottered towards a little
mountain stream, that the few drops he could carry might revive
Roland.
He Dies
However, his weakness overcame him before he reached the water, and he
fell forward dying. Feebly he made his confession, painfully he joined
his hands in prayer, and as he prayed his spirit fled. Turpin, the
faithful champion of the Cross, in teaching and in battle, died in the
service of Charlemagne. May God have mercy on his soul!
When Roland awoke from his swoon he looked for Turpin, and found him
dead, and, seeing Olifant, he guessed what the archbishop's aim had
been, and wept for pity. Crossing the fair white hands over Turpin's
breast, he sadly prayed:
"'Alas! brave priest, fair lord of noble birth,
Thy soul I give to the great King of Heaven!
No mightier champion has He in His hosts,
No prophet greater to maintain the Faith,
No teacher mightier to convert mankind
Since Christ's Apostles walked upon the earth!
May thy fair soul escape the pains of Hell
And Paradise receive thee in its bowers!'"
Roland's Last Fight
Now death was very near to Roland, and he felt it coming upon him
while he yet prayed and commended himself to his guardian angel
Gabriel. Taking in one hand Olifant, and in the other his good sword
Durendala, Roland climbed a little hill, one bowshot within the realm
of Spain. There under two pine-trees he found four marble steps, and
as he was about to climb them, fell swooning on the grass very near
his end. A lurking Saracen, who had feigned death, stole from his
covert, and, calling aloud, "Charles's nephew is vanquished! I will
bear his sword back to Arabia," seized Durendala as it lay in Roland's
dying clasp. The attempt roused Roland, and he opened his eyes,
saying, "Thou art not of us," then struck such a blow with Olifant on
the helm of the heathen thief that he fell dead before his intended
victim.
He Tries to Break his Sword
Pale, bleeding, dying, Roland struggled to his feet, bent on saving
his good blade from the defilement of heathen hands. He grasped
Durendala, and the brown marble before him split beneath his mighty
blows; but the good sword stood firm, the steel grated but did not
break, and Roland lamented aloud that his famous sword must now become
the weapon of a lesser man. Again Roland smote with Durendala, and
clove the block of sardonyx, but the good steel only grated and did
not break, and the hero bewailed himself aloud, saying, "Alas! my good
Durendala, how bright and pure thou art! How thou flamest in the
sunbeams, as when the angel brought thee! How many lands hast thou
conquered for Charles my King, how many champions slain, how many
heathen converted! Must I now leave thee to the pagans? May God spare
fair France this shame!" A third time Roland raised the sword and
struck a rock of blue marble, which split asunder, but the steel only
grated--it would not break; and the hero knew that he could do no
more.
His Last Prayer
Then he flung himself on the ground under a pine-tree with his face to
the earth, his sword and Olifant beneath him, his face to the foe,
that Charlemagne and the Franks might see when they came that he died
victorious. He made his confession, prayed for mercy, and offered to
Heaven his glove, in token of submission for all his sins. "_Mea
culpa!_ O God! I pray for pardon for all my sins, both great and
small, that I have sinned from my birth until this day." So he held up
towards Heaven his right-hand glove, and the angels of God descended
around him. Again Roland prayed:
"'O very Father, who didst never lie,
Didst bring St. Lazarus from the dead again,
Didst save St. Daniel from the lion's mouth,
Save Thou my soul and keep it from all ills
That I have merited by all my sins!'"
He Dies
Again he held up to Heaven his glove, and St. Gabriel received it;
then, with head bowed and hands clasped, the hero died, and the
waiting cherubim, St. Raphael, St. Michael, and St. Gabriel, bore his
soul to Paradise.
So died Roland and the Peers of France.
Charles Arrives
Soon after Roland's heroic spirit had passed away the emperor came
galloping out of the mountains into the valley of Roncesvalles, where
not a foot of ground was without its burden of death.
Loudly he called: "Fair nephew, where art thou? Where is the
archbishop? And Count Oliver? Where are the Peers?"
Alas! of what avail was it to call? No man replied, for all were dead;
and Charlemagne wrung his hands, and tore his beard and wept, and his
army bewailed their slain comrades, and all men thought of vengeance.
Truly a fearful vengeance did Charles take, in that terrible battle
which he fought the next day against the Emir of Babylon, come from
oversea to help his vassal Marsile, when the sun stood still in heaven
that the Christians might be avenged on their enemies; in the capture
of Saragossa and the death of Marsile, who, already mortally wounded,
turned his face to the wall and died when he heard of the defeat of
the emir; but when vengeance was taken on the open enemy Charlemagne
thought of mourning, and returned to Roncesvalles to seek the body of
his beloved nephew.
The emperor knew well that Roland would be found before his men, with
his face to the foe. Thus he advanced a bowshot from his companions
and climbed a little hill, there found the little flowery meadow
stained red with the blood of his barons, and there at the summit,
under the trees, lay the body of Roland on the green grass. The broken
blocks of marble bore traces of the hero's dying efforts, and
Charlemagne raised Roland, and, clasping the hero in his arms,
lamented over him.
His Lament
"'The Lord have mercy, Roland, on thy soul!
Never again shall our fair France behold
A knight so worthy, till France be no more!
"'The Lord have mercy, Roland, on thy soul!
That thou mayest rest in flowers of Paradise
With all His glorious Saints for evermore!
My honour now will lessen and decay,
My days be spent in grief for lack of thee,
My joy and power will vanish. There is none,
Comrade or kinsman, to maintain my cause.
"'The Lord have mercy, Roland, on thy soul!
And grant thee place in Paradise the blest,
Thou valiant youth, thou mighty conqueror!
How widowed lies our fair France and how lone
How will the realms that I have swayed rebel
Now thou art taken from my weary age!
So deep my woe that fain would I die too
And join my valiant Peers in Paradise
While men inter my weary limbs with thine!'"[14]
The Dead Buried
The French army buried the dead with all honour, where they had
fallen, except the bodies of Roland, Oliver, and Turpin, which were
carried to Blaye, and interred in the great cathedral there; and then
Charlemagne returned to Aix.
Aude the Fair
As Charles the Great entered his palace a beauteous maiden met him,
Aude the Fair, the sister of Oliver and betrothed bride of Roland. She
asked eagerly:
"Where is Roland the mighty captain, who swore to take me for his
bride?"
"Alas! dear sister and friend," said Charlemagne, weeping and tearing
his long white beard, "thou askest tidings of the dead. But I will
replace him: thou shalt have Louis, my son, Count of the Marches."
"These words are strange," exclaimed Aude the Fair. "God and all His
saints and angels forbid that I should live when Roland my love is
dead." Thereupon she lost her colour and fell at the emperor's feet;
he thought her fainting, but she was dead. God have mercy on her soul!
The Traitor Put to Death
Too long it would be to tell of the trial of Ganelon the traitor.
Suffice it that he was torn asunder by wild horses, and his name
remains in France a byword for all disloyalty and treachery.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] _See_ "Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages," by H. Guerber.
[13] Marked out for death.
[14] The poetical quotations are from the "Chanson de Roland."
CHAPTER VIII: THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
Celtic Mysticism
In all Celtic literature there is recognisable a certain spirit which
seems to be innate in the very character of the people, a spirit of
mysticism and acknowledgment of the supernatural. It carries with it a
love of Nature, a delight in beauty, colour and harmony, which is
common to all the Celtic races. But with these characteristics we find
in Ireland a spiritual beauty, a passion of self-sacrifice, unknown in
Wales or Brittany. Hence the early Irish heroes are frequently found
renouncing advantages, worldly honour, and life itself, at the bidding
of some imperative moral impulse. They are the knights-errant of early
European chivalry which was a much deeper and more real inspiration
than the carefully cultivated artificial chivalry of centuries later.
Cuchulain, Diarmuit, Naesi all pay with their lives for their
obedience to the dictates of honour and conscience. And in women, for
whom in those early days sacrifice of self was the only way of
heroism, the surrender even of eternal bliss was only the sublimation
of honour and chivalry; and this was the heroism of the Countess
Cathleen.
The Cathleen Legend
The legend is old, so old that its root has been lost and we know not
who first imagined it; but the idea, the central incident, doubtless
goes back to Druid times, when a woman might well have offered herself
up to the cruel gods to avert their wrath and stay the plagues which
fell upon her people. Under a like impulse Curtius sprang into the
gulf in the Forum, and Decius devoted himself to death to win the