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[Illustration: CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE.—Levy.]
"Saddle the Hippogriffs, ye Muses nine,
And straight we'll ride to the land of old Romance"
WIELAND
1896
"Men lykyn jestis for to here,
And romans rede in diuers manere
"Of Brute that baron bold of hond,
The first conqueroure of Englond;
Of kyng Artour that was so riche,
Was non in his tyme him liche.
"How kyng Charlis and Rowlond fawght
With sarzyns nold they be cawght;
Of Tristrem and of Ysoude the swete,
How they with love first gan mete;
"Stories of diuerce thynggis,
Of pryncis, prelatis, and of kynggis;
Many songgis of diuers ryme,
As english, frensh, and latyne."
Curser Mundi.
The object of this work is to familiarize young students with the legendswhich form the staple of mediaeval literature.
While they may owe more than is apparent at first sight to the classicalwritings of the palmy days of Greece and Rome, these legends are verycharacteristic of the people who told them, and they are the best exponentsof the customs, manners, and beliefs of the time to which they belong. Theyhave been repeated in poetry and prose with endless variations, and some ofour greatest modern writers have deemed them worthy of a new dress, as isseen in Tennyson's "Idyls of the King," Goethe's "Reineke Fuchs," Tegnér's"Frithiof Saga," Wieland's "Oberon," Morris's "Story of Sigurd," and manyshorter 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 tobuild his own edifice. Many allusions in the literature of our own day losemuch of their force simply because these legends are not available to thegeneral reader.
It is the aim of this volume to bring them within reach of all, and tocondense them so that they may readily be understood. Of course in solimited a space only an outline of each legend can be given, with a fewshort quotations from ancient and modern writings to illustrate the styleof the poem in which they are embodied, or to lend additional force to somepoint in the story.
This book is, therefore, not a manual of mediaeval literature, or a seriesof critical essays, but rather a synopsis of some of the epics and romanceswhich formed the main part of the culture of those days. Very littleprominence has been given to the obscure early versions, all disquisitionshave been carefully avoided, and explanations have been given only wherethey seemed essential.
The wealth and variety of imagination displayed in these legends will, Ihope, prove that the epoch to which they belong has been greatly malignedby the term "dark ages," often applied to it. Such was the favor which thelegendary style of composition enjoyed with our ancestors that several ofthe poems analyzed in this volume were among the first books printed forgeneral circulation in Europe.
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