CHAPTER V

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THE KARLING ROMANCES.

SECTION I.—_The Paladins._

Another remarkable cycle of romantic fable connected itself with a prince, not lost in the dim light of heroic legend, but described by a contemporary chronicler, and revealed in the full light of history. However, in reality, the records of Eginhard were, no doubt, as unread and unknown as if they had never existed, and with the notion that a magnificent prince had reigned over half Europe, there was ample scope for tradition to connect with him and his followers all the floating adventures that Teutonic, Keltic, or Latin invention had framed; and, by-and-by, literature recorded them, using them as her own world of beauty and of wonder, until nothing but the names were left in common with their originals.

France, Germany, Lombardy, and Spain, all looked back to the same emperor, and hung their traditions around him, with a far more national sentiment than it was possible for them to possess for the British Arthur. In the Charles who bore the surname of the Great, all the legends centred. He was at once emperor, and, like his grandfather, champion of Europe against the Saracens, with whom in popular fancy, both his own Saxons and his grandson’s Northmen were fused together; he was besieged, like his grandson, in Paris, and lost all his best followers in the pass of Roncesvalles, by the treachery of the Navarrese.

These were the materials that fancy had to work upon. The existing feudal system supplied the machinery, and not with utter incorrectness, since it had actually then existed in its infancy, and the chiefs of the Frank court were veritably obliged to pay martial service to their head for the lands that they had received from him on the conquest of the country. _Pfalz_, the same word which we now call _palace_, the central court, furnished the title for the feudatories employed at the court; _Pfalzen_, a word that continued in use in its proper region, Germany, naming the Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, whence we have learnt to speak of the Count Palatine and the Palatinate.

Pfalzen, then, on French tongues, became Paladins, and Paladins were supposed to have been not so much political as military, so that we regard the term as meaning a champion of high prowess. There was an idea likewise of a council of these Paladins as the twelve peers of France in the golden age of her constitution; and the Docipairs, as the Douzepairs were sometimes run together, stood on a level in romantic imaginations with the Seven Champions of Christendom, or the Knights of the Round Table.

Spanish ballads, German lays, and Provençal songs, had been working up the stories of the Paladins, when somewhere about the year 1100, there came forth a French translation of the supposed chronicle of Turpin, who had really been archbishop of Rheims in the reign of Charlemagne. The chronicle was confirmed in 1122 by the infallible authority of the Pope, and was translated again and again, amplified and referred to by every one who wrote or sung of the Paladins, for the events they celebrated, whether it contained them or not.

The influence of the Karlingen upon our subject has been great. First, some of the genuine historical characters left hereditary Christian names; next, several were adopted in romantic and chivalrous families, and in the poetical ages of literary Italy, they became absolutely frequent.

Paladins, however, connect themselves with hardly any genuine female names of the same period. The Ossianic Fenians have their wives and beloved maidens, the knights of the Round Table are united with ladies of Cymric title, like their own, and evidently as traditionary as themselves; the dames of the _Nibelungenlied_ are intimately connected with the whole structure of the legend; but the knights of Charlemagne have brought with them few genuine ladye loves. Orlando once had a wife, the Alda, or Belinda, of the old traditions; but even the Clarice of Renaud in the _Quatre Fils Aymon_, betrays a late French, or rather Romanesque, influence; and far more do the Doña Clara, Belerma, and Sebilla of the Spanish ballads, show how late they must have arisen; whilst Angelica, Marfisa, Bradamante, Fiordespina, and Fiordiligi, and the like, are absolute Italian inventions.

The Frankish ladies seem, in fact, to have been held in little estimation. Chivalry had not blossomed into respect for womanhood, and they had probably been left behind by their lords in the march of civilization. The female names from time to time cast up in the surging tide of affairs seldom appear except for disgrace or misfortune, so that we come to the conclusion that womanhood in the Frank empire was seldom happy or honourable except in the cloister. Thus, no traditional names of woman came down with the Paladins; and when love became an essential part of the machinery of the Italian poets, they had to invent, and entitle, the heroines for themselves.

SECTION II.—_Charles._

Most heroes gain by becoming the subjects of romance, but this has been by no means the case with the great Karl of the Franks, for though ‘il Rè Carlo’ be three rolled into one, he has lost the heroism of him of the hammer, and the large-minded statesmanship of the first emperor, obtaining instead the dulness and weak credulity of him who was called the Bald.

The three Charleses are matter of history, and the Carlo Magno of romance and ballad is little more than a lay figure, always persuaded to believe traitorous stories of his best friends, and meeting with undignified adventures, as in the case of the enchanted ring that bound his affections to lady, bishop, and lake. We therefore pass on at once to this name, which a foolish old story thus accounts for. As an infant he was put out to nurse, and when brought home, much grown, his mother exclaimed, ‘What great carle is this?’ whence he continued to be so called, instead of by his baptismal name of David. This tale may have been suggested by the fact, that the veritable Charles the Great, when laying aside his state he became a scholar in his palace hall, under the teaching of the English Alcuin, assumed the appropriate title of David.

Karl was in fact, as we have shown in the chapter on ancestral names, the regular family name of the line, used in regular alternation from its first appearance with the grandfather of the hammering Charles, who perhaps took his soubriquet from Thor, and gradually acquiring more and more ignominious epithets till it sunk into obscurity in Lorraine, whence it only emerged again when the Karlings intermarried with Philippe Auguste, and brought the old imperial name into the French royal family, where five more kings bore it. They sent it to Naples with Charles of Anjou; and his son, Charles Robert, or Caroberto, being elected to Hungary, had so many namesakes that Camden was led to suppose that all Hungarian kings were called Carl. It went to Germany when the son of the blind king of Bohemia received it from his father’s connection with the French court, and afterwards reigned as the 4th Karl of Germany, taking up his reckoning from the old Karlingen. Again, the second ducal house of Burgundy was an off-shoot from the line of Valois, and it was from Charles the Bold that the name was transmitted to his great grandson of Ghent, soon known to Europe as Carlos I. of Spain, Karl V. of Germany, Carolus Quintus of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the real name spreader from whom this became national in Spain, Denmark, and even in Britain, for his renown impressed James I. with the idea that this must be a fortunate name; when, in the hope of averting the unhappy doom that had pursued five James Stuarts in succession, he called his sons Henry and Charles. The destiny of the Stuart was not averted, but the fate of the ‘royal martyr’ made Charles the most popular of all appellations among the loyalists, and afterwards with the Jacobites, in both England and Scotland, so that rare as it formerly was, it now disputes the ground with John, George, and William, as the most common of English names.

Another namesake of Charlemagne must not be forgotten, namely, the son of St. Olaf, of Norway, whom his followers, intending an agreeable surprise to the father, baptized after the great emperor by the name of Magnus, whence the very frequent Magnus, of Scandinavia, and Manus of Ireland.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Keltic. │ French. │Span. and Port.│ │Charles │ GAEL. │Charles │Carlos │ │Charlie │Tearlach │Charlot │ German. │ │ │ ERSE. │ │Karl │ │ │Searlus │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Italian. │ Swedish. │ Danish. │ Dutch. │ │Carlo │Karl │Karl │Carolus │ │Carolo │Kalle │Karel │Carel │ │ │ │ │Karel │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Illyrian. │ Lusatian. │ │Karol │Karel │Karlo │Karlo │ │Karolek │ ————————— │Karlica │Karlko │ │ │ Slovak. │Karlic │ │ │ │Karol │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │Lettish. │ Esthonian. │ Hungarian. │ Dantzig. │ │Karls │Karl │Karoly │Kasch │ │ │Karel │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The two feminines are of late invention. The first I have been able to find was Carlota or Charlotte, of Savoy, who married Louis XI., and thus introduced this form to French royalty. Charlotte d'Albret had the misfortune to be given in marriage to Cesare Borgia, and had one daughter, who married into the house of La Tremouille, whence the brave Lady Derby carried it into England, and our registers of the seventeenth century first acknowledge Charlet. The Huguenotism of the house of La Tremouille connected it with that of Bouillon, where the heiress Carola, or Charlotte, was married in 1588. The house of Orange probably thence derived it, and it became known in Germany, whence it was brought to us in full popularity by the good queen of George III. A sentimental fame was also bestowed on it, as the name of Göthe’s heroine in _Werther_.

Carolina, the other form, seems to have been at first Italian, and thence to have spread to Southern Germany, and all over that country, whence we received it with the wife of George II., by whom it was much spread among the nobility, and is now very common among the peasantry.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian │ │Charlotte │Charlotte │Carlota │Carlotta │ │Lotty │Lolotte │Lola │Carlota │ │Chatty │Caroline │ │Carolina │ │Caroline │ │ │ │ │Carry │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Swedish. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ │Charlotte │Lotta │Karolina │Latte │ │Lottchen │ │Karolinka │ ————————— │ │Caroline │ │Karla │ Dantzig. │ │Lina │ │ │Linuschca │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Ceorl was the name of an early king of Mercia, and of a thane of Alfred’s, who defeated the Danes, and Carloman was almost as common as Carl in the old Karling family.[139]

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Footnote 139:

Sismondi; Roscoe; Michaelis; Pott; Anderson, _Genealogies_.

SECTION III.—_Roland, &c._

When the army of Charles the Great was marching back from Spain, the Gascons, Navarrese, and Goths, who were afraid of being swallowed up by his empire, if they exchanged his protection for that of the Arabs, plotted together, fell on the rear of his columns as they were passing through the defile of Roncesvalles, close to the little town of Fuente Arabia, and slaughtered the whole division that were guarding the baggage. ‘There was slain Rotlandus, prefect of the Armorican border.’

So says Eginhard, the contemporary chronicler, and as he mentions only two other nobles as having been killed, it is natural to conclude that this Rotlandus was a man of mark. Who was he? Certainly Warden of the Marches of Brittany, but was he a Frank Hruodland (the country’s glory), the repressor of the Kelts, or was he a Breton in the Frankish service? The Cymry have laid claim to him; they say that the rolling word is intended to render Tallwch, a rolling or overwhelming torrent, the name of the father of Tristrem; and in the later romances, this knight has actually been turned into Rowland, which thus has become a favourite national Welsh name.

It is far more likely that ‘Rotlandus’ was Frank, but the next question is, what were the deeds that made his birth worth contending for, and the war song of Rou be the chant of the gallant minstrel Taillefer, to cheer the Normans on to their victory at Hastings?

Eginhard is utterly silent. Turpin tells us that Rolandus was the emperor’s nephew, the son of his sister Bertha, and of Milo de Anglars. With Turpin, the expedition to Spain is the prominent feature of the reign, and he gives us an account of a mingled battle and controversy between Roland and Ferragus, a giant of the race of Goliath, and only vulnerable in one point, where, however, Roland managed to pierce him. Very soon after follows the ambush of Roncesvalles, the enemy being Saracens, not Christians, but conducted by the traitor Ganelon. After a terrible battle, Roland, sorely wounded, lay down under a tree, and apostrophizing his good sword Durenda, in the most tender manner, thrice struck it upon a block of marble, and shattered it in twain, lest it should fall into the Saracen hands. Then he blew upon his horn, which had such wondrous tones that all other horns split at the sound, and this blast was with such effort that he burst all the veins in his neck, and the sound reached the king, eight miles off! He then commended his soul to heaven, and made a most pious and beautiful end.

That block of marble is magnified by popular fame into the mountain itself, and la Brèche de Roland is supposed to be the cleft made by his sword! The Northern Lights, too, are said to be King Charles riding by, and Roland bearing the banner. The Spaniards, so far as they were Christians and Teutons, felt with the Franks; so far as they were Celtiberians, against them, and the result was a collection of admirable popular ballads, all prime authorities with Don Quixote, in which _il rey Carlos_ and his peers are treated as national heroes. Nevertheless they are proud of his defeat at Roncesvalles, declare that the emperor broke his word to Don Alfonso of Leon, and that the attack was therefore made in which Don Alfonso’s nephew, Bernardo de Carpio, was leader, and demolished the invulnerable Conde Roldan, by squeezing him to death in his arms.

It is the Spaniards alone who have transferred to Roldan the invulnerability of Achilles, Siegfried, and Diarmaid; the French and Italians bestow it only on Ferragus, who is, as already mentioned, an evident Keltic importation through the Breton poets, being either the Irish Fergus, or the Welsh Vreichfras, though he has since become a Moorish giant.

The English, having their own Arthur to engage their attention, did little more than versify Turpin, but allowed Roland’s sword to be carried away by his friend Sir Baldwin, and took vengeance for his death.

But it was the Italians who did the most for their Orlando. Some floating Valkyr notion had attached itself in German fancy to his mother, who was at first Bertha the goose-footed, and then the large-footed, and romance further related that she was the emperor’s sister, who had secretly married the knight Milone di Anglante, and therefore was driven out of the court, and forced to take refuge in a cave, where the hero was born, and was called Rotolando, from his rolling himself on the ground. His father went to the wars, and Berta became the diligent spinner before alluded to, but she was still so poor that his young companions each gave her boy a square of cloth to cover him, two white, and two red, whence he always bore those colours quartered on his shield. Afterwards he was taken into favour, and became the chief Paladin.

Here Luigi Pulci took him up, and made him the hero of a poem called the _Morgante Maggiore_, from a giant whom Orlando converted, and who followed him faithfully about through all his adventures. Orlando is here a high-spirited Christian knight, brave, pious, and faithfully attached to his wife Alda. When slain at Roncesvalles, he mentions her in his last and very beautiful prayer, and his sorrow for his comrades, and parting with his horse and sword, are very touching.

It was Bojardo who deprived Orlando of his old traditional character of the high-minded champion, that crusading days had dwelt upon. Led, perhaps, by the idea of the frenzy of Amadis de Gaul, he made Orlando fall desperately in love with the fair and false Angelica, princess of Catay, and leave the court and all his duties just as the Saracen king Gradasso was invading France, to obtain possession of Durindana, Orlando’s sword. The action of the poem is taken up with the adventures imposed upon Orlando by the mischievous beauty, and the pursuit of him by the other Paladins, and finally it leaves off with the whole chivalry of Charlemagne besieged in Paris by the Saracens.

Orlando was only _innamorato_ according to Bojardo; Ariosto took him up and made him _furioso_. Continuing the poem where it had dropped from Bojardo’s hands, Ariosto made Angelica fall in love with an obscure youth, and marry him, whereupon Orlando, after the example of Amadis de Gaul, went into the state of frenzy that Don Quixote tried to imitate; and the Christians suffered as much as the Greeks did without Achilles, till the champion’s senses were brought back from the moon; when he returned to his duty, restored fortune to the Christians, and saved France from becoming tributary to the infidel.

Charles VIII. of France, in his romantic youth, named one of his short-lived children, Charles Roland, by the way of union of the two heroes.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Roland │Roland │Orlando │Roldan │ │Rowland │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │Portuguese. │ German. │ Netherlands. │ │ │Rolando │Roland │Roeland │ │ │Roldao │Ruland │ │ │ │ │Rudland │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The derivation of the first syllable is the word _hruod_ in Frank, _hrothr_ in the North, and in modern German _ruhm_, meaning fame or glory.

_Hruod_ is a most prolific word. As Hruodgar, famous spear, it figures in the _Nibelungenlied_, where the Markgraf Rudiger is the special friend of Dietrich, and for a long time, like him, refrains from the fray, though at last he plunges into it and is killed.

There seems to have been a veritable Hruodgar living in the time of Pepin, who married a lady whose father’s name was Hector, whence it was taken for granted that she descended from Hector of Troy. Therefore the House of Este bore the white eagle in their coat of arms, because it was said he of Troy had a shield azure with a silver eagle! Roger, Olivier, and Roland are mentioned together as subjects of minstrel songs. In the old romances there is a Ruggieri de Risa, or Reggio, who marries an Amazon, called Galaciella, but is soon after murdered, and she is carried off by sea by her enemies, whom, however, she manages to overpower and destroy on the voyage, but only to be driven to a desert island, where she dies at the birth of her twins, Ruggiero and Marfisa. This Ruggiero is the prime favourite of the Italian poets. Bojardo tells how he was bred up on lion’s marrow by the enchanter Atlante, in Africa, and when his education was finished, was sent to France with the wonderful hippogriff, or winged horse. And Ariosto, probably in compliment to the House of Este, made his adventures the main plot of the _Orlando Furioso_, and completed it by converting him to Christianity, and marrying him to the brave and amiable Amazon, Bradamante.

Bojardo probably adopted Ruggiero because his country was Reggio, a country with which the name had become connected, when Roger de Hauteville had founded the kingdom of Sicily, and Ruggero, the son of his elder brother, Robert Guiscard, had been count of Apulia. These were both, of course, direct from the northern Hruodgeir, as was the turbulent Roger de Montgomery, who gave so much trouble in Normandy. It was once a famous knightly name, but is now too much discarded. Roger must once have been very frequent in England, since Hodge is still proverbial for a rustic,—whereas as a rule he is never so called, though the Registrar-General noted an extraordinary number of Roger Tichbornes in the year of the claimant’s trial!

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ German. │ │Roger │Roger │Ruggiero │Rogerio │Rüdiger │ │Hodge │ │Rogero │ │Roger │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │ Nor. │Netherlands.│ Russian. │ Polish. │ Lettish. │ │Hrodgjer │Rogier │Rozer │Rydygier │Rekkerts │ │Raadgjer │Rutger │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Hrothgar was also a famed name among the Angles. It appears in Beowulf, as the chief of the Scyldings, the son of Healfdane. There, too, are found Hrothmund and Hrothwulf; and the northern names of Hroar and Hrolfr are contractions of these, though the characters they belong to are not the same as those in Beowulf. Hrolf Krake was the subject of a northern Saga; and the father of our Norman kings, whom we are wont to call by his Latinism of Rollo, formed from the French stammer of Rou, was in fact Hrolf Gangr, or at full length, Hrothulf, Fame-Wolf. A name of fame and terror it was, when the mighty man, too weighty for steed to carry him, was expelled from his own land, and fought for a home, not for plunder, among the fertile orchards of Neustria, when his followers' rude homage overthrew the degenerate Karling, and ‘the grisly old proselyte,’ in his baptism, assumed, without perhaps knowing of the similarity, the French Robert. This change prevented his original name from being very prevalent among the Normans; and the German form, Rudolf, is chiefly from a sainted Karling prince, who was bishop of Bourges, and from whom Rudolf of Hapsburg must have derived it. From him it became imperial, and other countries received it, without knowing it for their old friend.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Spanish. │ Italian. │ │Rodolph │Rodolphe │Rodulfo │Rodolfo │ │Rolf │Raoul │ ————————— │Ridolfo │ │ │Roul │ Portuguese. │ │ │ │Rou │Rodolpho │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Bavarian. │ Frisian. │ Swiss. │ │Rudolf │Ruedolf │Rulef │Ruedi │ │ │ │Rulves │Ruedeli │ │ │ │Rotholf │Rudi │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

│ Swedish. │ Nor. │ Lettish. │ Hungarian. │ │Rudolf │Hruodulf │Rohlops │Rudolf │ │Rolf │Hrolfr │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Robert, the name assumed by Rolf Gauge at his baptism was Frank, rather than Northern, inasmuch as _bjart_ is an uncommon conclusion among his native race. Hruadperaht, or bright fame, was the original form, the property of a bishop, who somewhere about the year 700 founded the first Christian church at Wurms. Honoured alike in France and Germany, he became Ruprecht in the latter, and Robert in the former. Like St. Nicolas, he is in Germany supposed to exercise a secret supervision over children; in some places _Knecht Ruprecht_ dispenses Christmas gifts, but he more often keeps watch over naughty children, and thus answers to the English Robin Goodfellow, or Hob Goblin. _Red_ was long supposed to be the origin of the name, which some made Redbert, or bright speech, others Redbeard! The German form, however, disproves both of these, and Ruprecht continued in honour in its own country, naming in especial that wise Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, who in 346 founded the university of Heidelberg; and on the deposition of the crazy Bohemian Kaisar Wenzel, was elected Emperor of Germany, and reigned for nine years with great success and glory. It was after him that the infant, born at Prague, during the brief greatness of the Winter King, received that name of Rupert, which was so terrible to the Roundheads, but which for the most part they translated by their native Robert—native, because thoroughly Anglicized, for it was of French growth, had belonged to two or three saints, and to the hymn-writing and much persecuted king called the pious, the second of the Capet or Parisian dynasty; but after the son of St. Louis carried it off to the House of Bourbon, it scantily appeared among the royal family. Normandy, however, cultivated it after it had been chosen at the baptism of her first duke, and sent it to Apulia with the astute Robert Guiscard, whence Roberto became national in the Neapolitan realms, and was adopted by the Angevin line, among others by the king who patronized Petrarch. The next Duke of Normandy who bore it was that wild pilgrim, whose soubriquet varies between the Devil and the Magnificent. The disinheritance of his equally wild, but more unfortunate grandson, Robert Courthose, diverted it from the English throne, but a flood of knights and nobles had poured in and established it so completely, that in a few generations more Hob was one of the established peasant names in England. Robin was its more gracious contraction—let our dearly beloved archer be who he will—either as ballad tells, the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon, or as late critics would have us believe, only another manifestation of Robin Goodfellow, or of the wild huntsman. Robin was the epithet by which Queen Elizabeth was wont to address the two earls, step-father and stepson, who so long sunned themselves in her favour; and though it has now acquired a homely sound, and the popularity of the full name has somewhat waned, it is still frequent. To Scotland it was brought by the Anglo-Norman barons, and when the English Bruces had made their distant drop of Royal Scottish blood float them to the throne, Robert the Bruce became a passionately beloved national hero, and his name one of the most favoured in the Lowlands. In Ireland it is called Roibin, a gentleman called in English Robin Lawless being in Irish, Roibin Laighleis.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ Italian. │ │Robert │Robert │Robert │Roberto │ │Robin │Robin │Robers │Ruberto │ │Hob │Robbie │Robi │Ruperto │ │Bob │Rab │Robinet │ │ │Rupert │ │Rupert │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

│ German. │ Bavarian. │ Slovak. │ Lusatian. │ │Hruodebert │Ruprecht │Ruprat │Huprecht │ │Ruprecht │Prechtl │ │ │ │Rupert │ │ │ │ │Rudbert │ │ │ │ │Robert │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Not behindhand in glory is the northern Hrothrekr, or Germanic Hruoderich, famous ruler. In Gothic Spain, it was indeed Rodrigo, who lost his country to the Moors, but became in his people’s minds the centre for pity as much as for blame, and the subject of the beautiful legends that Southey has embodied in the finest of his poems. And it was Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar,‘Ruy mi Cid Campeador,’ in whom ballad lore delighted. This became one of the most frequent of all the grand-sounding names prefaced by Don, and Rodriguez and Ruiz to be very common surnames.

The northern Hrothrekr was not long in being shortened to Hrorekr, and thence came the name of that Norseman, who, according to Russian historians, was invited by the Slaves to be their protector, and founded the Norman dynasty of Ruric, which continued on the throne during the troubled days of Tatar supremacy. Roric and Godwald were the first Northmen to obtain fiefs in France. In Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, Roderick has a sort of false honour, being adopted as the equivalent of the native Keltic names, the Welsh Rhydderc, and the Gadhaelic Ruadh; for Roy and Rorie, though rightly and traditionally so called by their friends, would now all make Teutons of themselves, and use the signature of Roderick.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Roderick │Rodrigue │Rodrigo │Rodrigo │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Nor. │ Russian. │ │ │Roderich │Rothrekr │Rurik │ │ │ │Hrorek │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

There are numerous other forms from this prolific source. Rother, who figures in Lombardic history, is the German Hruodhari, or famous warrior, and in the North divides with Hrothgar the property of the strange abbreviation, Roar, and in the harsh old Latinisms of Frank names is Crotcharius.

There too is found Chrodovaldus, which in German was once Hrodowald, and afterwards Rudold, perhaps, too, the Danish and Scottish Ribolt, and in the North Roald, and in Italian Roaldo, the founder of an order of monks. Nay, Romeo de' Montecchi himself, the Montague of Shakespeare, bore a common Lombardic name, softened down from the Chrodomarus of Frankish Latin, as in Germany Hruotmar is Rudmar and Romar. Hromund, or Romund, must not be confused with the derivatives of Ragin, though it is most likely that the Irish Redmond is a Danish legacy from this source.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Nor. Hrodbern—Famous bear │ │ Frank. Chrodogang—Famous progress │ │ Nor. Hrothild; Ger. Hrodhilde; Frank. Chrodehilda—Famous │ │ heroine │ │ Ger. Hrodfrid—Famous peace │ │ Ger. Hrodhard—Famous strength │ │ Ger. Hrudo; Frank. Chrodo; Nor. Hroi—Fame │ │ Nor. Hrodny—Famous freshness │ │ Nor. Hrollaug—Famous liquor │ │ Nor. Hrolleif—Relic of fame │ │ Nor. Hrodsind; Frank. Chrodoswintha—Famous strength │ │ Ger. Hrodstein—Famous stone. │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Ruod must have been evolved from the word meaning speech, _razda_ in Gothic, _rœdo_ in Anglo-Saxon, whence advice became _rede_ in Old English and Scottish, and _rath_ in modern German.

_Rad_ is chiefly a Frankish prefix, though we had one king Redwald. Radegond, or war council, was a Frankish queen who became a nun at Poitiers, and left a name still used by French girls in that neighbourhood. King Ordoño of Gallicia married, about the year 910, a lady recorded as Radegonda, or Arragonda, or Urraca, so that the perplexing Urraca may possibly be a contraction of this name. In the Spanish vernacular a magpie is called _urraca_, but probably from the likeness of the word to the note of the bird.

Radegist or Radelchis, and Radegar, were princes of Beneventum. Radbad, the Frisian Rabbo, and Radbert, seem to be Old German forms, but it is a word liable to be confused with _hramn_, and with _rand_, and though a common masculine termination in England, in the North it is only a corruption of _fred_, peace.

SECTION IV.—_Renaud._

To the French, Renaud de Montauban was a far more popular and national hero than even Roland.

His name, Raginwald, was common among the Franks, and his origin is suspected to be an Aquitanian Rainaldus, who in 843 was killed in fighting with the Bretons, when in the miserable days of Charles the Bald, they invaded France under Nominoë, and were joined by the traitorous Count Lambert.

Charles the Bald, as has been said, seems to have sat for the picture of his grandfather, the Bretons turned into the Saracens, Count Lambert’s treachery went to swell the account of Gano, and Rinaldus could fall at Roncevaux quite as well as at Mans!

He is just mentioned by Turpin as among the knights who accompanied Charlemagne, and were killed at Roncesvalles; and the Spanish ballads dwelt much upon the exploits of Don Reynaldos; indeed it appears that he enjoyed Don Quixote’s special admiration for having carried off, in spite of forty Moors, a golden image of Mahomet, which he wanted to melt up for the payment of his men!

Such an exploit was decidedly in the line of the French hero Renaud, or Regnault, who is in romance a sort of prince of freebooters. He and his three brothers go by the title of the Quatre Fils Aymon, and he is a sort of chivalrous Robin Hood to the French mind, insomuch that country inns may still be found with the sign of the _Quatre Fils Aymon_. In the old French tale, the outlawry of Renaud is accounted for by his having been insulted by the emperor’s nephew Berthelot, while playing at chess, and replying with a blow of the golden board that struck out the offender’s brains. He and his brothers then were banished, lived a freebooting life, built the castle of Montalban in Gascony, the king of which country bestowed on him in marriage his daughter Clarice, and finally went on pilgrimage, made his peace with the emperor, turned his hand to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and was killed there by his jealous fellow-workmen.

In Italy Rinaldo became a wild, high-spirited Paladin, always fighting and falling in love, and retaining little in common with his French original, except the possession of his matchless horse Bayard, or Bajardo, which fought as well as his master, and on his loss ran wild in the woods. In the _Morgante_, Rinaldo mistrusts Gano, and avoids the ambush of Roncesvalles, but is afterwards carried with his brother Ricciardetto by two devils, to revenge the slaughter, which they do most effectually.

In the _Orlando Innamorato_, Rinaldo is at first ensnared by Angelica’s beauty, but is cured by drinking unwittingly of the fountain of hate, while she drank of the fountain of love, and was enamoured of him. He is carried off by Malagigi to an enchanted island of delight, but returns during the great siege of Paris, takes a counter-draught of the fountain of love, fights in single combat with Ferrau, but is interrupted by Bajardo straying into a wood, whither he pursues the animal, and is there deserted by Boiardo, to be taken up by Ariosto, and after many adventures brought to relieve the Christian army in the utmost danger, and to give his sister Bradamante in marriage to Ruggiero.

Some have thought that Tasso’s one fictitious hero, Rinaldo, was partly borrowed from the Paladin, going as he does to the enchanted gardens of Armida, and being only brought back when the crusading host was in the utmost jeopardy. The chief mission of this latter Rinaldo was, however, it may be suspected, to be a compliment to the House of Este.

Some even think Roland himself only another version of Ragenwald, but the one Paladin is undoubtedly traceable to Hruoland, as is the other to Ragenwald, though I am inclined to think that the Rolandsaulen, that accompany the Irminsaulen at the gates of old cities, may perhaps be rightly from Raginwald, judgment-power.

The Normans received this name from two sources, the French Regnault or Renaud, generally from the Paladin, and from their own northern Ragnwold or Rognwald. So Domesday has it in various forms, as Ragenald, Reynald, and Rainald, the latter fourteen times after the Conquest; and amongst them all we have derived our Christian name of Reginald, and the surname of Reynolds. The Scots took their form from the northern Rognvald, belonging to a great Jarl of the Orkneys, a noted skald, and thus obtained Ronald, which is in Gaelic Raonmill.

_Ragn_, or judgment, the leading word in this class of names, is connected with the Latin _rego_, to rule, and as _rectus_ sprang from the one, so the Gothic _raihts_ and our _right_ arose from the Teutonic forms, as well as to _wreak_, and the German _rache_, vengeance, both from the old idea of justice. _Ragn_, though primarily meaning justice, is also used, as judgment is, in the sense of wisdom. Reginald Pole was in his own time known as Reynold. We get the longer name from his Latinism as Reginaldus.

Some of Renaud’s freebooting fame may have come from a person whose name so closely resembles his own, that it is by no means easy to distinguish their progeny; namely, Raginhard, or firm judge. A nobleman of this name was Count of the Palace, or Pfalzgraf, to Louis de Debonnaire, and engaged in a conspiracy against him, with Bernard, king of Italy. They were made prisoners, and condemned; the emperor commuted the sentence to the loss of their sight; but his wife, who wanted Bernard’s inheritance, took care that so savage a person was sent to perform the operation that they both died in consequence.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Scottish. │ Gaelic. │ Italian. │ │Reginald │Ronald │Raonmill │Rinaldo │ │Reynold │Ranald │ │ │ │Rex │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Spanish. │ French. │ German. │ Polish. │ │Reynaldos │Regnauld │Reinwald │Raynold │ │ │Renaud │Reinald │ │ │ │Regnault │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Esthonian. │ Lettish. │ Frisian. │ │ │Rein │Reinis │Reinold │ │ │Reino │ │Rennold │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Another Reginard is said by Le Grand to have been a cunning politician, who lived in Austrasia in the ninth century, and much troubled his lord by sometimes taking part with the Germans, sometimes with the French, by which means he became so much detested that he was the subject of many songs in which he was called the Little Fox. At any rate, in the great animal epic, the fox has taken the name of Reinart, or Reinecke Fuchs, and as early as 1313, when the sons of the wily Philippe le Bel were knighted, the edifying spectacle was represented before them of the life of Renard the Fox, who became successively physician, clerk, bishop, archbishop, and pope, eating however hens and chickens all the while, much after the fashion of their father’s unhappy tool at Avignon. Renard has thus become the absolute name of the animal in France, to the entire exclusion of the ancient _golpe_, and in England Reynard is his universal epithet. It was not however confined to the creature, but was once prevalent among the human kind.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Reynard │Regnard │Rainart │Rainardo │ │ │Renart │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Frisian. │ Polish. │ Hungarian. │ │Raginhart │Renert │Raynard │Reinhard │ │Reinhard │Rinnert │Raynard │Reinhard │ │Reineke │Rennart │ │ │ │Renke │Rienit │ │ │ │Renz │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Another old Frankish form is Raginmund, much in use in southern France, where there was a long line of counts of Toulouse, called Raymond, one of whom was celebrated by Tasso in the first Crusade as a gallant knight, but the last of whom, Raymond Berenger, one of the earliest examples of double names, went down before the sword of the first Simon de Montford, as a supporter of the Albigenses. The counts of Barcelona, in Spain, bore the like name, and the old Romanesque territories are still its usual home.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Raymond │ Raimons │Raimondo │Reinmund │ │ ————————— │ ————————— │ │Reimund │ │ French. │ Spanish. │ │ │ │ Raimond │Ramon │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Terrible to us, but glorious to Denmark, was the name of Ragnar. Once we had it peacefully in East Anglia, as Raginhere, the warrior of judgment, but in that same East Anglia it was to have a deadly fame. The historical Ragnar seems to have been decorated with a few mythical exploits of some more ancient hero, for he is one of the dragon killers. His first wife, Thyra, had her bower encircled by a deadly poisonous serpent, the ravager of the whole country, until he won her hand by the slaughter of the serpent, having guarded himself from its venom by a suit of hairy garments covered with pitch, whence he obtained the soubriquet of Lodbrog. Afterwards he married a poor but beautiful maiden called Krake, who, after she had borne him four sons, disclosed that she was the last of the Wolsungen, the daughter of Sigurd and Brynhild. Nay, Icelandic families connect themselves through her with the heroes of Wurms! And after this it is strange to find Jarl Ragnar sailing up the Seine, and ravaging Paris, in the days of Charles the Bald, being in fact the Agramante of the poets. Again he was the cause of bitter woe to England, falling into the hands of King Ælle of Northumbria, and being put to death by being thrown into a pit filled with vipers, where, till his last breath, he chanted the grand death song that is worthy to stand beside the dirge of King Eric Blödaxe. It was revenge for his death that brought his fierce sons with that dire armament which ravaged England—the invasion that was fatal to Edmund of East Anglia, ruined the great abbeys of the fens, and though finally mastered by Alfred, made the North of England Danish. This name of dread was brought to Normandy by his kindred, and figures in Domesday as Raynar, a frequent surname in England. In France it was cut down to René, a name that crept into the House of Anjou, and was bestowed on the prince—too much of a troubadour and knight-errant for a king—who vainly tried on so many crowns, and was hated in England because ‘Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.’ Why the feminine of this name, Renée, was chosen for the younger daughter of Louis XII., does not appear, but when she married into the House of Este, it was translated into Renata, and the Italians, in their revived classicalism, seem to have fancied it had some connection with regeneration. Renira is the Dutch feminine form.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ German. │ │Rayner │Reignier │Raynier │Reiner │ │Rainer │Renier │ ———————— │ ———————— │ │ │René │ Italian. │ Nor. │ │ │ │Renato │Ragnar │ │ │ │Ranieri │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Raginmar, great judgment, still exists in Germany, as Reinmar, or Reimar, and is the most probable origin of the Ramiro, so frequent among the early kings of the small struggling Pyrenean realms.

Ragnhild, a favourite with old Norwegian dames, has become in Lapp, Ranna.

The German contraction _rein_ has been often translated into pure, but this is an error, as these names can almost uniformly be traced back to _ragn_.

The remaining forms are—

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ German. English. │ │ Ragnfrid, M. │ Renfred, M. } Judgment of peace │ │ Ragnfrida, F. │ } │ │ │ │ Nor. │ │ Ragnfrid, F. } │ │ Ragnrid, F. } Fair judgment │ │ Randid, F. } │ │ Randi, F. } │ │ │ │ Ger. │ Prov. │ │ Raginbald │ Rambauld } │ │ Reinbold │ } │ │ Renbold │ } Prince of judgment │ │ Rembald │ } │ │ │ │ Ger. Reginbrecht, Reinbert—Splendour of judgment │ │ Nor. Ragenheid—Wise impulse │ │ Ger. Reinger—Spear of judgment │ │ Nor. Reginleif—Relic of judgment │ │ │ │ German. Frisian. │ │ Raginward │ Remward } │ │ Reinward │ Renward } Guardian of judgment │ │ │ Remma } │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

And lastly Regina, called in Bavaria Reigl and Regl, was originally less the Latin queen than the feminine of _ragn_. Nor in effect is the meaning far apart.[140]

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Footnote 140:

Roscoe, _Bojardo and Ariosto_; Sismondi, _Histoire de France_; Mallet; _Northern Antiquities_; _Spanish Ballads_.

SECTION V.—_Richard._

Richard, or Richardet, was one of the Quatre Filz d'Aymon, who, according to one version, was the person who gave the fatal blow with the chess-board, instead of Renaud. He is not a very interesting personage, being rather the attendant knight than the prime hero, the rescued, not the rescuer; but under his Italian name of Ricciardetto, he has a whole poem to himself, a mere scurrilous satire upon friars, and was the lowest depth to which romantic poetry fell.

It was not to this Paladin that his name owed its frequency, but to Ricehard, or stern king, an Anglo-Saxon monarch of Kent, who left his throne to become a monk at Lucca, and was there said to have wrought many miracles. The third Norman duke bore the name, and transmitted it to two successors, whence we obtained as many as twenty Richards at the Conquest, and have used it as a favourite national name ever since. Two more saints bore it, the excellent bishop of Chichester, and a hermit, who was made bishop of Andria, in Apulia. Three times has it been on the throne, though finally discarded by royalty after the enormities imputed to the last Plantagenet; and latterly it has lost a little of its popularity, though it has never been entirely disused.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Netherlands. │ │Richard │Richard │Riccardo │Rijkert │ │Ritchie │ ——————————— │Ricciardo │Riikard │ │ (_Scot._) │ Portuguese. │Ricciardetto │Riik │ │Diccon │Ricardo │ │ │ │Dick │ ——————————— │ │ │ │ │ Polish. │ │ │ │ │Ryszard │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The leading syllable is from the same source as _ragn_; it is he who executes judgment, the ruler or king, the same word as the Indian _rajah_, and the Latin _rex_. It was _reiks_ in Gothic, _rich_ in old German, _ryce_ in Anglo-Saxon; and its derivative _reich_ was the origin of the Neustria and Austrasia, the _oster reich_ and _ne oster reich_, eastern and not eastern, realms, of the Franks, and of the present Austria or eastern kingdom. _Reich_ is the home term for the German empire at the present day. Our adjective _rich_ is its sordid offspring, and in France a wealthy peasant is _un richart_.

_Rik_ is more in vogue as a Gothic and Frank commencement than among most of the other Teutons, though all use it as a conclusion. Richard is its only universal name; but among the first foes of the Romans, we find among the Suevi, Rechiarius, who is the same with the German Richer, or kingly warrior, and the French saint, Riquier. Ricimar, the name of the terrible Goth who for a short time held Rome, is the great king, and was the maker and dethroner of the four last Augusti; and his namesakes, Ricimer and Rechimiro, appear in Spain, and may, perhaps, be the right source of Ramiro. Recared, Richila, Riciburga, are also Gothic.

The Franks show Rigonthe, or royal war, a daughter of Fredegonda; Rictrude, a saint, as well as Richilde, also a queenly name, which continued for some time in use, and is better than the Richenza and Richarda, sometimes used in England as the feminines of Richard. Richolf endures in Friesland as Rycolf, Ryklof, or Rickel, and Germany once had Ricbert.

One great name of this derivation is the northern Eirik. The first syllable is that which we call _aye_ to the present day, the word that lies at the root of the Latin _œvum_, the German _ewig_, and our own _ever_. Ei-rik is thus _Ever King_. An ancient Erik was said to have been admitted among the gods, and Earic was the second name of Æsc, the son of Henghist; but it was the northern people who really used Eirik, which comes over and over in the line of succession of all the Northern sovereignties, figures in their ballads, and, in the person of King Eirik Blödaxe, is connected with their finest poetry. In the present day it is scarcely less popular than in old times, and has the feminine Eirika.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ German. │ Nor. │ Swedish. │ │Eric │Eric │Erich │Eirik │Erik │ ├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Slovak. │ Lettish. │ Esth. │ Lapp. │ │Eryk │Erih │Erik │Erik │Keira │ │ │Areh │ │Eers │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘

Two other names of the North have the same commencement, Eimund, ever protecting, or eternal guard, commonly called Emund, and Eilif, the ever-living, answering to the Greek Ambrosios. Eilif is also written Eiliv, Elliv, Ellef, and even Elof, and Latinized in Elavus.[141]

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Footnote 141:

Roscoe; Munch; Butler; Michaelis.

SECTION VI.—_Astolfo._

Astolfo is to the Paladins what Conan is to the Feen, the butt or _grazioso_. In his full-blown perfection he is first cousin to Orlando, being the son of Milone’s brother Ottone, and was also related to Rinaldo, according to the quaint genealogies of the chivalrous heroes that exact heraldry loved to draw up. He joined the four sons of Aymon, when they left the court after the quarrel at chess, and shared in their wild exploits; but apparently permitted no meaner interlopers in the trade, for when he caught a party of robbers, he insisted on some unfortunate hermits being their executioners, declaring such an office was quite as pleasing to Heaven, ‘_che dire il Pater nostro_,’ and finally pummelling them into compliance. In Bojardo, Astolfo gained possession of a magic lance, brought by Angelica from Catay, which unhorsed all its antagonists, and secure in its aid, refused when he was required to deliver up to Gradasso, Bajardo and Durindana, which had been left in his charge while their masters were wandering after Angelica, but challenged Gradasso to single combat, defeated him, and then went in search of his cousins. Ariosto conducts him into the enchanted palace, where every one was pursuing something lost; Rinaldo, his horse, Bradamante, Ruggero, Ruggero, Bradamante.

One blast of Astolfo’s horn, also magical, destroyed the enchantment, and he became possessed for the time of the Hippogriff, upon whom he soared to the terrestrial paradise, and was conducted by St. John to the moon, where he obtained possession of Orlando’s senses, and restored them to him. The later writers, who added to the burlesque element and diminished the chivalrous, made more and more of Astolfo’s boastfulness, till he is quite the buffoon of their poems. He was finally killed at Roncesvalles; and the Spaniards call him Don Estolfo.

The person killed at the same time as Rotlandus is called, by Eginhard, Anselmus, and he, no doubt, contributed in the idea of the Astolfus, Count of Champagne, whose burial after the battle is recorded by Archbishop Turpin. But the real bearer of the name of Astolfo was one of the enemies of the Karlings, namely, Astolfo, king of the Lombards, who held his court at Pavia, and whose encroachments on the Roman territory were the first cause of the interference of the Franks in Italy. He was besieged by Pepin at Pavia in 755, and forced to come to terms; but he was evidently a very considerable sovereign; and Ernesto, Marchese d'Este, was killed in battle with him in 745. His promotion to be a Paladin is accounted for by his having been a Christian, and the character he bears, by the possibility of there having been satirical songs and poems upon him, especially at the time when Charlemagne ill-treated his granddaughter, Desirata. Astolfo is still a current name in Lombardy, though we do not find it anywhere else, and its congeners only in Scandinavia.

The meaning of the last syllable is, of course, wolf; the first is _aast_ or _ast_, love or wishes, or if the sense of hot impetuosity be allowed, Astolf is the swift wolf. Aasta was rather a favourite name with the maidens of the North, and Asta is not disused, though too often treated as the short for Augusta.

Astridur is from _hridhur_, an impulse, and thus would mean swift impulse, or the impulse of love. It was greatly used by the royal ladies of the North, among whom may be specified the mother of St. Olaf, and a daughter of Knut, called by Danish pronunciation, Estridh, but transmuted into Margaret.

The diminutive of Ast, under various mispronunciations, named that most terrible of vikings, Hasting, whose ravages, though kept from England by the policy originated by Alfred, were fearful all along the French coast, and even extended to Italy. It is he who is said to have many times submitted to baptism, and then returned to his fury again; and there is a curious report, that Rollo’s Normans found him settled in France, and reproached him with the tameness of his old age, so that he dashed away again, and returned to his ships and his piracy. Hastinc occurs in Domesday, and Warren Hastings' family claimed descent from the old Sea King.[142]

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Footnote 142:

Roscoe; Sismondi; Munch; Michaelis; _Histoire de Normandie_.

SECTION VII.—_Ogier le Danois._

One of the Paladins was, undoubtedly, the legacy of a much more ancient myth, namely, Ogier le Danois. He does not play a very prominent part in the poems of the Italians, but as Ogier the Dacian he is one of Turpin’s catalogue of knights, and a ballad especially dear to Don Quixote thus commences:—

‘De Mantua sale el Marques, Danes Urgel el leal.’

It proceeds to tell how he found Valdovinos, his nephew, dying under a tree, having been assassinated by the emperor’s son, Carloto. The ballad further relates how the Marques proceeds to court, gets Carloto tried by his peers and doomed to death, and though el Rey Carlo banishes them all for uttering the condemnation, the sentence is carried out.

This Italian marquis is an exceedingly droll development of the old Teutonic hero, Holger Danske. In Italy he is Oggieri, Oggero, or Uggieri il Danese; in French, Ogier le Danois; and, at times, _le damné_, or _il dannato_, which title is further accounted for by the story that he was a Saracen who became a Christian, and that his friends wrote from home ‘_tu es damné_,’ whence he chose to be thus christened. In the _Reali de Francia_, Charlemagne cuts off, with his own hand, the head of an unfortunate Oldrigi, whose blood was too noble to be shed by any one else. Now this Oggier was without doubt a contribution from the stores of Norman tradition; for Holger, or Olger, Danske is the grandest national hero of Denmark. There is a ballad, given by Weber, where he and Tidrek the Strong have a tremendous battle, and he comes off victor. Moreover, he has eaten of the fruit of the trees of the sun and moon, and has become immortal, and there he sits with his fellows in the vaults of the Castle of Kronberg, near which are two ponds, called his spectacles. A peasant, with a plough-share on his shoulders, once lost his way, and wandered in; he found a circle of tall old men in armour, all asleep round a stone table, with their heads resting on their crossed arms. Holger Danske, who sat at the head of the table, raised his head and the stone broke asunder, for his beard had grown into the stone. He asked his guest some questions about the upper world and dismissed him, offering his hand. The peasant, dreading the gigantic grip of the old champion, gave his ploughshare. ‘Ha! ha!’ said Holger, as he felt its firmness, ‘it is well. There are still men in Denmark. Tell them that we shall come back when there are no more men left than can stand round one tun!’ But the ploughshare had been twisted round by his fingers. Can this return of Holger be the Roger Bon Temps of the French peasantry?

But Holger, though I have placed him among the Paladins, might have gone even farther back than the days of Dietrich. He is a mythical king, well nigh a god, originally called Haaloge, and owing, as his sacred island, Haalogaland, or Heligoland.

His name itself is _holy_, our very word _holy_—the _halig_ of the Anglo-Saxons, the _hellig_ of the North, the _heilig_ of Germany, and these words sprang from those denoting health; as the Latin _salve_, hail, _salvus_, safe, and _salvatio_, safety, are all related to soundness.

Leaving this, as not belonging to our main subject, we find that Helgi, the Norse form of the word for this holy old mythic king, was exceedingly popular in the North. Helgi has a poem to himself in the elder _Edda_. A son of Burnt Njal was called Helgi, and forty-two cases are found of the name in the _Landnama-bok_, and thirty-four of its feminine, Helga. In Domesday there are five called Helgi, besides fourteen Algars, very possibly meant for Holger; and it may be suspected that the Helie of the early Norman barons may have been as much due to the Helgi of their forefathers as to the prophet whom they learnt to know on Mount Carmel. Perhaps, too, Helga was the source of Ala, or Ela, by which name a good many Norman ladies are recorded, the best known of whom was Ela, heiress of Salisbury, the wife of one William Longsword and mother of the other, one of the founders of Salisbury Cathedral, and the witness of a vision of her son’s death in Egypt.

Helgi’s descendants towards the East are far more certain matters. Helgi, called Oleg by the Russian historians, was the son of Rurik, the first Norman grand prince of Kief, and his daughter, Olga, visited Constantinople, and was there baptized by the name of Helena, which makes the Russians suppose her two names to translate one another; but they have fortunately not discarded either Oleg or Olga, which thus remain mementoes of the northern dynasty among the very scanty number of Russian names that are neither Greek nor Slavonic.

In its own country Helgi gets contracted into Helle, and Helga into Hæge.[143]

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Footnote 143:

Munch; Roscoe; Keightley; Marryat, _Jutland_.

SECTION VIII.—_Louis._

With the throne of the Franks, the Karlingen took their favourite prefix of the old Salic line, _hlod_.

This word, the same in root as the Sanscrit _çru_, Greek κλύω (kluo), Latin _cluo_, Anglo-Saxon _hlowan_, may possibly have been originated by the cow, to whose voice, in our own language, the verb _to low_ is now restricted. All mean to make a noise; and the dignity of that noise increased, for κλυτός (klutos) was Greek for renowned, κλέος, fame, as we saw when dealing with Cleomenes, Cleopatra, &c.; and in Latin, _clueo_, was to be famous, _clientes_ or _callers_ beset the honoured man, and _laus_ was praise or fame; and so not only have we _loud_ in English, _lyde_ in the North, for the ordinary adjective, but _hlod_ or _hlud_ was the old German term for renown, and _los_ for which French knights afterwards fought and bled, and a score of other words, less relevant to our purpose, will easily suggest themselves as current in every European tongue, first cousin words from _laus_ or from _hlod_.

The rough aspirate at the beginning was once an essential portion of the word, and among the Franks it must have been especially harsh, since their contemporary Latinists always render it by _ch_.

Chlodio, as they call him, is numbered as the second of the long-haired Salians, the father of ‘Meroveus,’ and leader of the incursions of the Franks about 428. His grandson married the Burgundian maiden, called by the Valkyr title of Hlodhild, or Chlodechilda, as the Latin civilization of her day called her, when it hailed her with delight as the converter of her husband to Christianity. Although canonized, her name was not in great use for a good many generations, and to this she probably owes it that, when it was revived as belonging to a royal saint, for the benefit of the daughter of the good dauphin, son of Louis XV., it had not been shorn of its aspirate like all the cognate ones. It has since become a favourite with French ladies.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Clotilde │Clotilda │Klothilde │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The husband of Clotilda was known to his own fierce Franks as Hluodowig, or famous war, or consecration; but when his success after his prayer to the God of Hluodhild had brought him to abjure his Teuton gods, and receive baptism from St. Remi, the pope accepted the only orthodox sovereign of Europe as most Christian king and eldest son of the Church by the appellation of Chlodovisus, or Clovis, the retranslation into French.

Among his successors was found many a _fainéant_ who had nothing of him but his prefix and his long hair, and one who is counted as Clovis II. When these had passed away, Charles the Great gave the name of the great founder of the former line to one of his younger sons, the only one who lived to succeed him.

What Hlodwig Haman’s War was called in his own day may be seen by the curious barbaric Latin poem sung by his soldiers in honour of their exploit in setting him at liberty, when he had been treacherously made prisoner by Adelgis, Duke of Beneventum, a song that shows Latin in its first step towards the tongues of southern Europe.

‘Audite omnes fines terre errore cum tristitia, Quale scelas fuit factum in civitas Beneventum Lluduicum comprenderunt, sancto pio Augusto.’

‘Lluduicus’ is now known to the French as Louis le Debonnaire, a title that some ascribe to his piety, others to his weakness. The Germans took him as Ludwig, and thenceforth these two varieties held a double course, while the softer Provençals made him Aloys, which is now regarded, owing to a saint of its own, as a separate name. Three monarchs of the Karling line bore this favourite name, and the fifth descendant of Hugh Capet brought it in again, to come to its especial honour with the saintly Crusader, ninth king so called, from whom it became so essentially connected with French royalty, that after the succession of the Bourbons, no member of the royal family was christened without it. Indeed, hardly any one of rank or birth failed to have it among their many names, till its once-beloved sound became a peril to the owners' heads in the Revolution, and it has in the present day arrived at sharing the unpopularity of François.

Elsewhere it is chiefly a French importation; the Welsh use Lewis as an Anglicism of Llewellyn, and the Irish of Lachtna; and the Scots make rather more use of it from their old alliances and connection through the Scottish guard. The Scottish Lodowick is probably taken from the northern form of the original word; just as with the Italians, Luigi is the mere Italian version of Louis, Lodovico the inheritance from the Lombards or Germans, and in this shape was long current in northern Italy, belonging in particular to the unfortunate Sforza, of Milan, who perished in the first shock between France and Italy.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Breton. │ Scottish. │ French. │ │Ludovick │Loiz │Lodowick │Clovis │ │Lewis │Loizik │ │Louis │ │Louis │ │ │Looys │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ Portuguese. │ │Aloys │Lodovico │Clodoveo │Luiz │ │Chlodobeu │Luigi │Luis │ │ │Lozoic │Aloïsio │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Swiss. │ Swedish. │ Dutch. │ │Ludwig │Ludi │Ludwig │Lodewick │ │Luz │ —————— │ │Lood │ │Lotze │ Bavarian. │ │ │ │ │Wickl │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Bohemian. │ Slovak. │ Hungarian. │ │Ludvik │Ludvik │Ludvick │Lajos │ │Ludvis │ │Ljudevit │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The Provençal Aloys apparently was the first shape that threw out a feminine, the Aloyse or Heloïse, whose correspondence with Abelard was the theme of so much sentiment, and whose fame, brought by the archers to Scotland, no doubt was the origin of the numerous specimens of Alison found in that romantic nation. According to Dugdale, the wife of the Norman William Mallet was Hesilia or Helewise, no doubt the same as Heloïse. Heloïse had nearly died away in France when Rousseau’s romance of _La Nouvelle Heloïse_ brought it as well as Julie into fashion again.

The votaresses of St. Louis had, however, chosen to come much nearer to his name, and by the end of the fifteenth century Louise was in great vogue at the French court; it travelled everywhere with French princesses, came to us with the House of Hanover, and has now a thorough hold of all ranks.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Louisa │Louise │Luisa │Luisa │ │Louie │Lisette │Eloïsa │ ————————— │ │ ————————— │Loulou │ │ Portuguese. │ │ Scotch. │Heloise │ │Luiza │ │Leot │Louison │ │Luizinha │ │Alison │ │ │ │ │Ailie │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Swedish. │ Polish. │ Lettish. │ │Ludowicke │Ludovica │Ludvika │Lusche │ │Luise │Lovisa │Ludoisia │Lasche │ │ │Lova │Lodoiska │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

The eldest son of the great Clovis was Hlodmir, or Clodomir, great fame, made more euphonious in German as Ludomir, and furnishing such surnames as Luttmer and Lummers.

All his sons were murdered by their uncles, except one, who was shorn of his long locks to save his life, and was put into a convent, where he became a holy man, was canonized, and his harsh name of Hlodowald, or Clodvald, became the pleasant one of St. Cloud, best known for the sake of the palace near Paris. Another St. Chlodvald, of Metz, is commonly called St. Clou.

One of the uncles who killed the poor boys was Hlodhari, or Chlotachari, famous warrior, a terrible savage, but the last survivor of the brothers, and counted in the Frank history as Chlother, or Clotaire. Others of his race likewise were so baptized, and when the name passed to the Karlingen it was as Lothar. So was called the son of Louis le Debonnaire, whose portion, known at first as Lotharingen, came to be in Latin Lotharingia, and still remains Lorraine. Lothar did not pass away from Germany; one emperor, after the separation, was so called; and it fell into many forms of surnames, in especial into Luther; and when Martin Luther had rendered this almost saintly to his countrymen, they over-hastily explained it by _lother_, pure; while the Bohemians found a similar word in their own tongue, meaning a swan. Oddly enough, Huss signified a goose, and the saying arose that the Bohemian goose had let fall a quill, which had been picked up by a swan of far more distant flight.

Luther has a few namesakes in his own country on his own account, but, in general, Chloter has died out of Christian nomenclature.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ German. │ Spanish. │ │Lothario │Clotaire │Lothar │Clotario │ │Lowther │Lothaire │Luther │ ————————— │ │ │ │ ———————— │ Lettish. │ │ │ │ Italian. │Lutters │ │ │ │Lotario │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Chlodoswintha, or famous height, was a Frank princess, without namesakes beyond her own race; in fact, the use of this prefix seems to have been exclusively Frank.[144]

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Footnote 144:

Sismondi, _Histoire des François_, _Littérature du Midi de l'Europe_; Friedrich Pott; Michaelis; Thierry, _Récits des Temps Mérovingiens_.

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