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.