As he tramped off, the jester said with a majestic air—
“I too will join your host, good fellows, and myself lead ye to battle. Ye have all heard of me; my name is Roland.”
“What? the greatest of Charlemagne’s Paladins?” cried a soldier, laughing. “Welcome to our camp, mighty champion; with thee among us, we have nought to fear!”
“Sing us the ‘Song of Roland,’ if thou be he,” said another man, in a tone betwixt jest and earnest. “I heard it once from an old harper of Gascony, and, St. George be my speed! it stirred my blood like a trumpet!”
The jester at once struck up what was undoubtedly the Song of Roland in one sense, for it was his own composition, and certainly bore every mark of originality—
“My old grey mare made friends with a bear,
And together they went a-dancing,
But out came a snail, and their courage did fail,
When they saw the monster advancing.
“The miller-loon flew up to the moon,