No romance is of more importance to the present subject than the charming Huon de Bordeaux.[68] Generally known, as the story should be, through Wieland's poem and Mr. Sotheby's translation, we trust that we shall be excused for giving some passages from the original French romance, as Le petit roy Oberon appears to form a kind of connecting link between the fairies of romance and the Elves or Dwarfs of the Teutonic nations. When we come to Germany it will be our endeavour to show how the older part of Huon de Bordeaux has been taken from the story of Otnit in the Heldenbuch, where the dwarf king Elberich performs nearly the same services to Otnit that Oberon does to Huon, and that, in fact, the name Oberon is only Elberich slightly altered.[69]
Huon, our readers must know, encounters in Syria an old follower of his family named Gerasmes; and when consulting with him on the way to Babylon he is informed by him that there are two roads to that city, the one long and safe, the other short and dangerous, leading through a wood, "which is sixteen leagues long, but is so full of Fairie and strange things that few people pass there without being lost or stopt, because therewithin dwelleth a king, Oberon the Fay. He is but three feet in height; he is all humpy; but he hath an angelic face; there is no mortal man who should see him who would not take pleasure in looking at him, he hath so fair a face. Now you will hardly have entered the wood, if you are minded to pass that way, when he will find how to speak to you, but of a surety if you speak to him, you are lost for evermore, without ever returning; nor will it lie in you, for if you pass through the wood, whether straightforwards or across it, you will always find him before you, and it will be impossible for you to escape at all without speaking to him, for his words are so pleasant to hear, that there is no living man who can escape him. And if so be that he should see that you are nowise inclined to speak to him, he will be passing wroth with you. For before you have left the wood he will cause it so to rain on you, to blow, to hail, and to make such right marvellous storms, thunder and lightning, that you will think the world is going to end. Then you will think that you see a great flowing river before you, wondrously black and deep; but know, sire, that right easily will you be able to go through it without wetting the feet of your horse, for it is nothing but a phantom and enchantments that the dwarf will make for you, because he wishes to have you with him, and if it so be that you keep firm to your resolve, not to speak to him, you will be surely able to escape," etc.[70]
Huon for some time followed the sage advice of Gerasmes, and avoided Oberon le fayé. The storms of rain and thunder came on as predicted, the magic horn set them all dancing, and at last the knight determined to await and accost the dwarf.
"The Dwarf Fay came riding through the wood, and was clad in a robe so exceeding fine and rich, that it would be a marvel to relate it for the great and marvellous riches that were upon it; for so much was there of precious stones, that the great lustre that they cast was like unto the sun when he shineth full clear. And therewithal he bare a right fair bow in his fist, so rich that no one could value it, so fine it was; and the arrow that he bare was of such sort and manner, that there was no beast in the world that he wished to have, that it did not stop at that arrow. He had at his neck a rich horn, which was hung by two rich strings of fine gold."[71]
This horn was wrought by four Fairies, who had endowed it with its marvellous properties.
Oberon, on bringing Huon to speech, informed him that he was the son of Julius Cæsar, and the lady of the Hidden Island, afterwards called Cephalonia. This lady's first love had been Florimont of Albania, a charming young prince, but being obliged to part from him, she married, and had a son named Neptanebus, afterwards King of Egypt, who begot Alexander the Great, who afterwards put him to death. Seven hundred years later, Cæsar, on his way to Thessaly, was entertained in Cephalonia by the lady of the isle, and he loved her, for she told him he would defeat Pompey, and he became the father of Oberon. Many a noble prince and noble fairy were at the birth, but one Fairy was unhappily not invited, and the gift she gave was that he should not grow after his third year, but repenting, she gave him to be the most beautiful of nature's works. Other Fairies gave him the gift of penetrating the thoughts of men, and of transporting himself and others from place to place by a wish; and the faculty, by like easy means, of raising and removing castles, palaces, gardens, banquets, and such like. He further informed the knight, that he was king and lord of Mommur; and that when he should leave this world his seat was prepared in Paradise—for Oberon, like his prototype Elberich, was a veritable Christian.
When after a variety of adventures Oberon comes to Bordeaux to the aid of Huon, and effects a reconciliation between him and Charlemagne, he tells Huon that the time is at hand that he should leave this world and take the seat prepared for him in Paradise, "en faerie ne veux plus demeurer." He directs him to appear before him within four years in his city of Mommur, where he will crown him as his successor.
Here the story properly ends, but an addition of considerable magnitude has been made by a later hand, in which the story is carried on.
Many are the perils which Huon encounters before the period appointed by Oberon arrives. At length, however, he and the fair Esclairmonde (the Rezia of Wieland) come to Mommur. Here, in despite of Arthur (who, with his sister Morgue la faée and a large train, arrives at court, and sets himself in opposition to the will of the monarch, but is reduced to order by Oberon's threat of turning him into a Luyton de Mer[72]), Huon is crowned king of all Faerie "tant du pais des Luytons comme des autres choses secretes reservées dire aux hommes." Arthur gets the kingdom of Bouquant, and that which Sybilla held of Oberon, and all the Faeries that were in the plains of Tartary. The good king Oberon then gave Huon his last instructions, recommending his officers and servants to him, and charging him to build an abbey before the city, in the mead which the dwarf had loved, and there to bury him. Then, falling asleep in death, a glorious troop of angels, scattering odours as they flew, conveyed his soul to Paradise.