And aye their swordes soe sore can byte,
Throughe help of Gramaryè
That soone they have slayne the kempery men,275
Or forst them forth to flee.
Kyng Estmere tooke that fayre ladyè,
And marryed her to his wiffe,
And brought her home to merry Englànd
With her to leade his life.280
⁂ The word Gramaryè,[468] which occurs several times in the foregoing poem, is probably a corruption of the French word Grimoire, which signifies a conjuring book in the old French romances, if not the art of necromancy itself.
†‡† Termagaunt (mentioned above, p. [85]) is the name given in the old romances to the god of the Saracens, in which he is constantly linked with Mahound or Mahomet. Thus, in the legend of Syr Guy, the Soudan (Sultan), swears
"So helpe me Mahowne of might,
And Termagaunt my god so bright."
Sign. p. iii. b.
This word is derived by the very learned editor of Junius from the Anglo-Saxon Tẏꞃ very, and Maᵹan mighty. As this word had so sublime a derivation, and was so applicable to the true God, how shall we account for its being so degraded? Perhaps Tẏꞃ-maᵹan or Termagant had been a name originally given to some Saxon idol, before our ancestors were converted to Christianity; or had been the peculiar attribute of one of their false deities; and therefore the first Christian missionaries rejected it as profane and improper to be applied to the true God. Afterwards, when the irruptions of the Saracens into Europe, and the Crusades into the East, had brought them acquainted with a new species of unbelievers, our ignorant ancestors, who thought all that did not receive the Christian law were necessarily pagans and idolaters, supposed the Mahometan creed was in all respects the same with that of their pagan forefathers, and therefore made no scruple to give the ancient name of Termagant to the god of the Saracens, just in the same manner as they afterwards used the name of Sarazen to express any kind of pagan or idolater. In the ancient romance of Merline (in the editor's folio MS.) the Saxons themselves that came over with Hengist, because they were not Christians, are constantly called Sarazens.
However that be, it is certain that, after the times of the Crusades, both Mahound and Termagaunt made their frequent appearance in the pageants and religious interludes of the barbarous ages; in which they were exhibited with gestures so furious and frantic, as to become proverbial. Thus Skelton speaks of Wolsey:—
"Like Mahound in a play,
No man dare him withsay."