Had I not that dark black horse as a witness of the combat, I should begin to doubt whether I had met the demon.”
“Let us see the demon’s steed,” said the old lord, after he had thanked the knight for his relation of the adventure; “even now the dawn is about to break, and we must seek some little rest before day shines out.”
In the court-yard they found the black steed; his eye lustrous, his neck proudly arched, his coat of shining black, and a glittering war saddle on his back. The first streaks of the dawn began to appear as they entered the castle yard; the black steed grew restless, and tried to break from the hands of the groom; he champed his bit, snorted as in pain and anger, and struck the ground with his feet, until the sparks flew. The cock crowed—the black steed had disappeared.
Every year, on the self-same night, at that self-same hour, did the wound of the English knight burst out afresh, and torment him with severe anguish; to his dying day he bore this memorial of his encounter with the demon champion of the Vandal camp.
“You have made good use of Scott’s version of the tale in Marmion,” said Thompson, “to whom I should think your version of the story was hardly known.”
“No; if I remember rightly, he gives the old Durham tale of Ralph Bulmer as its immediate source, and the strange tale of the Bohemian knights as related by Heywood, in his Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels.”
“The introduction to the story recalls the custom so adroitly used by Chaucer to introduce his Canterbury tales,” remarked Herbert; “tale-telling round the fire.”
“When there was neither juggler nor minstrel present,” replied Lathom, “it seems to have been the custom of our ancestors to entertain themselves by relating or hearing a series of adventures.”
“So that Chaucer’s plan, at first sight so ingenious an invention, is in truth an equally ingenious adaptation of an ancient fashion.”
“But to return to our demonology,” said Lathom; “what notion was more common than that spirits could assume the human form, and live on earth, and mingle as mortals in social life? This belief we find illustrated by the author or authors of the Gesta.”