[263] Il Viaggio di Carlo Magno in Ispagna, pubblicato per cure di Antonio Ceruti, c. LI, II, 170: Rajna, Uggeri il Danese nella letteratura romanzesca degl' Italiani, Romania IV, 414 ff. A king of Portugal, of the faith of Apollo and Mahound, takes the place of the king of Constantinople in the former, and one Saracen or another in the several versions of the second. G. Paris, in Romania, IX, 3, 10, notes.
[264] The Norwegian version in Karlamagnus Saga ok Kappa hans, ed. Unger, p. 466, the Seventh Part. Both the Swedish and Danish are given in Storm's Sagnkredsene om Karl den Store, etc., Kristiania, 1874, pp. 228-245. For the sources, see p. 160 ff. The whole of the Danish Chronicle of Charlemagne is printed in Brandt's Romantisk Digtning fra Middelalderen, Copenhagen, 1877, the Journey to the Holy Land, p. 146 ff. Brandt does not admit that the Danish chronicle was translated from Swedish: p. 347. The 'Geiplur,' 968 vv, and one version of 'Geipa-táttur,' 340 vv, are included in Koschwitz's Sechs Bearbeitungen, p. 139 ff, p. 174 ff. For a discussion of them see Kölbing in Germania, XX, 233-239, and as to the relations of the several versions, etc., Koschwitz, in Romanische Studien, II, 1 ff, his Ueberlieferung und Sprache der Chanson du Voyage de Charlemagne, and Sechs Bearbeitungen, Einleitung. The Färöe ballad is thought to show traces in some places of Christiern Pedersen's edition of the Danish chronicle, 1584 (Kölbing, as above, 238, 239), or of stall prints founded on that. This does not, however, necessarily put the ballad into the sixteenth century. Might not Pedersen have had ballad authority for such changes and additions as he made? It may well be supposed that he had, and if what is peculiar to Pedersen may have come from ballads, we must hesitate to derive the ballads from Pedersen. It is, moreover, neither strange nor unexampled that popular ballads should be affected by tradition committed to print as well as by tradition still floating in memory. The Färöe copies of 'Greve Genselin,' for example, as Grundtvig remarks, I, 223, note, though undoubtedly original and independent of Danish, evince acquaintance with Vedel's printed text.
[265] Given, with an English translation by Professor Rhys, in Sechs Bearbeitungen, p. 1, p. 19.
[266] There are some variations in the list of relics in the other versions. The Rímur say "many," without specifying.
[267] On the way from Jerusalem to Constantinople the French, according to Galien, were waylaid by several thousand Saracens. Three or four of the peers prepared for a fight, though armed only with swords ("which they never or only most reluctantly put off," Arsenal MS.), but Charles and the rest felt a better confidence in the relics, and through the prayers of the more prudent and pious of the company their foes were turned into rocks and stones.
[268] The heir of a Scandinavian king, or earl, at the feast which solemnized his accession, drank a bragur-full, a chief's cup or king's toast, to the memory of his father, and then made some important vow. This he did before he took his father's seat. The guests then made vows. The custom seems not to have been confined to these funeral banquets. See Vigfusson, at the word Bragr. Charles and his peers show their blood.
[269] Excepting the Welsh translation, which conforms to the original, all other versions give Bernard's gab to Turpin, and most others Turpin's to Bernard. The Danish chronicle assigns the "grand three-horse act" to Gerard; the Färöe ballad omits it; the two manuscript Galiens attribute it to Bernard [Berart] de Mondidier, the printed Galien to Berenger. In these last the feat is, though enormously weighted with armor, to leap over two horses and come down on the back of the third so heavily as to break his bones. There are, in one version or another, other differences as to the feats.
[270] In Galien, Hugo is exceedingly frightened by Charlemagne's fierce demeanor and by what he is told by a recreant Frenchman who is living in exile at his court, and rouses the city for an assault on his guests, in which he loses two thousand of his people. A parley ensues. Hugo will hear of no accommodation unless the gabs are performed. "Content," says Charles, angrily, "they shall be, if you wish;" but he feels how great the peril is, and goes to church to invoke the aid of heaven, which is vouchsafed.
[271] Arthur is said to have "socht to the ciete of Criste," in 'Golagros and Gawane,' Madden's 'Syr Gawayne,' p. 143, v. 302. The author probably followed the so-called Nennius, c. 63.
[272] Cf. 'Young Beichan,' where the porter has also served thirty years and three; 'The Grene Knight,' Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, II, 62; the porter in Kilhwch and Olwen, Mabinogion, II, 255 f.