Of all the Charlemagne romances, that of Fierabras or Ferumbras has certainly obtained the highest degree of popularity, as is shown by the numerous versions and reproductions of this romance, from the 13th century down to the present day.
When the art of printing first became general, the first romance that was printed was a prose version of Fierabras; and when the study of mediæval metrical romances was revived in this century, the Fierabras poem was the first to be re-edited.[2]
The balm of Fierabras especially seems to have been celebrated for its immediately curing any wound; we find it referred to and minutely described in Florian’s Don Quichotte, I. chap. 10. The scene of Fierabras challenging to a combat the twelve peers of France, and of his vaunting offer to fight at once with six (or twelve) of them,[3] must also have been pretty familiar to French readers, as the name of Fierabras is met with in the sense of a simple common noun, signifying “a bragging bully or swaggering hector.”[4]
Rabelais[5] also alludes to Fierabras, thinking him renowned enough as to figure in the pedigree of Pantagruel.
In 1833, on a tour made through the Pyrenees, M. Jomard witnessed [‹vii›] a kind of historical drama, represented by villagers, in which Fierabras and Balan were the principal characters.[6]
That in our own days, the tradition of Fierabras continues to live, is evident from the fact, that copies of the Fierabras story, in the edition of the Bibliothèque Bleue, still circulate amongst the country people of France.[7] There is even an illustrated edition, published in 1861, the pictures of which have been executed by no less an artist than Gustave Doré. And like Oberon, that other mediæval hero of popular celebrity,[8] Fierabras has become the subject of a musical composition. There is an Opera Fierabras composed by Franz Schubert (words by Joseph Kupelwieser) in 1823, the overture of which has been arranged for the piano in 1827, by Carl Czerny.[9]
The different versions and the popularity of the present romance in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, having been treated in the Introduction to Sir Ferumbras, we need not repeat it again here.[10] As to the popularity of the Fierabras romance in the Netherlands, the following passage from Hoffmann, Horæ Belgicæ (Vratislaviæ, 1830), I. 50, may be quoted here[11]:—
“Quam notæ Belgis, sec. xiii. et xiv., variæ variarum nationum fabulæ fuerint, quæ ex Gallia septemtrionali, ubi originem ceperunt, translatæ sunt, pauca hæc testimonia demonstrabunt:— . . . . in exordio Sidraci:—[12]
‘Dickent hebbic de gone ghescouden,
die hem an boeken houden