THE DJVARF REGIN AND ST ELOY. 203 



dwarf directed the education of this prince, and spoke to 

 him of the wonderful treasure of the Nibelungen, raising 

 in him the desire to carry it off to Tafnir. He forged for 

 him the sword 'Gram,' the blade of which was so sharp, 

 that, when plunged in the Rhine, it cut in two a lock of 

 wool carried against it by the current. He also attended 

 to the incomparable steed ' Grani.' ' This skill in fabri- 

 cating arms, and in the management of the horse, appears 

 to have been a particular feature in the history of this 

 people. In the middle ages, so highly were the services 

 of the farrier esteemed, that at the court of the Dukes of 

 Burgundy, on Saint Eloy's day, a piece of silver plate 

 was given to the individual who shod the ducal horses.^ 



St Eloy, Eligius, or Euloge, was Bishop of Noyon in 

 the 7th or 8th century, and by some means or other 

 became the patron saint of farriers, and a gentle name to 

 swear by in the days of Chaucer, who, in his ' Canterbury 

 Pilgrims,' speaks of the 'Nonne' 



* ' That of hir smiling was full simple and coy j 

 Hir greatest othe u'as but by Seint Eloy.' 



The prioress's very tender oath, which custom of swearing 

 was not at all an indelicate one for ladies, even for some 

 centuries after Chaucer's time, has excited much con- 

 tention among the commentators of the old poet. Warton 

 declares that St Loy (the form in which the word appears 

 in all the manuscripts) means, St Lewis ; but in Sir David 

 Lyndesay's writings St Eloy appears as an independent 

 personage, in connection wdth horses or horsemanship, in 



' A. Rt'ville. Etude sur FEpopee des Nibelungen. 

 " E. Huucl. Hist, du Cheval chez tous les Peuples. 



