EARLY ENGLISH ROMANCE OF SIR FERUMBRAS. 



69 



of the Saracen king Garsic (Garsile), to summon Charles to pay 

 liomage to his master, and to abjure the Christian faith ; but by a 

 miracle he is himself converted, and ''forsakes all his gods." He 

 is then betrothed to Belecent, the daughter of Charles, and marches 

 with Charles and his "duzze peres" (douze pairs) to fight against 

 Garsie in Lombardy. Garsie is taken prisoner, and led to Charles 

 by Otuwel, who is rewarded — according to the French Romances, 

 for here our fragment ends — with the hand of Belecent and the 

 crown of Lombardy. 



3. Charlemagne and Roland. This is the title which, according 

 to M. Paris {Hist. Poet, de Charlem., liv. 1, ch. viii.), ought to be 

 given to a poem which we possess only in scattered fragments. 

 The poem belongs probably to the beginning of the 14th century. 

 M. Paris divides it into four parts. 1st. Charlemagne's journey to 

 the Holy Land according to the Latin legend. 2nd. The beginning 

 of the war in Spain after the first chapters of Turpin's Chronicle. 

 3rd. Otuwel, but a different version from that described above. 

 4th. The end of Turpin's history. The first and second parts 

 consist of the poem in the Auchinleck MS., printed for the Abbots- 

 ford Club under the title of Roland and Vernagu, and analysed by 

 Ellis as Roland and Fcrragus (vol. ii., 302). The story of the first 

 part, as related in this poem, should rather be described as Charles's 

 visit to the emperor " Constansious," and that of the second part, 

 which begins on page 15 of the Abbotsford edition, as the combat 

 of Roland and Vernagu. The concluding lines of this second part 

 connect it with the third. 



To Otucl also ycin 

 That was a sarrazin stern 



Ful sone this word sprong. 



This third and the fourtli part are comprised in Mr. Fillingham's 

 MS., which we know only from Ellis's analysis. It contains, ac- 

 cording to Ellis, about 11,000 lines, and relates not only the story 

 of Otuwel (the third part of the poem), but also the conquest of 

 Spain, the deceit of Ganelon, the figlit at Roncevaux, the defeat 

 of the Saracens by Cliarles, and the punishment of Ganelon, which 

 form the fourth part. The poem concludes as follows : — 



Here endcth Otuel, Roland, and Olyuere, 

 And of the twelve dussyperc. 



It is worth while remarking how entirely the meaning of the title 

 given to the peers has been lost by the English poets. Here we 



