It 0 M J 
one ate frequently but mere tricks, in comparison of that 
sublime solemnity of necromantic machinery which the 
other so awfully displays. 
He adds, it is also remarkable, that fin the earlier scaldic 
odes we find but few dragons, giants, and fairies. These 
were introduced afterwards, and are the progeny of Arabian 
fancy. Nor, indeed, do these imaginary beings often occur 
in any of the compositions which preceded the introduction 
of that species of fabling. 
It is curious to observe how, in after-times, the Germans 
adapted these legends to the Norman romances of Charle¬ 
magne. As in all other similar cases, a real conqueror, the 
fame of whose exploits survived in tradition, was adopted as 
the central object, around whom were to be assembled a set of 
champions, and with whose history was to be interwoven 
the various feats of courage which they performed, and the 
adventures which they underwent. “ Theodorick, king of the 
Goths, called in these romantic legends Diderick of Bern 
(i.e. Verona), was selected for this purpose by the German 
Minnesingers. Amongst the principal personages intro¬ 
duced are Ezzel, king of the Huns, who is no other than 
the celebrated Attila; and Gunter, king of Burgundy, who 
is identified with a Guntachar of history who really held 
Shat kingdom. The good knight Wolfram de Eschenbach 
seems- to have been the first who assembled the scattered tra¬ 
ditions and minstrel tales concerning these sovereigns into 
one large volume of German verse, entitled Helden-Buc/i, 
or the Book of Heroes. In this the author has avhiled him¬ 
self of the unlimited licence of a romancer; and has con¬ 
nected with the history of Diderick and his chivalry a num¬ 
ber of detached legends which had certainly a separate and 
independent existence. Such is the tale of Sigurd the 
Horny, which has the appearance of having originally been 
a Norse Saga.” 
“ Theodorick, like Charlemagne and Arthur, is considered 
in the romance as a monarch more celebrated for the valor¬ 
ous achievements of the brotherhood of chivalry whom he 
has drawn around him, than for his own, though neither 
deficient in strength or courage. His principal followers have 
each their discriminatory and peculiar attributes. Meister 
Hildebrand, the Nestor of the band, is, like the Maugis of 
Charlemagne's heroes, a magician as well as a champion. 
Hogan, or Hagan, begot betwixt a mortal and a sea-goblin, 
is the fierce Achilles of the confederation. It is the uniform 
custom of the romancers to conclude by a general and over¬ 
whelming catastrophe, which destroys the whole ring of 
chivalry whose feats they had commemorated. The ruin 
which Roncesvalles brought to the Paladins of Charlemagne, 
and the fatal battle of Camlan to the Knights of the Round 
Table, fell upon the warriors of Diderick through the re¬ 
vengeful treachery of Grimhilda, the wife of Ezzel; who, in 
revenge for the death of her first husband, and in her inordi¬ 
nate desire to possess the treasures of the Niilunga or Bur¬ 
gundians, brought destruction oh all these celebrated cham¬ 
pions. Mr. Weber observes that these German fictions differ 
from the romances of French chivalry, in the greater ferocity 
and less refinement of sentiment ascribed to the heroes; and 
also in their employing to a great extent the machinery of 
the Duergar, or Dwarls, a subterranean people to whom the 
Jle/den-Buch ascribes much strength and subtilty, as well as 
profound skill in the magic art; and who seem, to a certain 
extent, the predecessors of the European fairies.” 
But the peculiar and favoured land of chivalry, was 
France; and, with a few exceptions, which we shall pre¬ 
sently notice, nearly all the romance, strictly so called, that 
existed in Europe, was the product of that country; and was 
afterwards translated in English, Italian, &c. The French 
romances are usually divided into two classes—such as turn 
on the history of king Arthur, of Britain, and those which 
commemorate the exploits of Charlemagne. 
It is by no means easy to decide which of these ought to 
be considered .as the more ancient. The historical Arthur 
belonged to an age far remoter than that of the son of Pepin ; 
and it can scarcely be doubted that the people of his own 
race had founded romantic narratives on his adventures 
i N 0 E. 207 
almost in his own time. But the romances concerning hmi 
and his heroes which we now possess, were all, it is obvious, 
the productions of a much more recent time. They are all, 
in a word, distinguished by the vividness with which the 
manners of the most perfect age of chivalry are represented 
in them. Nay, many critics have gone so far as to decide 
against them the question, as ,to their relative antiquity and 
that of the romances of the Charlemagne body, upon this 
ground only, that, as they allege, the spirit of chivalry ap¬ 
pears in them under a purer and more idealized form 
than in the others. Such in particular is the opinion of 
Schlegel. 
There are some circumstances which shew that one of these 
productions was copied, in great measure, from the other, 
with the usual alterations of characters and places. 
“In both, we have a great monarch surrounded by a cycle 
of knightly brothers, all living under the rules of an estab¬ 
lished brotherhood of chivalry. The great object of both 
cycles, is the assertion of the cause of Christ against that of 
a warlike race of misbelievers. Arthur and Ins knights are 
opposed to the bloody heathenism of the Saxon hordes, who 
invaded the civilized, in so far at least, and christianized pro¬ 
vinces of Britain. Charlemagne, and the peers of his cycle, 
are opposed in precisely the same manner to the Mahometans, 
who, in the days of the historical Charlemagne, certainly 
threatened to obliterate every trace of western civilization, 
and to eradicate the Christian faith from the soil of Europe, 
This is the great and presiding idea in these two kindred 
classes of romance; and the picture is filled up in them both 
with materials and colourings of a wonderfully similar nature. 
In each, the monarch-knight forms the centre of a band of 
brothers, among whom the great and leading diversities of 
human character and disposition are divided. In each, pro¬ 
phecies, charms, enchantments, giants, dwarfs, witches, are 
called in to supply the marvellous; in each, amorous and 
ludicrous adventures are employed to relieve the solemnity of 
the main body of the fiction ; in each, we find a crowd of 
minor characters and incidents diverging in all directions 
from the great centre, yet all in some way or other attesting 
their connection with it. What Charlemagne is to his peers, 
the romance of Charlemagne is to its age; and exactly so as 
to Arthur, and the body of fictions of which his Round Table 
is the centre point.” 
According to the French authorities, the earliest metrical 
romances on the subject of Arthur, is “ Le Brut,” (i. e, 
Brutus the Trojan, who founded Britain, corrupted from 
Jirutain , which he had named it.) This piece js the work 
of one Robert Wace, a native of Jersey, who also wrote the 
“ Chevalier au Legon.” . The former work appeared about 
1155. It is founded on the chronicle of Geoffrey, of Mon¬ 
mouth. 
The earliest of the prose romances relating to Arthur, is 
the history of Merlin the Enchanter, who was the son of a 
demon and an innocent young lady, and favourite minister 
of Uter Pendragon, the British king. It was this monarch 
who instituted at Carduel (Carlisle), the order of the Bound 
Table; at which were seated 50 or 60 of the first nobles of 
the country, with an empty place always left for the Sangreal. 
The Sangreal, was the most precious of all the Christian 
relics: it was the blood which flowed from our Saviour’s 
'wounds, preserved in the hatiap or cup in which he drank 
with his apostles the night when he was .betrayed. This, 
relic was first in the possession of Joseph of Arimathea, by 
whom it was brought to Britain, and afterwards fell into the 
hands of king Pecheur, who, by a beautiful ambiguity of the 
French language, might have received this name either from 
being a great fisher or a great sinner, or both. His nephew, 
the. redoubted knight Percival, succeeded to his uncle’s king¬ 
dom and to the possession of the Sangreal; which, at the. 
•moment of Percival's death, was, in the presence of his attend¬ 
ants, carried up into heaven, and has never since been seen 
or beard of. But to return to Merlin—we shall extract from 
Dunlop’s History of Fiction, the following account of bis 
history. 
« Soon after this institution (of the RoundTabie), the Icing 
invited. 
