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Such is the sober fact. Fancy has adorned it with a thousand loving fictions. In the valleys are told a multitude of tales connected with Roland’s name. A part of his armor has given its name to a flower of the hills, the casque de Roland, a species of hellebore. The breiche de Roland, a deep fissure in the mountain crest, is ascribed to a stroke of his mighty blade. The sound of his magic horn still seems to echo around those rugged crests and pulse through those winding valleys, as it did on the day when, as legend says, it was borne to the ears of Charlemagne miles away, and warned him of the deadly peril of his favorite chieftain.

This horn is reputed to have had magical powers. Its sound was so intense as to split all other horns. The story goes that Roland, himself sadly wounded, his fellows falling thickly around him, blew upon it so mighty a blast that the veins and nerves of his neck burst under the effort. The sound reached the ears of Charlemagne, then encamped eight miles away, in the Val Carlos pass.

“It is Roland’s horn,” he cried. “He never blows it except the extremity be great. We must hasten to his aid.”

“I have known him to sound it on light occasions,” answered Ganalon, Roland’s secret foe. “He is, perhaps, pursuing some wild beast, and the sound echoes through the wood. It would be fruitless to lead back your weary host to seek him.”

Charlemagne yielded to his specious argument, and Roland and all his followers died. Charles afterwards discovered the body with the arms extended in the form of a cross, and wept over it his bitterest tears. “There did Charlemagne,” says the legend, “mourn for Orlando to the very last day of his life. On the spot where he died he encamped and caused the body to be embalmed with balsam, myrrh, and aloes. The whole camp watched it that night, honoring his corpse with hymns and songs, and innumerable torches and fires kindled in the adjacent mountains.”

At the battle of Hastings the minstrel Taillefer, as we have elsewhere told, rode before the advancing Norman host, singing the “Song of Roland,” till a British hand stilled his song and laid him low in death. This ancient song is attributed, though doubtfully, to Turold, that abbot of Peterborough who was so detested by Hereward the Wake. From it came many of the stories which afterwards were embodied in the epic legends of mediaeval days. To quote a few passages from it may not be amiss. The poet tells us that Roland refused to blow his magic horn in the beginning of the battle. In the end, when ruin and death were gathering fast around, and blood was flowing freely from his own veins, he set his lips to the mighty instrument, and filled vales and mountains with its sound.

“With pain and dolor, groan and pant,
Count Roland sounds his Olifant:
The crimson stream shoots from his lips;
The blood from bursten temple drips;
But far, oh, far, the echoes ring,
And in the defiles reach the king,
Reach Naymes and the French array;
”Tis Roland’s horn,’ the king doth say;
‘He only sounds when brought to bay,’
How huge the rocks! how dark and steep
The streams are swift; the valleys deep!
Out blare the trumpets, one and all,
As Charles responds to Roland’s call.
Round wheels the king, with choler mad
The Frenchmen follow, grim and sad;
No one but prays for Roland’s life,
Till they have joined him in the strife.
But, ah! what prayer can alter fate?
The time is past; too late! too late!”

The fight goes on. More of the warriors fall. Oliver dies. Roland and Turpin continue the fight. Once more a blast is sent from the magic horn.