nd that in the year 778 A.D. Charlemagne, accompanied by his nephew,
Count Roland of Bretagne, and the flower of Frankish chivalry, made a
raid across the Spanish border. Abdalrahman, the first of the great
Spanish caliphs of Cordova, was engaged in putting down the rebellious
chiefs who had refused to own their allegiance to the new caliphate. The
frontier was therefore comparatively unprotected. The Spanish
Christians, who maintained a precarious independence among the Asturias
and Pyrenees, and who found it the wisest policy to be at peace with the
Mohammedan rulers, were not strong enough to resist Charlemagne.
Accordingly the Franks advanced nearly to Saragossa. On returning to
France laden with spoil through the winding defile of Roncesvalles (the
valley of thorns or briers), their rear-guard was cut off by a band of
Basques or Gascons and Spanish-Arabians, and their leader, Roland,
slain. To the presence of these Spanish Christians in the Moorish army
must be attributed the origin of the many Spanish ballads on the
victory, in which all the glory is due to the prowess of the national
hero, Bernardo Del Carpio, "the doughtiest lance in Spain." It is
curious also to note, on the other hand, that the Arabians themselves in
their chronicles, translated by the Spanish historian Conde, make little
of this victory, merely mentioning the fact. The Saracen King Marsil, or
Marsilius, of Saragossa, so often referred to in this and other
Carlovingian romances, is identified by Conde with the Mohammedan Wali,
or Governor of Saragossa, Abdelmelic, the son of Omar, called by the
Christians Omarus Filius, hence the corruption Marsilius.

With these brief outlines of the history of Roncesvalles before us it is
interesting to observe the grandiloquent strain of the old Norman
_rymours_, the fearless exaggerations, and the total ignorance of the
actual state of affairs in Spain under the enlightened and accomplished
Arabians.

_"Carles li reis nostre emperere magnes,
Set anz tut pleins ad estet en Espaigne."_

Our great emperor Charles the King had been for seven full years in
Spain, so runs the chronicle; castle and keeper alike had gone down
except Saragossa, the mountain town, where King Marsil held his court,
surrounded by 20,000 Mohammedan nobles. At their council it was agreed
to accept Spain as a fief from the emperor, and ten knights set out with
golden bridles and silver saddles,

"And they ride with olive boug