ands as he went
to rest, and not till then did
"God from on high send down to him
One of His angel cherubim."
St. Michael it was, who with St. Gabriel bore his soul to Paradise.
It would be too long a story to tell of the vengeance of the Emperor
Charles, how _the sun stood still_ till the Franks had killed every one
of the Saracens; how Ganelon was accused of treachery, tried by combat,
and sentenced to be torn to pieces by wild horses. The story is a true
tragedy, terrible as the tragedy of Oedipus. From another source we
gather the mournful sequel.
Long before the battle of Roncesvalles Roland and Olivier had met in
single combat on a quiet island in the Rhone. Toward even a fleecy cloud
hovered over them, and from its midst an angel "wrapped in rosy light"
separated the combatants, bidding them be friends, and telling them to
turn their swords against the enemies of the Faith. The heroes shook
hands, the angel vanished, and from that day there were no truer friends
than Roland and Olivier. Their union was further cemented by the
betrothal of Roland to the Lady Alda, Sir Olivier's sister, a maiden who
had already, in Roland's presence, proved herself as bold in war as she
was loving in peace.
ROLLO THE GANGER[4]
[Footnote 4: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
By HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN
(860-932)
[Illustration: Rollo the Ganger.]
When King Harold the Fair-haired, in 872 A.D., had united all the
scattered earldoms of Norway under his own sway, he issued a stringent
order forbidding pillaging within his kingdom under penalty of outlawry.
The custom of sailing out into the world as a viking and plundering
foreign lands, was held to be a most honorable one in those days; and
every chieftain who wished to give his sons the advantages of "a liberal
education" and foreign travel, strained his resources in order to equip
them for such an expedition. But the Norwegians of the ninth century had
as yet no national feeling; and they regarded King Harold's prohibition
against plundering their own shores as absurd and arbitrary. Rollo or
Rolf, the son of the king's best friend, Ragnvald, Earl of Moere,
undertook to disregard the order. Coming home from a cruise in the
Baltic and being short of provisions, he landed in the south of Norway
and made havoc among the coast dwellers. The king, determined to make an
end of the nefarious practice, kept his word and outlawed him.
Rollo, being un
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