young man was detained as a hostage. After
describing their preparations for flight, their method of travel and
camping, the poet relates how they were overtaken in the Vosges
Mountains by a force led by Gunther and Hagen, who wish to secure the
treasures they are carrying. Warned in time by Hildegund,--who keeps
watch while he sleeps,--Walther dons his armor, and single-handed
disposes of many foes. When Gunther Hagen, and Walther alone survive,
although sorely disabled, peace is concluded, and the lovers resume
their journey and reach Aquitania safely, where they reign happily
thirty years.

In the third period "the crusades revived the epic memories of
Charlemagne and Roland and of the triumphs of Alexander," thus giving
birth to a Rolandslied and an Alexanderlied, as well as to endless
chivalrie epics, or romances in verse and prose.

The Rolandslied--an art epic--gives the marriage and banishment of
Charlemagne's sister Bertha, the birth of Roland, the manner in which
he exacted tribute from his playmates to procure clothes, his first
appearance in his uncle's palace, his bold seizure of meat and drink
from the royal table to satisfy his mother's needs, Charlemagne's
forgiveness of his sister for the sake of her spirited boy, the
episode regarding the giant warrior in the Ardennes, the fight with
Oliver, the ambush at Roncevaux, and end with Roland's death and the
punishment of the traitor Ganelon. But later legends claim that
Roland, recovering from the wounds received at Roncevaux, returned to
Germany and to his fiancee Aude, who, deeming him dead, had meantime
taken the veil. We next have Roland's sorrow, the construction of his
hermitage at Rolandseek, [24] whence he continually overlooks the
island of Nonnenwoerth and the convent where his beloved is wearing her
life away in prayers for his soul. This cycle concludes with Roland's
death and burial on this very spot, his face still turned toward the
grave where his sweetheart rests.

In the Langobardian cycle[25] also is the tale of "Rother," supposed
to be Charlemagne's grandfather, one of the court epics of the Lombard
cycle. In King Rother we have the abduction by Rother of the emperor's
daughter, her recovery by her father, and Rother's pursuit and final
reconquest of his wife. The next epic in the cycle, "Otnit," related
the marriage of this king to a heathen princess, her father's gift of
dragon's eggs, and the hatching of these monsters, which ultimat