ground; the grass grew upon the altars; and no man stopped to plead
with his neighbor. Where had been fields and houses, and fair towns
and lordly castles, now there was naught but woods and underbrush and
thorns. And old Duke Fromont, thus ruined through no fault of his own,
bewailed his misfortunes, and said to his friends, "I have not land
enough to rest upon alive, or to lie upon dead."


[1]The original of this tale is found in "The Song of the Lorrainers,"
a famous poem written by Jehan de Flagy, a minstrel of the twelfth
century. In the "Story of Roland" it is supposed to have been related
at the court of Charlemagne by a minstrel of Lorraine.

[2]_The vair and the gray_,--furs used for garments, and in heraldry.
Vair is the skin of the squirrel, and was arranged in shields of blue
and white alternating.




OGIER THE DANE AND THE FAIRIES

When Ogier the Dane was but a babe in his mother's arms, there was
heard one day, in his father's castle, the sweetest music that mortals
ever listened to. Nobody knew whence the bewitching sounds came; for
they seemed to be now here, now there: yet every one was charmed with
the delightful melody, and declared that only angels could make music
so heavenly. Then suddenly there came into the chamber where Ogier lay
six fairies, whose beauty was so wonderful and awful, that none but a
babe might gaze upon them without fear. And each of the lovely