ON THE ANCIENT METRICAL I. The first attempts at composition among all barbarous nations are ever found to be poetry and song. The praises of their gods, and the achievements of their heroes, are usually chanted at their festival meetings. These are the first rudiments of history. It is in this manner that the savages of North America preserve the memory of past events;* and the same method is known to have prevailed among our Saxon ancestors, before they quitted their German forests.† The ancient Britons had their bards, and the Gothic nations their scalds or popular poets, whose business it was to record the victories of their warriors, and the genealogies of their princes, in a kind of narrative songs, which were committed to memory, and delivered down from one reciter to another. So long as poetry continued a distinct profession, and while the bard or scald was a regular and stated officer in the prince's court, these men are thought to have performed the functions of the historian pretty faithfully; for though their narrations would be apt to receive a good deal of embellishment, they are supposed to have had at the bottom so much of truth as to serve for the basis of more regular annals. At least succeeding historians have taken up with the relations of these rude men, and, for want of more authentic records, have agreed to allow them the credit of true history.2 After letters began to prevail, and history assumed a more stable form, by being committed to plain simple prose; these songs of the scalds or bards began to be more amusing than useful. And in proportion as it became their business chiefly to entertain and delight, they gave more and more into embellishment, and set off their recitals with such marvellous fictions as were calculated to captivate gross * Vid. Lasiteau Mœurs des Sauvages, t. ii. Dr. Browne's Hist. of the Rise and Progress of Poetry. + Germani celebrant carminibus antiquis (quod unum apud illos memoriæ et annalium genus est) Tuistonem, &c. Tacit. Germ. c. 2. Barth. Antiq. Dan. lib. i. cap. 10.-Wormii Literatura Runica, ad finem. See "Northern Antiquities, or a Description of the Manners, Customs, &c., of the ancient Danes and other northern Nations, translated from the French of M. Mallet," 1770, 2 vol. 8vo. (vol. i. p. 49, &c.) and ignorant minds. Thus began stories of adventurers with giants and dragons, and witches and enchanters, and all the monstrous extravagances of wild imagination, unguided by judgment and uncorrected by art.* This seems to be the true origin of that species of romance which so long celebrated feats of chivalry, and which at first in metre, and afterwards in prose, was the entertainment of our ancestors, in common with their contemporaries on the Continent, till the satire of Cervantes, or rather the increase of knowledge and classical literature, drove them off the stage, to make room for a more refined species of fiction, under the name of French romances, copied from the Greek.† That our old romances of chivalry may be derived in a lineal descent from the ancient historical songs of the Gothic bards and scalds, will be shown below, and indeed appears the more evident, as many of those songs are still preserved in the north, which exhibit all the seeds of chivalry before it became a solemn institution. "Chivalry, as a distinct military order, conferred in the way of investiture, and accompanied with the solemnity of an oath, and other ceremonies," was of later date, and sprung out of the feudal constitution, as an elegant writer has clearly shown. But the ideas of chivalry prevailed long before in all the Gothic nations, and may be discovered as in embryo in the customs, manners, and opinions of every branch of that people. That fondness of going in quest of adventures, that spirit of challenging to single combat, and that respectful complaisance shown to the fair sex (so different from the manners of the Greeks and Romans), all are of Gothic origin, and may be traced up to the earliest times among all the northern nations. || These existed long before the feudal ages, though they were called forth and strengthened in a peculiar manner under that constitution, and at length arrived to their full maturity in the times of the Crusades, so replete with romantic adventures.T Vid. infra, pp. 4, 5, &c. + Viz. Astræa, Cassandra, Clelia, &c. Mallet, vid. Northern Antiquities, vol. i. p. 318, &c., vol. ii. p. 234, &c. Letters concerning Chivalry, 8vo. 1763. The seeds of chivalry sprung up so naturally out of the original manners and opinions of the northern nations, Even the common arbitrary fictions of ro- | Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and the mance were (as is hinted above) most of them north. For it seems utterly incredible that familiar to the ancient scalds of the north, one rude people should adopt a peculiar taste long before the time of the crusades, They and manner of writing or thinking from anbelieved the existence of giants and dwarfs ;* other, without borrowing at the same time they entertained opinions not unlike the more any of their particular stories and fables, modern notion of fairies;† they were strongly without appearing to know anything of their possessed with the belief of spells and en- heroes, history, laws, and religion. When chantment and were fond of inventing the Romans began to adopt and imitate the combats with dragons and monsters.? Grecian literature, they immediately naturalized all the Grecian fables, histories, and religious stories; which became as familiar to the poets of Rome as of Greece itself. Whereas all the old writers of chivalry, and of that species of romance, whether in prose or verse, whether of the northern nations, or of Britain, France, and Italy, not excepting Spain itself,* appear utterly unacquainted everything must be derived from them to the northern Asiatics in the remotest ages, &c. With as much reason under the word Occidental, we might represent the early traditions and fables of the north and south of Europe to have been the same; and that the Gothic mythology of Scandinavia or the Druidic or Celtic of Gaul and Britain, differed not from the classic of Greece and Rome. The opinion therefore seems very untenable, which some learned and ingenious men have entertained, that the turn for chivalry, and the taste for that species of romantic fiction, were caught by the Spaniards from the Arabians or Moors after their invasion of Spain, and from the Spaniards transmitted to the bards of Armorica,|| and thus diffused through that it is not credible they arose so late as after the establishment of the feudal system, much less the crusades. Nor again, that the romances of chivalry were transmitted to other nations, through the Spaniards, from the Moors and Arabians. Had this been the case, the first French Romances of chivalry would have been on Moorish or at least Spanish subjects: whereas the most ancient stories of this kind, whether in prose or verse, whether in Italian, French, English, &c., are chiefly on the subjects of Charlemagne, and the Paladins; or of our British Arthur, and his knights of the Round Table, &c., being evidently borrowed from the fabulous Chronicles of the supposed Archbishop Turpin, and of Jeffery of Monmouth. Not but some of the oldest and most popular French romances are also on Norman subjects, as Richard Sans-peur, Robert Le Duble, &c.; whereas I do not recollect so much as one in which the scene is laid in Spain, much less among the Moors, or descriptive of Mahometan manners. Even in Amadis de Gaul, said to have been the first romance printed in Spain, the scene is laid in Gaul and Britain; and the manners are French: which plainly shows from what school this species of fabling was learnt and transmitted to the southern nations of Europe. * Mallet, North. Antiquities, vol. i. p. 36; vol. ii. passim Olaus Verel. ad Hervarer Saga, pp. 44, 45. Ilickes's Thesaur. vol. ii. p. 311. Northern Antiquities, vol. ii. passim. Ibid. vol. i. pp. 69, 374, &c., vol. ii. p. 216, &c. It is peculiarly unfortunate that such as maintain this opinion are obliged to take their first step from the Moorish provinces in Spain, without one intermediate resting-place, to Armorica or Bretagne, the province in France from them most remote, not more in situation than in the manners, habits, and language of its Welsh inhabitants, which are allowed to have been derived from this island, as must have been their traditions, songs, and fables; being doubtless all of Celtic original. See p. 3, of the "Dissertation on the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe," prefixed to Mr. Thos. Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. 1774, 4to. If any pen could have supported this darling hypothesis of Dr. Warburton, that of this ingenious critic would have effected it. But under the general term Oriental he seems to consider the ancient inhabitants of the north and south of Asia as having all the same manners, traditions, and fables; and because the secluded people of Arabia took the lead under the religion and empire of Mahomet, therefore There is not room here for a full examination of the minuter arguments, or rather slight coincidences, by which our agreeable dissertator endeavours to maintain and defend this favourite opinion of Dr. W., who has been himself so completely confuted by Mr. Tyrwhitt. (See his notes on "Love's Labour Lost," &c.) But some of his positions it will be sufficient to mention: such as the referring the Gog and Magog, which our old Christian bards might have had from Scripture, to the Jaguiouge and Magiouge of the Arabians and Persians, &c.. (p. 13.)-That "we may venture to affirm, that this [Geoffrey of Monmouth's] Chronicle, supposed to contain the ideas of the Welsh bards, entirely consists of Arabian inventions." (p. 13.)-And that, "as Geoffrey's History is the grand repository of the acts of Arthur, so a fabulous history, ascribed to Turpin, is the ground-work of all the chimerical legends which have been related concerning the conquests of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. Its subject is the expulsion of the Saracens from Spain; and it is filled with fictions evidently con. genial to those which characterize Geoffrey's History." (p. 17.)-That is, as he afterwards expresses it, "lavishly deco rated by the Arabian fablers." (p. 58.)--We should hardly have expected that the Arabian fablers would have been lavish in decorating a history of their enemy; but what is singular, as an instance and proof of this Arabian origin of the fictions of Turpin, a passage is quoted from his fourth chapter, which I shall beg leave to offer, as affording decisive evidence that they could not possibly be derived from a Mahometan source. Sc. "The Christians under Charlemagne are said to have found in Spain, a golden idol, or image of Mahomet, as high as a bird can fly.-It was framed by Mahomet himself of the purest metal, who, by his knowledge in necromancy, had sealed up within it a legion of diabolical spirits. It held in its hand a prodigious club; and the Saracens had a prophetic tradition, that this club should fall from the hand of the image in that year when a certain king should be born in France," &c. Vid. p. 18, Note. *The little narrative songs on Morisco subjects, which the Spaniards have at present in great abundance, and with whatever relates to the Mahometan nations. Thus with regard to their religion, they constantly represent them as worshipping idols, as paying adoration to a golden image of Mahomet, or else they confound them with the ancient Pagans, &c. And indeed, in all other respects they are so grossly ignorant of the customs, manners, and opinions of every branch of that people, especially of their heroes, champions, and local stories, as almost amounts to a demonstration that they did not imitate them in their songs or romances: for as to dragons, serpents, necromancies, &c., why should these be thought only derived from the Moors in Spain so late as after the eighth century? since notions of this kind appear too familiar to the northern scalds, and enter too deeply into all the northern mythology, to have been transmitted to the unlettered Scandinavians, from so distant a country, at so late a period. If they may not be allowed to have brought these opinions with them in their original migrations from the north of Asia, they will be far more likely to have borrowed them from the Latin poets after the Roman conquests in Gaul, Britain, Germany, &c. For I believe one may challenge the maintainers of this opinion to produce any Arabian poem or history, that could possibly have been then known in Spain, which resembles the old Gothic romances of chivalry half so much as the Metamorphoses of Ovid. But we well know that the Scythian nations situate in the countries about Pontus, Colchis, and the Euxine Sea, were in all times infamous for their magic arts; and as Odin and his followers are said to have come precisely from those parts of Asia, we can readily account for the prevalence of fictions of this sort among the Gothic nations of the north, without fetching them from the Moors in Spain, who for many centuries after their irruption lived in a state of such constant hostility with the unsubdued Spanish Chris which they call peculiarly romances (see Series I. Book iii. No. 16. &c.), have nothing in common with their proper romances (or histories) of chivalry; which they call Histo rias de Cavallerias: these are evidently imitations of the French, and show a great ignorance of Moorish manners: and with regard to the Morisco, or song-romances, they do not seem of very great antiquity: few of them appear, from their subjects, much earlier than the reduction of Granada, in the fifteenth century: from which period, I believe, may be plainly traced, among the Spanish writers, a more perfect knowledge of Moorish customs, &c. tians, whom they chiefly pent up in the mountains, as gave them no chance of learning their music, poetry, or stories; and this, together with the religious hatred of the latter for their cruel invaders, will account for the utter ignorance of the old Spanish romancers in whatever relates to the Mahometan nations, although so nearly their own neighbours. On the other hand, from the local customs and situations, from the known manners and opinions of the Gothic nations in the North, we can easily account for all the ideas of chivalry, and its peculiar fictions.* For, not to mention their distinguished respect for the fair sex, so different from the manners of the Mahometan nations, their national and domestic history so naturally assumes all the wonders of this species of fabling, that almost all their historical narratives appear regular romances. One might refer, in proof of this, to the old northern Sagas in general: but, to give a particular instance, it will be sufficient to produce the history of King Regner Lodbrog, a celebrated warrior and pirate, who reigned in Denmark about the year 800. This hero signalized his youth by an exploit of gallantry. A Swedish prince had a beautiful daughter, whom he intrusted (probably during some expedition) to the care of one of his officers, assigning a strong castle for their defence. The officer fell in love with his ward, and detained her in his castle, spite of all the efforts of her father. Upon this he published a proclamation, through all the neighbouring countries, that whoever would conquer the ravisher, and rescue the lady, should have her in marriage. Of all that undertook the adventure, Regner alone was so happy as to achieve it; he delivered the fair captive, and obtained her for his prize. It happened that the name of this discourteous officer was Orme, which, in the Islandic language, signifies serpent: wherefore the Scalds, to give the more poetical turn to the adventure, represent the lady as detained from her father by a dreadful dragon, and that Regner slew the monster to set her at liberty. This fabulous account of the exploit is given in a poem still extant, which is even ascribed to Regner himself, who was *See Northern Antiquities, passim. † Ibid. Saxon Gram. p. 152, 153.--Mallet, North. Antiq. vol. i. p. 321. a celebrated poet, and which records all the observed) a multitude of sagas,* or histories valiant achievements of his life.* With marvellous embellishments of this kind, the scalds early began to decorate their narratives: and they were the more lavish of these in proportion as they departed from their original institution; but it was a long time before they thought of delivering a set of personages and adventures wholly feigned. Of the great multitude of romantic tales still preserved in the libraries of the north, most of them are supposed to have had some foundation in truth; and the more ancient they are, the more they are believed to be connected with true history.† It was not probably till after the historian and the bard had been long disunited, that the latter ventured at pure fiction. At length, when their business was no longer to instruct or inform, but merely to amuse, it was no longer needful for them to adhere to truth. Then succeeded fabulous songs and romances in verse, which for a long time prevailed in France and England, before they had books of chivalry in prose. Yet, in both these countries, the minstrels still retained so much of their original institution as frequently to make true events the subject of their songs; and, indeed, as during the barbarous ages, the regular histories were almost all written in Latin by the monks, the memory of events was preserved and propagated among the ignorant laity, by scarce any other means than the popular songs of the minstrels. II. The inhabitants of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, being the latest converts to Christianity, retained their original manners and opinions longer than the other nations of Gothic race: and, therefore, they have preserved more of the genuine compositions of their ancient poets than their southern neighbours. Hence the progress among them, from poetical history to poetical fiction, is very discernible: they have some old pieces, that are in effect complete romances of chivalry. They have also (as hath been * See a Translation of this poem among "Five Pieces of Runic Poetry," printed for Dodsley, 1764, 8vo. T Vid. Mallet, Northern Antiquities, passim. The Editor's MS, contains a multitude of poems of this latter kind. It was probably from this custom of the minstrels that some of our first historians wrote their chronicles in verse, as Robert of Gloucester, Harding, &c. See a specimen in 2d vol. of Northern Antiquities, &c., p. 248, &c. on romantic subjects, containing a mixture of prose and verse of various dates, some of them written since the times of the crusades, others long before; but their narratives in verse only are esteemed the more ancient. Now, as the irruption of the Normanst into France under Rollo did not take place till towards the beginning of the tenth century, at which time the Scaldic art was arrived to the highest perfection in Rollo's native country, we can easily trace the descent of the French and English romances of chivalry from the northern sagas. That conqueror doubtless carried many scalds with him from the north, who transmitted their skill to their children and successors. These, adopting the religion, opinions, and language of the new country, substituted the heroes of Christendom instead of those of their pagan ancestors, and began to celebrate the feats of Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver; whose true history they set off and embellished with the scaldic figments of dwarfs, giants, dragons, and enchantments. The first mention we have in song of those heroes of chivalry, is in the mouth of a Norman warrior at the conquest of England; and this circumstance alone would sufficiently account for the propagation of this kind of romantic poems among the French and Eng lish. But this is not all; it is very certain that both the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks had brought with them, at their first emigrations into Britain and Gaul, the same fondness for the ancient songs of their ancestors, which prevailed among the other Gothic tribes, and that all their first annals were transmitted in these popular oral poems. This fondness they even retained long after their conversion to Christianity, as we learn from the examples of Charlemagne and Alfred. || Now * Eccardi Hist. Stud. Etym. 1711, p. 179, &c. Hickes's Thesaur. vol. ii. p. 314. i. e. Northern Men: being chiefly emigrants from Norway, Denmark, &c. See the account of Taillefer in Essay and Note. Ipsa carmina memoria mandabant, et prælia inituri decantabant: qua memoria tam fortium gestorum à majori. bus patratorum ad imitationem animus adderetur. Jornandes de Gothis. Eginhartus de Carolo magno. "Item barbara, et antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, scripsit," c. 29. Asserius de Elfredo magno. "Rex inter bella, &c. ... poetry, being thus the transmitter of facts, | already seen, that, in the preceding century, when the Normans marched down to the bat- would as easily learn to blend them with fic- name. The Latin tongue, as is observed by an in- kind; others And we have Saxonicos libros recitare, et maxime carmina Saxonica. The romances on the subject of Perceval, San Graal, Voi Preface aux "Fabliaux et Contes des Poetes Fran- So early as this I cannot trace the songs there is good reason to believe that the Eng- The stories of King Arthur and his Round- * See the account of Taillefer in Essay, and Note. And was) continued for some centuries to be usually sung by the French in their marches, if we may believe a modern French writer. "Un jour qu'on chantoit la Chanson de temps, dit il [John K. of France, who died in 1634], qu'on † See, on this subject, Notes on the Essay on the Ancient The first romances of chivalry among the Germans were The Welsh have still some very old romances about It is most credible that these stories were originally of |