RO'LAND, the hero of one of the most ancient and popular epics of early French or Prankish literature, was, according to tradition, the favorite nephew and captain of the -emperor Charlemagne. All that history tells us of him is simply this: In 778, when Charlemagne was busily engaged at Paderborn in organizing the government of the recently subjugated pagan Saxons, and superintending their collective baptism and formal admission into the Christian church, lie was visited by a Saracen chief, who, unwilling to recognize the supremacy of the calif of Cordova, offered to put the Frankish sovereign in possession of several towns s. of the Pyrenees which were under his rule. Charlemagne, accepting the offer, marched with a numerous army through the territory of Gascony, whose duke, Loup, he constrained to do him homage, and took Pampelona Saragossa. Finding, however, that his Saracen ally gave him but little -aid, he turned back to return to France; and it was during this retreat, while the Chris tian army was slowly threading its way through the narrow valley of Roncevaux or Roncesvalles (q.v.), that Roland, commander of the marches of Bretagne, who commanded the rear-guard, was suddenly attacked by a large body of Vascons, lying in ambush in the surrounding woods, and slain while fighting gallantly. Beyond these meager details, all that We read of Roland is traditional. The oldest version of the Song (,/' Roland, forming part of the Chansons de Geete, which treat of the achievements of Charlemagne and his paladins, belongs to the 11th c., although it is probable that the original composi- • tions are not much later than the period to which they refer. Throughout the middle ages the Song of Roland was the most popular of the many heroic poems current, and William of Normandy, when on his way to conquer England, had it sung at the head of his troops, to encourage them on their march; while at the present day the traditionary memory of the heroic paladin is still held in honor by the hardy mountaineers of the Pyrenees, amongst whose dangerous defiles the scene of his exploits and death is laid.
According to the poem, Charlemagne had been six years in Spain, when, resolving to return to France, he, by the advice of Roland, sent his captain, Ganelon, on an embassy to the pagan king Marsilius of Saragossa. to receive the homage which he had pledged himself to perform. The mission was a dangerous one, as all other ambassadors to tue king had been slain, and Ganelon, wishing to revenge himself on Roland, proved a traitor, and bet-rayed to Marsilius the route which the Christian army were to take. The consequence was that, after Charlemagne had safely crossed the mountains with the main part of his forces, Roland, who commanded a rear-guard of 20,000 men, was sur prised within the narrow valley of Roncesvalles by a terrible army of all the pagan nations of the world. Roland, who possessed an enchanted horn which could have been heard far beyond the mountains, might have recalled his uncle, but despising such pusillanimity, he fought on till 100,000 Saracens lay slain around him and the 50 warriors who alone remained alive to aid him. Another army of 50,000 men of Carthage, Ethiopia, and Candia now pours down upon him. At length he blows his horn, which is. heard by Charlemagne, who, however, does not return, as GaneIon persuades him once, twice, and thrice that Roland is only hunting the and not until the veins of Ra olnd's peek have burst with the violence of the blast does the emperor retrace his steps. In the !neon while Roland has dragged his dying limbs to the foot of Mt. Cisaire, above Roncesvalles, where, after having his death-song and thrown his trusty and enchanted sword Durandal into a poisoneestream, where it still remains, he dies exhausted from his many wounds. Charlemagne, who arrives too late to save him, avenges his death in a series of marvelous battles end bloody victories, whose delinea tion imparts a sufficiently dark coloring to the passages of this somber epic.