On parting from his comrades, the gallant Champion of France, the famed
Saint Denis, attended by his squire, Le Crapeau, wandered away through
many lands, slaying many hideous monsters, terrible wild beasts, and
frightful giants, combating in many tournaments, and paying his devoirs
to many fair princesses, as well as other maidens of high and low
degree, in which latter employment he was closely imitated by his
admiring Squire, who jocosely spoke of his master as "that gay young
Knight who laughs and rides away." At length he reached a magnificent
castle in Asia, surrounded by a forest of trees of every conceivable
hue, and bearing fruits tempting to the eye and luscious to the taste.
"If the outside is so attractive, what must the inside be!" quoth he to
Le Crapeau. "Marbleu! but we'll knock and see."
Thereupon the Squire blew the horn which hung at the iron gate; but
instead of its being opened by a burly porter, or by a steel-clad
warrior, a troop of fair damsels appeared, who, with sweet smiles,
invited the Knight to enter, and told him that they would conduct him to
their mistress. Joyfully he followed them, when, in a superb hall, he
beheld, seated on an ivory throne, glittering with diamonds of the
purest water, a lady of beauty more radiant than possessed by any of the
many he counted among his acquaintance. With agile steps, and many a
bow and flourish of his helmet, followed nimbly by Le Crapeau, he
approached the lady, and knelt at her feet.
"Rise, rise, brave Knight! I have heard of your fame and the gallant
deeds you have done, and gladly I welcome you to my humble castle," said
the lady, with a smile so sweet that it went right through the tender
heart of Saint Denis. He bowed, as did his Squire, and assured the lady
that she was in no way deceived by the reports which had reached her
ears, but that what they had done was as nothing compared with what they
purposed to do, and would do most assuredly.
A magnificent banquet then suddenly appeared, spread out in the hall
across which they had lately passed, and strains of softest music broke
forth to give notice that the feast was ready. The lady, led by the
Knight, approached the table, and he took his seat by her side, while Le
Crapeau stood behind his chair, as in duty bound, to serve him.
"We should have guests to meet you," said the lady, "but I live alone,
and your arrival was somewhat sudden, though not unexpected. I have
sent forth to summon some to appear at a ball by-and-bye, as I fancy it
is an entertainment in which your countrymen delight."
"Oui, Madam," cried Le Crapeau, making a pirouette expressive of his
delight; "you will see what my master and I can do when the time comes."
Thus, with agreeable and lively conversation, ample justice was done to
the feast, which was composed of the lightest and most delicate viands,
such as the Knight vowed he had not tasted since he had left his native
land.
While the Knight lay back in his chair, to luxuriate on the thought of
the pleasure his palate had enjoyed, the banqueting-table disappeared,
and when he looked up, troops of gallant knights, in silk attire, and
fair dames, clad in the most dazzling garments, were entering the hall.
Up sprang the Knight, and, offering his hand to the lady, he led her
forth to the centre of the hall, where, to the admiration of all
beholders, and very much to his own satisfaction, he performed a
minuette never surpassed in all Asia. Le Crapeau, meantime, seeing
another damsel of radiant beauty, inferior only to that of the lady of
the castle, led her forth, and bounded away, round and round the hall,
to strains of the most inspiriting and lively music. His only
perplexity was discovering that his fair partner did not speak; indeed,
although all the knights and ladies danced in the most lively way,
closely imitating the two Frenchmen, not a sound escaped their lips. A
variety of dances succeeded, in all of which the Knight and his Squire
excelled all competitors; nor did the festivities cease till the rosy
dawn appearing in the eastern sky, the guests disappeared as silently as
they had entered from the hall, and the lady and the Knight and his
Squire remained its sole occupants. Le Crapeau's partner was the last
to quit it, and as he rushed after her to utter a tender adieu, instead
of the lady, his nose came with such force in contact with a pillar that
he was sent sprawling backwards into the hall.
"Never mind," said the lady, as he picked himself up, "you will see her
to-morrow, and then remember the lesson you have just received, and
don't talk nonsense to her."
A dozen very ugly little black dwarfs, bearing torches in their hands,
now made their appearance, and conducted the Knight to a magnificent
couch prepared for him, while another stood in an adjoining room, ready
for Le Crapeau, after he had performed the duty of disrobing his master.
The dwarfs meantime placed themselves at the door, and intimated that
they would remain there to watch over the strangers while they
slumbered.
After a matutinal meal of delicacies, of which even the Knight had never
heard, the lady conducted him through the castle, and exhibited to him
statues, and pictures, and gems most rare and beautiful, and then she
led him through gardens full of flowers, shrubs, and trees, of forms and
hues and scents most strange and lovely and sweet. Thus occupied, the
banqueting time arrived, followed by a ball as on the previous evening.
Unhappily, Le Crapeau, forgetting the warning he had received, followed
his partner as before, when a hand, coming suddenly out of the wall,
gave him so severe a cuff upon the cheek that for many minutes he lay
unable to move, when at length, much crest-fallen, he slowly crept back
to his post behind his master.
Thus the days passed away. Sometimes the lady led the Knight forth,
mounted on cream-coloured steeds; at others, in a chariot drawn by
twenty beautiful peacocks; at others, they glided over the surface of a
lake in a barge, towed by thirty milk-white swans, and visited scenes of
the most enchanting beauty.
At length, however, the Knight began to weary of the monotony of his
existence, and to sigh for fresh adventures and more excitement. The
Squire, too, wished for change, and was not altogether pleased with the
buffet he regularly got every evening at the termination of the ball.
"A parting scene is always painful," exclaimed the Knight.
"It is," answered the Squire. "I understand your wishes. I will have
the steeds ready, and at early dawn we will ride forth, and leave a
sweet-scented billet to thank the lady for her courtesy, and to inform
her of our departure."
Less difficulty occurred in the execution of the design than might have
been expected, and, rejoicing in their liberty, the Knight and his
Squire rode gaily forth towards the confines of Armenia.
"But we have got well out of that," quoth the Squire to his master. "By
my faith, I like more animation, less formality, and greater variety
than we enjoyed down there."
"You speak the truth, my Le Crapeau; yet she was a sweet creature, that
lady of the castle."
Now, the lady of the castle was no other than a powerful fairy, very
kind and very woman-like, who had conceived an affection for the French
Champion, when she chanced to see him as he journeyed through her realm.
Even good fairies will inflict a punishment.
By means for which they could not account, the Knight and his Squire
lost their way. Round and round they wandered among hills and forests,
till hunger almost drove them to despair, when they were compelled to
sustain nature on the berries and wild fruits which they could pluck
from the trees and shrubs, and on the roots which they dug up with the
points of their swords. After living many months on this hard fare a
mulberry-tree, loaded with luscious fruit, appeared before them.
"Ah!" exclaimed Saint Denis, "on this at least we may banquet with some
pleasure;" and filling his casque with the fruit, his example being
imitated by Le Crapeau, they sat themselves down, with their head-pieces
between their legs, to indulge, to their heart's content, in the
unexpected treat.
The Knight, who eat more leisurely than his Squire, had scarcely
finished his portion when he heard a loud bray close to him, and looking
round, instead of his Squire, to his amazement he beheld a
starved-looking donkey standing near him, and poking his nose into Le
Crapeau's now empty casque.
While yet wondering and mechanically finishing his mulberries, he felt a
very uncomfortable sensation coming over his own head and legs. He rose
from the ground and shook himself, but instead of the accustomed rattle
of his steel armour no sound was produced. He wished to scratch his
nose, but his arms appeared kept down before him. He tried to call Le
Crapeau, but instead of his manly voice, which had so often shouted
loudly in the battle, a timid cry alone proceeded from his throat. He
looked at the donkey, and the donkey looked at him, and shook its head
with an expression truly mournful. Something strange must have occurred
he feared.
Wherever he went the donkey followed. He wandered away from the
mulberry-tree till he reached a lake of crystal water; he approached it,
when, on its mirror-like surface, instead of a steel-clad warrior, he
beheld a deer with long antlers and shaggy hide, he started back with
dismay. When hunger pressed him he found himself cropping the grass or
thrusting his nose into the purling brook, with his attendant donkey
ever by his side. Pitiable as was Saint George's condition that of
Saint Denis was infinitely worse.
Thus for many years he continued unable to recover his natural form.
Often he returned to the mulberry-tree, the cause, as he believed, of
his misfortune. It did not occur to him that the fairy, whose
hospitality he had enjoyed, had anything to do with it. Once, as he
came to the tree, so enraged was he that he ran his horns against it and
nearly broke them. His attendant donkey did the same, and not having
the same protection to his scull, he received a blow so severe that he
was sent reeling backwards till he sunk exhausted on the ground. Saint
Denis was a second time going to butt, when he heard a hollow voice
breathe forth from the trunk the following words:--
"Cease to lament, thou famous man of France,
With gentle ears, oh, listen to my moan!
Once on a time it was my fatal chance
To be the proudest maid that ere was known.
By birth I am the daughter of a king,
Though now a breathless tree and senseless thing.
"My pride was such that Heaven confounded me--
A goddess in my own conceit I was:
What nature lent too base I thought to be,
But deem'd myself all others to surpass.
And therefore nectar and ambrosia sweet,
The food of demigods, for me I counted meet.
"My pride despised the finest bread of wheat,
And richer food I daily sought to find;
Refined gold was boil'd up with my meat,
Such self-conceit my senses all did blind.
For which the cruel fates transformed me,
From human substance to this senseless tree.
"Seven years in shape of stag thou must remain,
And then a purple rose, by magic's firm decree,
Shall bring thee to thy former shape again,
And end at last thy woeful misery:
When this is done, be sure you cut in twain
This fatal tree, wherein I do remain."
The Knight almost fainted when he heard these strange words, and
understood the length of time he was to remain in his transformed
condition. His attendant donkey had also heard the words, and treasured
them up in his memory. Every day, while his master slept, he ranged the
country round, searching for the purple rose, but every evening returned
as wise as he set out. Thus the seven years passed mournfully away.
One day, unmindful how the time had sped, as he trotted on, every now
and then stopping and uttering a melancholy bray, his nostrils scented
the fragrance of some roses; and though his first impulse was to eat
them, on examining them more closely, he observed that they were of
lustrous beauty and of a purple hue. Plucking a number of them, he
trotted back to Saint Denis. He would have brayed with delight, but,
had he done so, he would have dropped the roses, so he restrained
himself till he had laid them before his master's nose. Instantly the
Knight began to devour them, as did the faithful donkey, when, a stupor
coming over them, they couched down on the green-sward.
Presently extraordinary sensations came over them both, and the horns
and hoofs began to loosen, and the skin to roll up in folds, and a
refreshing shower falling, both Knight and Squire, on opening their
eyes, discovered, to their infinite satisfaction, that they were no
longer brute beasts, but that they had recovered their former comely
shapes, and that their hairy hides lay vacant on the ground. Near them
were their arms, now sadly in want of polishing, while their trusty
steeds, long roaming the rich pastures around, no sooner beheld than
recognising them, trotted up to bear them once more to the field of
battle or of fame.
Their first care was to burnish up their armour and their weapons. For
many a weary hour they rubbed.
"We might have saved ourselves all this trouble, and spent the last
seven years more pleasantly and profitably, had we not idled away our
time in the magnificent castle of that beautiful lady down there,"
observed Saint Denis, as he scrubbed away.
"Certes, Master dear, it's a failing I for one have when I get into the
society of the fair sex, I feel little inclination to leave them; but we
have had a pretty sharp lesson, and I hope to amend for the future."
The task was performed at last. Then the Champion, recollecting what
the mulberry-tree had said, drew his sword, and with one blow cut the
stout trunk quite asunder.
Instantly there issued forth a bright flame, from the midst of which
appeared a lovely damsel, clothed in a robe of yellow silk, made from
the cocoons of the innumerable silk-worms, which fed on the tree.
"Oh, most sweet and singular ornament of nature!" exclaimed the Knight,
bowing low before her, as did his Squire; "fairer than the feathers of
the graceful swan, and far more beautiful than Aurora's morning
countenance, to thee, the fairest of all fair ones, most humbly and only
to thy beauty do I here submit my affections. Tell me, therefore, to
whom my heart must pay its true devotions, thy birth, parentage, and
name."
The maiden, to whom it was long since such words had been addressed, was
highly delighted with them, and informed the Knight that her name was
Eglantine, that she was the daughter of the King of the neighbouring
country, Armenia, and assured him that he would be welcomed at her
father's court.
It is not recounted how many ferocious giants and furious lions he and
Le Crapeau slew on the road while escorting the princess, though they
were very numerous. They put to flight also a whole army of Pagans, who
came to carry off their precious charge. Le Crapeau himself, however,
took care not to omit the details, nor did Saint Denis pass them by in
silence. The King of Armenia, who had long mourned his daughter as lost
to him for ever, was so grateful to the French Knight that he at once
promised her to him in marriage, and entertained him with the most
sumptuous banquets and balls, and other pleasant divertisements which
his court could produce.