(Vol. ix., p. 372.)
In justification of Dr. Forbes' identifying Roland the Brave with the hero
of Schiller's ballad, Ritter Toggenburg, I beg to refer your correspondent
X. Y. Z. to _Deutsches Sagenbuch, von L. Bechstein_, Leipzig, 1853, where
(p. 95.) the same tale is related which forms the subject of Mrs. Hemans'
beautiful ballad, only with this difference, that there the account of
Roland's death entirely agrees with Schiller's version of the story,
whereas the English poet has adopted the general tradition of Roland's fall
at Roncesvalles.
Most of the epic poems of the middle ages in which Roland's death is
recorded, especially the different old French _Chansons de Roland ou de
Roncevaux_, an Icelandic poem on the subject, and Stricker's middle-high
German lay of Roland, all of them written between A.D. 1100 and 1230--agree
in this, that after Roland's fall at Roncesvalles, and the complete rout of
the heathen by Charlemagne, the latter returns home and is met--some say at
Aix-la-Chapelle, others at Blavie, others at Paris--by Alda or Alite,
Olivier's sister, who inquires of him where Roland, her betrothed, is. On
learning his fate she dies on the spot of grief. According to monk Conrad
(about A.D. 1175), Alda was Roland's wife. See _Ruolandes Liet, von W.
Grimm_, Goettingen, 1838, pp. 295--297.
The legend of Rolandseck, as told by Bechstein from Rhenish folk lore,
begins thus:
"Es sasz auf hoher Burg am Rhein hoch ueber dem Stromthal ein junger
Rittersmann, Roland geheiszen, (manche sagen Roland von Angers, Neffe
Karls des Groszen), der liebte ein Burgfraeulein, Hildegunde, die
Tochter des Burggrafen Heribert, der auf dem nahen Schlosz Drachenfels
sasz," &c.
Here the question is left open whether the hero of the story was Roland the
Brave, or some other knight of that name. The latter seems the more
probable, as Roland's fall at Roncesvalles is one of the chief subjects of
mediaeval poetry, whereas the death of knight Roland in sight of {476}
Nonnenwerth on the Rhine, forms the very pith of the German local legend.
From certain coincidences, however, it was easy to blend the two stories
together into one, as was done by Mrs. Hemans. As to Schiller, we may
suppose that he either followed altogether a different legend, or, perhaps
to avoid misconception, substituted another name for that of knight Roland,
similar to what he has done in other instances.