io2 THE DESCENT OF BALLADS

Later sagas are used freely in the formation of Norse and
Faeroese ballads, and the Faeroese Ormurin langi (from St. Olafs
saga) shows that the process of hewing ballads from such sources
has continued to our own times.

The French 'chansons de geste5 have had no consequences in the
'chansons populates', which originated in the lyric only, nor in
Italy, Germany, or England; but the Spanish 'romances' and the
Scandinavian Viser' have been deeply affected. In Spain there
circulated a local version of the Roncesvalles epic, in a late form
which gave Reinaud de Montauban more importance than Roland.
Reinaud has the same prominence in King Marsm's Flight, a ballad
which is manifestly a fragment. Another ballad, that of Lady Alda,
described in pathetic detail the foreboding dreams of Lady Aude and
the receipt of the news of Roland's death. This piece is complete
in itself, but corresponds in general to the pathetic amplification
given to this incident by decadent epics. By a curious develop-
ment, Roland's sword Durendal became a person in Spanish
balladry, and there is a pretty little cycle describing Durandarte's
love for Belerma and his dying messages. They recall, by way of
contrast, the grimly tragic Sword of Vengeance (Hsevnersverdef) of
Danish and Norse tradition, which leaps of its own accord to kill
a banesman and his child, and can hardly be stopped from killing
its holder also. There also is a sword that speaks, though still a
sword, fitted into an imaginative tableau of epic circumstances.
There is a small fragment of a Norse ballad of Roncesvalles
(Rolandskvsedi) as well as the Faeroese Rumivals Strid, a summary
based on the Karlamagnussaga.

Excavations conducted in this saga have given the Faeroese a
number of not very interesting Carolingian ballads: the Geipa
tdttur which reproduces the gabs and incidents of Charlemagne's
pilgrimage, Emunds rima on Roland's youthful feats, Odvald's rima
relating his fight with this pagan, Flovants rima, Runsivals Strid,
and Oluvu kvsedi, corresponding to the Icelandic Landres-rimur.
The history of the Ogier ballads in Denmark and Spain is more
remarkable.1 The cycle is divided into the thirteenth-century
Enfances, which describe Ogier's combat with the monstrous

1 W. J. Entwistle, 'Concerning certain Spanish ballads in the French cycles
of Aymeri, Awl (Montesinos), and Ogier de Dinamarche*, Studies presented to
1~ K Kastner, Cambridge, 1932. S. Grundtvig, Denmark* gamle Folkeviser,