nearly the same services to Otnit that Oberon does to Huon, and that, in fact, the name Oberon is only Elberich slightly altered.*

Huon, our readers must know, encounters in Syria an old follower of his family named Gerasmes; and when consulting with him on the way to Babylon he is informed by him that there are two roads to that city, the one long and safe, the other short and dangerous, leading through a wood, "which is sixteen leagues long, but is so full of Fairie and strange things that few people pass there without being lost or stopt, because therewithin dwelleth a king, Oberon the Fay. He is but three feet in height; he is all humpy; but he hath an angelic face; there is no mortal man who should see him who would not take pleasure in looking at him, he hath so fair a face. Now you will hardly have entered the wood, if you are minded to pass that way, when he will find how to speak to you, but of a surety if you speak to him, you are lost for evermore, without ever returning; nor will it lie in you, for if you pass through the wood, whether straightforwards or across it, you will always find him before you, and it will be impossible for you to escape at all without speaking to him, for his words are so pleasant to hear, that there is no living man who can escape him. And if so be that he should see that you are nowise inclined to speak to him, he will be passing wroth with you. For before you have left the wood he will cause it so to rain on you, to blow, to hail, and to make such right marvellous storms, thunder and lightning, that you will think the world is going to end. Then you will think that you see a great flowing river before you, wondrously black and deep; but know, sire, that right easily will you be able to go through it without wetting the feet of your horse, for it is nothing but a phantom and enchantments that the dwarf will make for you, because he wishes to have you with him, and if it so be that you keep

Otnit was supposed to have been written by Wolfram von Eschembach, in the early part of the thirteenth century. It is possibly much older. Huon de Bordeaux was, it is said, written in French verse by Huon de Villeneuve, some time in the same century. It does not appear in the list of Huon de Villeneuve's works given by Mons. de Roquefort. At the end of the prose romance we are told that it was written at the desire of Charles seigneur de Rochefort, and completed on the 29th of January, 1454.

firm to your resolve, not to speak to him, you will be surely able to escape," etc.*

Huon for some time followed the sage advice of Gerasmes, and avoided Oberon le fayé. The storms of rain and thunder came on as predicted, the magic horn set them all dancing, and at last the knight determined to await and accost the dwarf.

"The Dwarf Fay came riding through the wood, and was clad in a robe so exceeding fine and rich, that it would be a marvel to relate it for the great and marvellous riches that were upon it; for so much was there of precious stones, that the great lustre that they cast was like unto the sun when he shineth full clear. And therewithal he bare a right fair bow in his fist, so rich that no one could value it, so fine it was; and the arrow that he bare was of such sort and manner, that there was no beast in the world that he wished to have, that it did not stop at that arrow. He had at his neck a rich horn, which was hung by two rich strings of fine gold."+

* Qui a de long seizes lieues, mais tant est plain de faerie et chose estrange que peu de gens y passent qui n'y soient perdus ou arrestez, pour ce que la dedans demeure un roi, Oberon le fayé. Il n'a que trois pieds de hauteur; il est tout bossu; mais il a un visage angelique ; il n'est homme mortel que le voye que plaisir ne prengne a le regarder tant a beau visage. Ja si tost ne serez entrez au bois se par la voulez passer qu'il ne trouve maniere de parler a vous, si ainsi que a luy parliez perdu estus a tousjours sans jamais plus revenir; ne il ne sera en vous, car se par le bois passez, soit de long ou de travers, vous le trouverez tousjours au devant de vous, et vous sera impossible que eschappiez nullement que ne parliez a luy, car. ses parolles sont tant plaisantes a ouyr qu'il n'est homme mortel qui de luy se puisse eschapper. Et se chose est qu'il voye que nullement ne vueillez parler a luy, il sera moult troublé envers vous. Car avant que du bois soyez parti vous fera pleuvoir, ventrer, gresiller, et faire si tres-mervueilleux orages, tonnerres, et esclairs, que advis vous sera que le monde doive finir. Puis vous sera advis que par devant vous verrez une grande riviere courante, noire et parfonde a grand merveilles; mais sachez, sire, que bien y pourrez aller sans mouiller les pieds de vostre cheval, car ce n'est que fantosme et enchantemens que le nain vous fera pour vous cuider avoir avec lui, et se chose est que bien tenez propos en Yous de non parler a luy, bien pourrez eschapper, etc.

Le Nain Fee s'en vint chevauchant par le bois, et estoit vestu d'une robbe si tres-belle et riche, que merveilles sera ce racompter pour la grand et merveilleuse richesse que dessus estoit, car tant y avoit de pierres precieuses, que la grand clarté qu'elles jettoient estoit pareille au soleil quant il luit bien clair. Et avec ce portoit un moult bel arc en son poing, tant riche que on ne le sauroit estimer tant estoit beau. Et la fleche qu'il portoit estoit de telle

This horn was wrought by four Fairies, who had endowed it with its marvellous properties.

Oberon, on bringing Huon to speech, informed him that he was the son of Julius Cæsar, and the lady of the Hidden Island, afterwards called Cephalonia. This lady's first love had been Florimont of Albania, a charming young prince, but being obliged to part from him, she married, and had a son named Neptanebus, afterwards King of Egypt, who begot Alexander the Great, who afterwards put him to death. Seven hundred years later, Cæsar, on his way to Thessaly, was entertained in Cephalonia by the lady of the isle, and he loved her, for she told him he would defeat Pompey, and he became the father of Oberon. Many a noble prince and noble fairy were at the birth, but one Fairy was unhappily not invited, and the gift she gave was that he should not grow after his third year, but repenting, she gave him to be the most beautiful of nature's works. Other Fairies gave him the gift of penetrating the thoughts of men, and of transporting himself and others from place to place by a wish; and the faculty, by like easy means, of raising and removing castles, palaces, gardens, banquets, and such like. He further informed the knight, that he was king and lord of Mommur; and that when he should leave this world his seat was prepared in Paradise-for Oberon, like his prototype Elberich, was a veritable Christian.

When after a variety of adventures Oberon comes to Bordeaux to the aid of Huon, and effects a reconciliation between him and Charlemagne, he tells Huon that the time is at hand that he should leave this world and take the seat prepared for him in Paradise, en faerie ne veux plus demeurer." He directs him to appear before him within four years in his city of Mommur, where he will crown him as his

successor.

Here the story properly ends, but an addition of considerable magnitude has been made by a later hand, in which the story is carried on.

Many are the perils which Huon encounters before the period appointed by Oberon arrives. At length, however, he

sorte et maniere, qu'il n'estoit beste au monde qu'il vousist souhaiter qu'a icelle fleche elle ne s'arrestast. Il avoit a son cou un riche cor, lequel estoit pendu a deux riches attaches de fin or.

and the fair Esclairmonde (the Rezia of Wieland) come to Mommur. Here, in despite of Arthur (who, with his sister Morgue la faée and a large train, arrives at court, and sets himself in opposition to the will of the monarch, but is reduced to order by Oberon's threat of turning him into a Luyton de Mer*), Huon is crowned king of all Faerie “tant du pais des Luytons comme des autres choses secretes reservées dire aux hommes." Arthur gets the kingdom of Bouquant, and that which Sybilla held of Oberon, and all the Faeries that were in the plains of Tartary. The good king Oberon then gave Huon his last instructions, recommending his officers and servants to him, and charging him to build an abbey before the city, in the mead which the dwarf had loved, and there to bury him. Then, falling asleep in death, a glorious troop of angels, scattering odours as they flew, conveyed his soul to Paradise.

Isaie le Triste is probably one of the latest romances, certainly posterior to Huon de Bordeaux, for the witty but deformed dwarf Tronc, who is so important a personage in it, is, we are told, Oberon, whom Destiny compelled to spend a certain period in that form. And we shall, as we have promised, prove Oberon to be the handsome dwarf-king Elberich. In Isaie the Faery ladies approach to the Fées of Perrault, and Madame D'Aulnoy. Here, as at the birth of Oberon and of Ogier le Danois, they interest themselves for the new-born child, and bestow their gifts upon it. The description in this romance of the manner in which the old hermit sees them occupied about the infant Isaie is very pleasing. It was most probably Fairies of this kind, and not the diminutive Elves, that Milton had in view when writing these lines:

Good luck betide thee, son, for, at thy birth,
The Faery ladies danced upon the hearth.
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And, sweetly singing round about thy bed,

Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.

* This sort of transformation appears to have been a usual mode of punishing in a Fairy land. It may have come from Circe, but the Thousand and One Nights is full of such transformations. For luyton or lutin, see below, France.

The description of the Vergier des Fées in Isaie le Triste, and of the beautiful valley in which it was situated, may rival in richness and luxuriancy similar descriptions in Spenser and the Italian poets.*

We have now, we trust, abundantly proved our position of the Fairies of romance being, at least at the commencement, only human mortals,' endowed with superhuman powers, though we may perceive that, as the knowledge of Oriental fiction increased, the Fairies began more and more to assume the character of a distinct species. Our position will acquire additional strength when in the course of our inquiry we arrive at France and Italy.

Closely connected with the Fairies is the place of their abode, the region to which they convey the mortals whom they love, 'the happy lond of Faery.'

* We are only acquainted with this romance through Mr. Dunlop's analysis.