Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Walter Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

theme. There must have been a Norman original of the Scottish metrical romance of Rauf Colziar b in which Charlemagne is introduced as the unknown guest of a charcoal-man. It seems to have been the original of other poems of the kind.
    In merry England there is no end of popular ballads on this theme. The poem of John the Reeve, or Steward, mentioned by Bishop Percy, in the Reliques of English Poetry, c is said to have turned on such an incident; and we have, besides, the King and the Tanner of Tamworth, the King and the Miller of Mansfield, and others on the same topic. But the peculiar tale of this nature to which the Author of Ivanhoe has to acknowledge an obligation is more ancient by two centuries than any of these last mentioned.
    It was first communicated to the public in that curious record of ancient literature which has been accumulated by the combined exertions of Sir Egerton Brydges and Mr. Hazlewood, in the periodical work entitled the British Bibliographer. From thence it has been transferred by the Reverend Charles Henry Hartshorne, M.A., editor of a very curious volume, entitled Ancient Metrical Tales, printed chiefly from Original Sources, 1829. Mr. Hartshorne gives no other authority for the present fragment, except the article in the Bibliographer, where it is entitled the Kyng and the Her- mite. A short abstract of its contents will show its similarity to the meeting of King Richard and Friar Tuck.
    King Edward (we are not told which among the monarchs of that name, but, from his temper and habits, we may suppose Edward IV) sets forth with his court to a gallant hunting-match in Sherwood Forest, in which, as is not unusual for princes in romance, he falls in with a deer of extraordinary size and swiftness, and pursues it closely, till he has outstripped his whole retinue, tired out hounds and horse, and finds himself alone under the gloom of an extensive forest, upon which night is descending. Under the apprehensions natural to a situation so uncomfortable, the king recollects that he has heard how poor men, when apprehensive of a bad night’s lodging, pray to St. Julian, who, in the Romish calendar, stands quarter-master-general to all forlorn travellers that render him due homage. Edward puts up his orisons accordingly, and by the guidance, doubtless, of the good saint, reaches a small path, conducting him to a chapel in the forest, having a hermit’s cell in its close vicinity. The king hears the reverend man, with a companion of his solitude, telling his beads within, and meekly requests of him quarters for the night. “I have no accommodation for such a lord as ye be,” said the hermit. “I live here in the wilderness upon roots and rinds, and may not receive into my dwelling even the poorest wretch that lives, unless it were to save his life.” The king inquires the way to the next town, and, understanding it is by a road which he cannot find without difficulty, even if he had daylight to befriend him, he declares that, with or without the hermit’s consent, he is determined to be his guest that night. He is admitted accordingly, not without a hint from the recluse that, were he himself out of his priestly weeds, he would care little for his threats of using violence, and that he gives way to him not out of intimidation, but simply to avoid scandal.
    The king is admitted into the cell; two bundles of straw are shaken down for his accommodation, and he comforts himself that he is now under shelter, and that
    A night will soon be gone.
    Other wants, however, arise. The guest becomes clamorous for supper, observing,
    ‘For certainly, as I you say,
I ne had never so sorry a day,
That I ne had a merry night. ’
    But this indication of his taste for good cheer, joined to the annunciation of his being a follower of the court, who had lost himself at the great hunting-match, cannot induce the niggard hermit to produce better fare than bread and cheese, for which his guest showed little appetite,