VI. King Estmere. ......................................................................................................
This old romantic legend (which is given from two copies, one of them in the
Editor's folio manuscript but which contained very great variations,) bears marks of
considerable antiquity, and perhaps ought to have taken place of any in this volume. It
should seem to have been written while part of Spain was in the hands of the Saracens
or Moors; whose empire there was not fully extinguished before the year 1491. The
Mahometans are spoken of in ver. 49, &c. just in the same terms as in all other old
romances. The author of the ancient legend of "Sir Bevis" represents his hero, upon
all occasions, breaching out defiance against
"Mahound and Termagaunte;"[1]and so full of zeal for his religion, as to return the following polite message to a
Paynim king's fair daughter, who had fallen in love with him, and sent two Saracen
knights to invite him to her bower:
"I wyll not ones stirre off this grounde,
To speake with an heathen hounde.
Unchristen houndes, I rede you fle,
Or I your harte blond shall se."[2]Indeed they return the compliment by calling him elsewhere "A christen hounde."[3]
This was conformable to the real manners of the barbarous ages: perhaps the
same excuse will hardly serve our bard. For the situation in which he has placed some
of his royal personages, that a youthful monarch should take a journey into another
kingdomincog.was a piece of gallantry parallel in our own Charles I; but that King
Adland should be found lolling or leaning at his gate (v. 35.) may be thought
perchance a little out of character. And yet the great painter of manners, Homer, did
not think it inconsistent with decorum to represent a King of the Taphians leaning at
the gate of Ulysses to inquire for that monarch, when he touched at Ithaca as he was
taking a voyage with a ship's cargo of iron to dispose in traffic.[4] So little ought we
to judge of ancient manners by our own.
Before I conclude this article, I cannot help observing that the reader will see,
in this ballad, the character of the old minstrels (those successors of the bards) placed
in a very respectable light:[5] here he will see one of them represented mounted on a
fine horse, accompanied with an attendant to bear his harp after him, and to sing the
poems of his composing. Here he will see him mixing in the company of kings
without ceremony: no mean proof of the great antiquity of this poem. The further we
carry our inquiries back, the greater respect we find paid to the professors of poetry
and music among all the Celtic and Gothic nations. Their character was deemed so
sacred, that under its sanction our famous King Alfred (as we have already seen [6])
made no scruple to enter the Danish camp, and was at once admitted to the king's
head-quarters.[7] Our poet has suggested the same expedient to the heroes of this
ballad. All the histories of the North are full of the great reverence paid to this order
of men. Harold Harfagre, a celebrated King of Norway, was wont to seat them at his
table above all the officers of his court: and we find another Norwegian King placing
five of them by his side in a day of battle, that they might be eyewitnesses of the great
exploits they were to celebrate.[8] As to Estmere's riding into the hall while the kings
were at table, this was usual in the ages of chivalry; and even to this day we see a relic
of this ancient custom still kept up, in the champion's riding into Westminster-hall
during the coronation dinner.[9]