Chapter I: Front Matter

FOR THE
WHITE CHRIST

A Story
of
The Days of Charlemagne

BY
Robert Ames Bennet

Having Pictures and Designs by
Troy & Margaret West Kinney

Chicago
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1905

Copyright,
By A. C. McClurg & Co.
1905

Published March 18, 1905

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

All rights reserved

The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.

When Alcuin taught the sons of Charlemagne,
In the free schools of Aix, how kings should rule.
LONGFELLOW.

To the Memory
of
My Mother

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

All the chapter headings of this story are taken from lays which were sung by harpers and skalds before the high-seats of heathen Norse chiefs and in the halls of the Anglo-Saxon kings, while England was yet a heptarchy and the name of Mohammed but little known to men even on the shores of the far-distant Bosphorus.

In most instances the selections are from Magnusson and Morris's beautiful translations of "The Volsunga Saga, and Certain Songs from the Elder Edda." The spirited lines from "Beowulf," "Maldon," "Finnesburh," and "Andreas" were found in Gummerle's "Germanic Origins." The translation of "Brunanburh" is by Tennyson.

Apology is due for occasional alterations and elisions, all of which will readily be detected by students of the wonderful poetic fragments which have come down to us from our Norse and Teutonic forefathers.

R. A. B. Denver, January 1, 1905.

ILLUSTRATIONS

"'Bend lower, king's daughter--little vala with eyes like dewy violets!'" . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

"White to the lips, the young sea-king turned to his enemy"

"'Love!' she cried, half hissing the word. 'You speak of love,--you, the heathen outlander!'"

"'Go, Olvir!' muttered the king, thickly; 'go--before I forget that I once loved you'"

FOR THE WHITE CHRIST