g, and Nomenoe greets him courteously.

"Hail, honest mountaineer!" he cries. "What is your news? What would
you with Nomenoe?"

"I come for justice, Lord Nomenoe," replies the aged man. "Is there a
God in heaven and a chief in Brittany? There is a God above us, I
know, and I believe there is a just Duke in the Breton land. Mighty
ruler, make war upon the Frank, defend our country, and give us
vengeance--vengeance for Karo my son, Karo, slain, decapitated by the
Frankish barbarians, his beauteous head made into a balance-weight for
their brutal sport."

The old man weeps, and the tears flow down his grizzled beard.

Then Nomenoe rises in anger and swears a great oath. "By the head of
this boar, and by the arrow which slew him," cries he, "I will not
wash this blood from off my hand until I free the country from mine
enemies."

Nomenoe has gone to the seashore and gathered pebbles, for these are
the tribute he intends to offer the bald King.[3] Arrived at the gates
of Rennes, he asks that they shall be opened to him so that he may pay
the tribute of silver. He is asked to descend, to enter the castle,
and to leave his chariot in the courtyard. He is requested to wash his
hands to the sound of a horn before eating (an ancient custom), but he
replies that he prefers to deliver the tribute-money there and then.
The sacks are weighed, and the third is found light by several
pounds.

"Ha, what is this?" cries the Frankish castellan. "This sack is under
weight, Sir Nomenoe."

Out leaps Nomenoe's sword from the scabbard, and the Frank's head is
smitten from his shoulders. Then, seizing it by its gory locks, the
Breton chief with a laugh of triumph casts it into the balance. His
warriors throng the courtyard, the town is taken; young Karo is
avenged!

_Alain Barbe-torte_

The end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth were
remarkable for the invasions of the Northmen. On several occasions
they were driven back--by Salomon (_d._ 874), by Alain, Count of
Vannes (_d._ 907)--but it was Alain Barbe-torte, 'Alain of the Twisted
Beard,' or 'Alain the Fox' (_d._ 952), who gained the decisive victory
over them, and concerning him an ancient ballad has much to say. It
was taken down by Villemarque from the lips of a peasant, an old
soldier of the Chouan leader Georges Cadoudal.

In his youth Alain was a mighty hunter of the bear and the boar in the
forests of his native Brittany, and the courage gained in this