And the third was once Duke Satan's tongue.

The wild bird's flesh is not their food,
No common umbles are their dole;
I nourish them well with infants' blood,
Those precious vipers of my soul.

O Satan! grant me three years still,
But three short years, my love and I,
To work thy fierce, mysterious will,
Then gladly shall we yield and die.

Heloise, wicked heart, beware!
Think on the dreadful day of wrath,
Think on thy soul; forbear, forbear!
The way thou tak'st is that of death!

Thou craven priest, go, get thee hence!
No fear have I of fate so fell.
Go, suck the milk of innocence,
Leave me to quaff the wine of hell!

It is difficult to over-estimate the folk-lore value of such a ballad
as this. Its historical value is clearly _nil_. We have no proof that
Heloise was a Breton; but fantastic errors of this description are so
well known to the student of ballad literature that he is able to
discount them easily in gauging the value of a piece.

In this weird composition the wretched abbess is described as an
alchemist as well as a sorceress, and she descends to the depths of
the lowest and most revolting witchcraft. She practises shape-shifting
and similar arts. She has power over natural forces, and knows the
past, the present, and the things to be. She possesses sufficient
Druidic knowledge to permit her to gather the greatly prized serpent's
egg, to acquire which was the grand aim of the Celtic magician. The
circumstances of the ballad strongly recall those of the poem in which
the Welsh bard Taliesin recounts his magical experiences, his
metamorphoses, his knowledge of the darker mysteries of nature.

_Nantes of the Magicians_

The poet is in accord with probability in making the magical exploits
of Abelard and Heloise take place at Nantes--a circumstance not
indicated in the translation owing to metrical exigencies. Nantes was,
indeed, a classic neighbourhood of sorcery. An ancient college of
Druidic priestesses was situated on one of the islands at the mouth of
the Loire, and the traditions of its denizens had evidently been
cherished by the inhabitants of the city even as late as the middle of
the fourteenth century, for we find a bishop of the diocese at that
period obtaining a bull of excommunication against the local
sorcerers, and condemning them to the eternal fires with bell, book,
and candle.[53]

The poet, it is plain, has confounded poor Heloise with