ing army? Eagerly she questioned Charlemagne of
the safety of Roland, and when the Emperor, in pitying grief, told
her:

"Roland, thy hero, like a hero died," Aude gave a bitter cry and fell
to the ground like a white lily slain by a cruel wind. The Emperor
thought she had fainted, but when he would have lifted her up, he
found that she was dead, and, in infinite pity, he had her taken to
Blaye and buried by the side of Roland.

Very tender was Charlemagne to the maiden whom Roland had loved, but
when the treachery of Ganelon had been proved, for him there was no
mercy. At Aix-la-Chapelle, torn asunder by wild horses, he met a
shameful and a horrible death, nor is his name forgotten as that of
the blackest of traitors. But the memory of Roland and of the other
Douzeperes lives on and is, however fanciful, forever fragrant.

"... Roland, and Olyvere,
And of the twelve Tussypere,
That dieden in the batayle of Runcyvale;
Jesu lord, heaven king,
To his bliss hem and us both bring,
To liven withouten bale!"

Sir Otuel.

THE CHILDREN OF LIR

"Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy water;
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose;
While murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes."

Moore.

They are the tragedies, not the comedies of the old, old days that are
handed down to us, and the literature of the Celts is rich in tragedy.
To the romantic and sorrowful imagination of the Celts of the green
island of Erin we owe the hauntingly piteous story of the children of
Lir.

In the earliest times of all, when Ireland was ruled by the Dedannans,
a people who came from Europe and brought with them from Greece magic
and other arts so wonderful that the people of the land believed them
to be gods, the Dedannans had so many chiefs that they met one day to
decide who was the best man of them all, that they might choose him to
be their king. The choice fell upon Bodb the Red, and gladly did every
man acclaim him as king, all save Lir of Shee Finnaha, who left the
council in great wrath because he thought that he, and not Bodb,
should have been chosen. In high dudgeon he retired to his own place,
and in the years that followed he and Bodb the Red waged fierce war
against one another. At last a great sorrow came to Lir, for after an
illness of three days his wife, who was very dear to him, was taken
from h