ls.

Barbarossa was constantly at war with popes and kings: he gained
victories and suffered reverses; but his career was theatrical and
popular in those rude times, and he was regarded as a very good
monarch as kings went.

[Illustration: THE GERMANS ON AN EXPEDITION.]

He once held a great peace festival at Mentz, to which came forty
thousand knights. A camp of tents of silk and gold was set up by the
Rhine, and musicians, called minnesingers, delighted the nobles and
ladies with songs of heroes and knights. The songs and ballads then
sung became famous, and this festival may be said to be the
beginning of musical art in music-loving Germany.

Europe was now startled with the news that the Saracens under
Saladin had taken Jerusalem. Barbarossa was about inaugurating a new
war with the Pope; but when this news came he and the Pope became
reconciled, and he resolved to go on a crusade.

He was an old man now, but he entered into the crusade with the
fiery spirit of youth. His war-cry was,--

"Christ reigns! Christ conquers!"

He won a great victory at Iconium.

There was a swift, cold river near the battle-field, called Kaly
Kadmus. A few days after the victory, Barbarossa went into it to
bathe. He was struck by a chill and sank into the rapid current, and
was drowned. He was seventy years of age. His body was found and
interred at Antioch.

Of course the Germans attached to Barbarossa a legend, as they do to
everything. They said that he was not dead, but had fallen a victim
to enchantment. He and his knights had been put to sleep in the
Kyffhauser cave in Thuringia. They sat around a stone table, waiting
for release. His once red, but now white, beard was growing through
the stone.

They also said that the spell that bound Barbarossa and his knights
would some day be broken, and that they would come back to Germany.
This would occur when the country should be in sore distress, and
need a champion for its cause.

Ravens flew continually about the cave where the monarch and his
knights were held enchanted. When they should cease to circle about
it, the spell would be broken, and the grand old monarch would
return to the Rhine.

They looked for him in days of calamity; but centuries passed, and
he did not return.

The legend is thus told in song:--

"The ancient Barbarossa
By magic spell is bound,--
Old