e call Normandy," lived once a
nobleman who had a beautiful daughter; every one asked her in marriage,
but he always refused, so as not to part from her. At last he declared
he would give his daughter to the man who could carry her to the top of
the mountain. All tried, but all failed.

A young count falls in love with her, and is loved again. She sends him
to an old aunt of hers, who lives at Salerno, and will give him certain
potions to increase his strength. He does all she bids him. On the day
appointed, provided with a draught to swallow during the trial, he takes
the fair maiden in his arms. She had fasted for many days so as to weigh
less, and had put on an exceedingly light garment: "Except her shift, no
other stuff she wore";

N'ot drap vestu fors la chemise.

He climbs half-way, then begins to flag; but he wishes to owe everything
to his energy, and, without drinking, slowly continues to ascend. He
reaches the top and falls dead. The young girl flings away the now
useless flask, which breaks; and since then the mountain herbs moistened
by the potion have wonderful healing powers. She looks at her lover and
dies, like the Simonne of Boccaccio and of Musset. They were buried on
the mountain, where has since been built "the priory of the Two Lovers."

The rulers of England delight in still shorter poems, but again on the
same subject: love. Like the rest of the French, they have an innate
fondness for a kind of literature unknown to their new compatriots:
namely, _chansons_. They composed a great number of them, and listened
to many more of all sorts. The subjects of the kings of England became
familiar with every variety of the kind; for the Angevin princes now
possessed such wide domains that the sources of French poetry, poetry of
the North, poetry of the South, lyrical poetry of Poictou and of Maine,
gushed forth in the very heart of their empire.[197]

Their English subjects got acquainted with these poems in two ways:
firstly, because many of those songs were sung in the island; secondly,
because many Englishmen, soldiers, clerks, minstrels, messengers,
followed the king and stayed with him in the parts where the main wells
and fountains of the French _chanson_ happened to be.[198] They became
thus familiarised with the "reverdies," May songs, which celebrate
springtime, flowers, and free loves; "carols," or dancing songs;
"pastourelles," the wise or foolish heroines of which are shepherdesses;
"di