ter under different
names.

One last point to be noted is the impression of open air given by nearly
all the branches of this romance, in spite of the brevity of the
descriptions. We are in the fields, by the hedges, following the roads
and the footpaths; the moors are covered with heather; the rocks are
crowned by oaken copse, the roads are lined with hawthorn, cabbages
display in the gardens the heavy mass of their clustering leaves. We see
with regret the moment when "the sweet time of summer declines." Winter
draws near, a north wind blows over the paths leading to the sea. Renard
"dedenz sa tour" of Maupertuis lights a great wood fire, and, while his
little ones jump for joy, grills slices of eels on the embers.

Renard was popular throughout Europe. In England parts of the romance
were translated or imitated; superb manuscripts were illustrated for the
libraries of the nobles; the incidents of this epic were represented in
tapestry, sculptured on church stalls, painted on the margins of English
missals. At the Renaissance Caxton, with his Westminster presses,
printed a Renard in prose.[212]

Above, below, around these greater works, swarms the innumerable legion
of satirical fabliaux and laughable tales. They, too, cross the sea,
slight, imperceptible, wandering, thus continuing those migrations so
difficult to trace, the laws of which learned men of all nations have
vainly sought to discover. They follow all roads; nothing stops them.
Pass the mountains and you will find them; cross the sea and they have
preceded you; they spring from the earth; they fall from heaven; the
breeze bears them along like pollen, and they go to bloom on other stems
in unknown lands, producing thorny or poisonous or perfumed flowers, and
flowers of every hue. All those varieties of flowers are sometimes found
clustered in unexpected places, on wild mountain sides, along lonely
paths, on the moors of Brittany or Scotland, in royal parks and in
convent gardens. At the beginning of the seventh century the great Pope
St. Gregory introduces into his works a number of "Exempla," saying:
"Some are more incited to the love of the celestial country by
stories--exempla--than by sermons;"[213] and in the gardens of
monasteries, after his day, more and more miscellaneous grow the
blossoms. They are gathered and preserved as though in herbals,
collections are made of them, from which preachers borrow; tales of
miracles are mixed with others of a