is magic horn still seems to echo
around those rugged crests and pulse through those winding valleys, as
it did on the day when, as legend says, it was borne to the ears of
Charlemagne miles away, and warned him of the deadly peril of his
favorite chieftain.

This horn is reputed to have had magical powers. Its sound was so
intense as to split all other horns. The story goes that Roland, himself
sadly wounded, his fellows falling thickly around him, blew upon it so
mighty a blast that the veins and nerves of his neck burst under the
effort. The sound reached the ears of Charlemagne, then encamped eight
miles away, in the Val Carlos pass.

"It is Roland's horn," he cried. "He never blows it except the extremity
be great. We must hasten to his aid."

"I have known him to sound it on light occasions," answered Ganalon,
Roland's secret foe. "He is, perhaps, pursuing some wild beast, and the
sound echoes through the wood. It would be fruitless to lead back your
weary host to seek him."

Charlemagne yielded to his specious argument, and Roland and all his
followers died. Charles afterwards discovered the body with the arms
extended in the form of a cross, and wept over it his bitterest tears.
"There did Charlemagne," says the legend, "mourn for Orlando to the very
last day of his life. On the spot where he died he encamped and caused
the body to be embalmed with balsam, myrrh, and aloes. The whole camp
watched it that night, honoring his corpse with hymns and songs, and
innumerable torches and fires kindled in the adjacent mountains."

At the battle of Hastings the minstrel Taillefer, as we have elsewhere
told, rode before the advancing Norman host, singing the "Song of
Roland," till a British hand stilled his song and laid him low in death.
This ancient song is attributed, though doubtfully, to Turold, that
abbot of Peterborough who was so detested by Hereward the Wake. From it
came many of the stories which afterwards were embodied in the epic
legends of mediaeval days. To quote a few passages from it may not be
amiss. The poet tells us that Roland refused to blow his magic horn in
the beginning of the battle. In the end, when ruin and death were
gathering fast around, and blood was flowing freely from his own veins,
he set his lips to the mighty instrument, and filled vales and mountains
with its sound.

"With pain and dolor, groan and pant,
Count Roland sounds his Olifant:
The crimson stream shoots fro