Most of the epic poems of the middle ages in which Roland's death is recorded, especially the different old French _Chansons de Roland ou de Roncevaux_, an Icelandic poem on the subject, and Stricker's middle-high German lay of Roland, all of them written between A.D. 1100 and 1230--agree in this, that after Roland's fall at Roncesvalles, and the complete rout of the heathen by Charlemagne, the latter returns home and is met--some say at Aix-la-Chapelle, others at Blavie, others at Paris--by Alda or Alite, Olivier's sister, who inquires of him where Roland, her betrothed, is. On learning his fate she dies on the spot of grief. According to monk Conrad (about A.D. 1175), Alda was Roland's wife. See _Ruolandes Liet, von W. Grimm_, Göttingen, 1838, pp. 295--297. The legend of Rolandseck, as told by Bechstein from Rhenish folk lore, begins thus: "Es sasz auf hoher Burg am Rhein hoch über dem Stromthal ein junger Rittersmann, Roland geheiszen, (manche sagen Roland von Angers, Neffe Karls des Groszen), der liebte ein Burgfräulein, Hildegunde, die Tochter des Burggrafen Heribert, der auf dem nahen Schlosz Drachenfels sasz," &c. Here the question is left open whether the hero of the story was Roland the Brave, or some other knight of that name. The latter seems the more probable, as Roland's fall at Roncesvalles is one of the chief subjects of mediæval poetry, whereas the death of knight Roland in sight of {476} Nonnenwerth on the Rhine, forms the very pith of the German local legend. From certain coincidences, however, it was easy to blend the two stories together into one, as was done by Mrs. Hemans. As to Schiller, we may suppose that he either followed altogether a different legend, or, perhaps to avoid misconception, substituted another name for that of knight Roland, similar to what he has done in other instances. R. R. Canterbury. I think your correspondent X. Y. Z. is mistaken in attributing to Mrs. Hemans the lines on the "Brave Roland." In Mr. Campbell's _Poems_ he will find some stanzas which bear a striking resemblance to those he has quoted. I subjoin those stanzas to which X. Y. Z. has referred: "The brave Roland! the brave Roland! False tidings reach'd the Rhenish strand That he had fall'n in fight; And thy faithful bosom swoon'd with pain, O loveliest maiden of Allemayne! For the loss of thine own true knight. "But why so rash has she ta'en the veil, In yon Nonnenwerder's cloisters pale, For her vow had scarce been sworn, And the fatal mantle o'er her flung, When the Drachenfels to a trumpet rung, 'Twas her own dear warrior's horn! . . . . . . "She died! he sought the battle plain; Her image fill'd his dying brain, When he fell and wish'd to fall: And her name was in his latest sigh, When Roland, the flower of chivalry, Expired at Roncevall."