“The animal, attended by two keepers, and followed by the jailor, was then led in; and, as soon as he was loosed, sprang forwards to seize his prey. Richard, starting aside, evaded the attack, and at the same time gave the monster such a blow on the breast with his fist as nearly felled him to the ground. The lion, lashing himself with his tail, and extending his dreadful paws, now uttered a most hideous roar, and prepared for a more violent assault; but the hero, seizing his opportunity when the monster’s jaws were extended, suddenly darted on him, drove his arm down the throat, and, grasping the heart, forcibly tore it out through the mouth together with a part of the entrails. Then, after piously returning thanks to Heaven for his miraculous victory, he snatched up the bleeding heart, and without meeting with any obstacle, marched with his trophy into the great hall of the palace. “The king at meat sat on des, With dukes and earls proud in press. The saler on the table stood: Richard pressed out all the blood, And wet the heart in the salt; (The king and all his men behalt) Withouten bread the heart he ate. The king wonder’d, and said skeet: ‘Y-wis, as I understand can, This is a devil and no man, That has my strong lion y-slawe, The heart out of his body drawe, And has it eaten with good will! He may be callèd, by right skill King y-christened of most renown Strong Richard Cœur de Lion!’” [Illustration: DÜRRENSTEIN] If Richard was incarcerated in the chamber hollowed out of the great mass of granite, and that was at the time, as it was later, enclosed within walls, it is a little difficult to realize how the minstrel’s voice ever penetrated the monarch’s prison; but the legend is so pleasant a one that it would perhaps be a more gracious task to find out how it might have been true, rather than to show how it is probably a fiction. The theme is one that has inspired poets, painters, and musicians. When Gretry’s opera on the subject of “Richard Cœur de Lion,” was produced in Paris early in the nineteenth century, an artist was sent to Dürnstein to sketch the castle that the scenery might be true. Mrs. Hemans wrote a narrative poem on the subject of Blondel’s search for his captive master, and described the position of the king’s prison as though she had visited it: