I will consider first the legend of Eustache in its original version. According to the Greek Martyr Acts, which were probably composed in the eighth century, this saint was before his baptism a captain of Trajan, named Placidus. As he one day hunted in the forest, the Saviour appeared to him between the antlers of a hart, and converted him. Placidus changed his name into Eustache, when he was baptized with his wife and sons. God announced to him by an angel his future martyrdom. Eustache was afflicted by dreadful calamities, lost all his estate, and was compelled to go abroad as a beggar with his wife and his children. As he went on board a ship bound for Egypt, his wife was seized by the shipmaster and carried off. Soon after, when Eustache was travelling along the shore, his two children were borne away by a lion and a leopard. Eustache then worked for a long time as a journeyman, till he was discovered by the Emperor Trajan, who had sent out messengers for him, and called him to his court. Reappointed captain, Eustache undertook an expedition against the Dacians. During this war he found his wife in a cottage as a gardener,--the shipmaster had fallen dead to the ground as he ventured to touch her,--and in the same cottage he found again his two sons as soldiers: herdsmen had rescued them from the wild beasts, and brought them up. Glad was their meeting again! But as they returned to Rome, they were all burnt in a glowing bull of brass by the Emperor’s order, because they refused to sacrifice to the heathen gods. This legend, which reminds us at once of the story of Job, has been incorporated in almost all mediæval collections of legends, and upon it are founded some mediæval poems, which are enumerated by H. Knust in his splendid work _Dos Obras Didácticas y dos Leyendas_, Madrid, 1878; cf. R. Köhler, _Zeitschrift für rom. phil._ III, p. 272 ff., Varnhagen, _Anglia_, III, p. 399 ff.; two latin versions are edited by the same, _Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum_ XXIV, p. 241 ff., and XXV, p. 1 ff. English legends of Eustache are to be found (1) In Ælfric’s _Passiones Martyrum_; see Horstmann, _Altenglische Legenden_, Second series, Heilbronn, 1881, p. xli. (2) In the South-English collection, _l.c._ p. xlviii. (3) In the Northern collection, pp. lxi and lxiv. Herrig’s _Archiv_ 57, p. 262 ff. (4) In the Scottish collection of legends, said to be Barbour’s. Cf. Barbour’s _Legendensammlung_, ed. C. Horstmann, Heilbronn, 82, ii. p. 12. (5) In the old Engl. translation of the _Legenda aurea_, see Horstm., _l.c._, p. cxxxv. Caxton’s edition of the legend, No. 196. (6) The complete text of the legend printed in Horstmann’s above-mentioned collection, _Altengl. Legendensamml._, p. 211 ff. (7) _St. Eustas_, by I. Partridge, see Gibbs’ above-mentioned edition, and Horstm., _l.c._ p. 472 ff. With this legend are connected, more or less, the following poems, which it is necessary to speak of in turn: