Vanished towers and chimes of FlandersEdwards, George Wharton
Religion
Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders
Edwards, George Wharton
Change ringing; Chimes; Church buildings -- Flanders; Flanders -- Description and travel
Now each of the four sons had his own fashion of fighting. Renault
fought best on horseback, and to him Maugis son of Buves brought a great
horse named Bayard ("Beiaard" in Flemish) of magic origin, possessed of
demoniac powers, among which was the ability to run like the wind and
never grow weary. Here in this stronghold the four sons of Aymon dwelt,
making occasional sallies against the vassals of Charlemagne, until at
length the Emperor gathered a mighty force of soldiers and horses and
engines and scaling ladders, and, surrounding the stronghold, at length
succeeded in capturing it.
Tradition says that among Charlemagne's retinue was Aymon himself, and
intimates that it was by the father's treachery that the four mighty
sons were almost captured, but at any rate the great castle of Montfort
was reduced to ashes and ruin, and only the fact of Renault's taking the
other brothers on the back of the wondrous horse Bayard saved them all
from the Emperor's fury. So they escaped into Gascony, where they
independently attacked the Saracens and drove them forth and extended
their swords to the King of Gascony, Yon, who treacherously delivered
them in chains over to Charlemagne. These chains they broke and threw in
the Emperor's face, fighting their way to freedom with their bare hands.
History thereafter is silent as to their end. Of Renault it is known
only that he became a friar at Cologne, where his skill and strength
were utilized by the authorities in building the walls, and that one day
while at work, some masons whom he had offended crept up behind him and
pushed him off a great height into the River Rhine, and thus he was
drowned. Years afterward the Church canonized him, and in Westphalia at
Dortmund may be seen a monument erected in his memory extolling his
prowess, his deeds, and his strength.
As to the great and magical horse Bayard, the chronicle says that,
captured finally by Charlemagne's soldiers and brought before him, the
Emperor deliberated what he should do with it, since it refused to be
ridden. Finally he ordered that the largest mill stone in the region
should be made fast to its neck by heavy chains, and that it should then
be cast into the River Meuse.
Bayard contemptuously shook off the heavy stone and with steam pouring
from his nostrils, gave three neighs of derision and triumph and,
climbing the opposite bank, vanished into the gloom of the forest where
none dared follow. Of the immortality of this great horse history is
emphatic and gravely states that, for all that is known to the contrary,
he may still be at large in the Ardennes, but that "no man has since
beheld him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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