It happened in October 1066. On the 14th, in the vicinity of Hastings, a Norman minstrel named Taillefer began to sing verses from the Song of Roldán to give courage to an army in a foreign land. So it began the battle that would turn Guillermo the bastard, Duke of Normandy, in William I the Conqueror, King of England.
Years later, another of the participants in the battle, Turoldus de Fecamp, then Abbot of Malmesbury, would rework in writing one of the oral versions of the song, giving rise to what we know today as Song of Roldán, the most important composition of the French medieval epic.
The story that the singing tells is well known. At the end of the XNUMXth century, Charlemagne crossed the Pyrenees together with the main knights of the kingdom to besiege the Muslim city of Zaragoza. During the return, Roldán and Oliveros, who are in charge of covering the rear, are ambushed in the Roncesvalles pass. Roldán refuses to blow the horn that would bring the help of the rest of the French army, preferring to fall fighting rather than accept such ignominy. He and Oliveros fight heroically until they are annihilated. At the end of the song, a dejected and tired Charlemagne mourns the death of the young Roldán.
Scholars rave about the precise structure of the composition, the psychology of its characters, and the subtle parallels between Roldán's sacrifice and the passion of Jesus Christ. However, read from a current perspective, we cannot help but see the pride and fatal pride of Roldán. The story of Roncesvalles seems to us the story of avoidable negligence, set in the framework of a useless war of religion. Nothing to do with our Cid Campeador.
When singing does really move us, it is with Charlemagus' reaction to Roldán's death. It is so intense that in addition to being moving it is enigmatic. In the Middle Ages, a tradition would soon spread according to which Roldan was the secret son of Charlemagne: Charlemagne's pain can only be the pain of a father before his dead son; which gives a completely different meaning to the story.
But let's go back to the Hastings Plains, I won't pass up the chance to talk about the king Harold. For a king to be crowned another has to disappear. At the Battle of Hastings, Harold son of Jodwin, the Saxon king of England, was killed. William would go down in history, Harold would turn to dust.
King Harold was a man of courage. The Icelandic scholar Snorri sturluson presents it in the heimskringlasaga in circumstances slightly prior to Hastings. Borges reproduces the text and gives us the background in his Medieval Germanic Literatures.
Harold's brother Tostig had allied with the King of Norway, Harald Hardrada, to gain power. Both landed with an army on the east coast of England and conquered York Castle. South of the castle, the Saxon army meets them:
"Twenty horsemen joined the ranks of the invader; the men, and also the horses, were clad in iron; one of the horsemen yelled:
"Is Count Tostig here?"
"I do not deny being here," said the count.
"If you really are Tostig," said the horseman, "I come to tell you that your brother offers you his forgiveness and a third of the kingdom."
"If I accept," said Tostig, "what will the king give Harald Hardrada?"
"He has not forgotten him," replied the rider, "he will give you six feet of English earth and, since he is so tall, one more."
"Then," said Tostig, "tell your king that we will fight to the death."
The riders left. Harald Hardrada asked thoughtfully:
-Who was that gentleman who spoke so well?
The count replied:
-Harold, King of England. "
Harald Hardrada and Tostig will not see another sunset. His army is defeated and both perish in battle. But Harold will hardly have time to mourn his brother. News soon arrives that the Normans have landed in the south and he will have to leave for Hastings, where he will fulfill his destiny by dying at the hands of the invader.
The story has a sentimental epilogue that Snorri did not get to know, but Borges did, because he read it in the Ballads de Heine: It will be a woman who had loved the king, Edith Gooseneck, who identifies his corpse.