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Tradition of evergreen garlands at Christmas

Author's Note: This rendering of the Breton legend ‘Sant Efflamm hag ar Roue Arzur' is based on the ballad of that name given by the late Vicomte Hersart de 1a Villemarqu~ in the Barzaz-Breiz.—i.e., Ballads of Brittany (1839).

translated from the original Dutch by the author

Author's Note: The following story, of which I here give a translation, is no doubt largely due to the vivid imagination of some itinerant mendicant working in his own interest.

“King René of Anjou, the laughter-loving Count of Provence, seeking to divert the melancholy of his beloved wife, Jeanne de Laval, turned the old-time-Keltic terror into gay new fetes: the games of the tarasque. These games are still played. The…

4 quatrains: good things in life = wine, women, friendship; but only thing to count on is friend

quatrains abab

Ballad of Sir Robert, the Laird of Lag, who captures a hill lad to make him tell where Tam Glen is; he refuses; Robert kills him, to horror of his men; mother comes and cleans body

3 quatrains, abab

3 stanzas, ababab