Taylor, Edgar [Hrsg.]; Austin, Sarah [Hrsg.]: Lays of the minnesingers or German troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Illustr. by specimens of the contemporary lyric poetry of Provence and other parts of Europe ; With histor. and crit. notes, and engravings from the ms. of the minnesingers in the king's library at Paris, and from other sources (London, 1825)

GERMANY. 119

pitably welcomed by the monarch, at his palace in the
forest, which is described in some very pretty poetry,
though at too much length for our limits :

There all the livelong night and day

The birds full sweetly sang,
And through the forest and the plain

Their gentle measures rang.

For there they tun'd their melody.

And each one bore his part,
So that with merry minstrelsy

They cheer'd each hero's heart.

And o'er the plain there ranged free

Of beasts both wild and tame,
In merry gambols there they play'd

Full many a lusty game.....

The meadows, too, so lovely seem'd,

The flowers bloom'd so fair,'
Certes the lord who ruled that plain

Could know nor woe nor care. &c.

It has already been remarked that several of the
heroic traditions which form the burden of the Ger-
man romances are to be found also in the early re-
mains of Scandinavian literature; and it may be added
that many of these subjects are there elevated into a
mythological character, not uncommonly acquired
where the object is removed by a convenient separa-
tion in point of time and space. All have probably
one common terrestrial origin, though of a remote
traditional antiquity ; and it seems most likely that
the German antiquarians are correct in attributing the