Following up on yesterday’s post about Orlando Furioso…
… here’s a song about the climax of the Roland legend, his death among the rearguard at the Battle of Roncevaux.
dArtagnan, the German band named after a Frenchman — who, despite being the main character of a famous novel (and its adaptations), was actually a real person— describe themselves as playing “Musketeer Rock.”
Also, fittingly, they’ve got more than a few songs about German history and folklore — as, for example, Wallenstein.
My previous post covered the history behind Roncevaux, but to quickly recap: 78, Charlemagne’s rearguard was ambushed in Pyrenees by an army of angry Basques. Among the dead Frankish leaders was Hrothiland, better known to both history and later Chivalric Romance as Roland.
Like I said last time around, the tale inevitably grew in the telling – more on that later, but I would like to highlight one specific aspect of the later legend at this point. Namely, this interesting nature feature in the Pyrenees:
That is La Brèche de Roland, a gap in the Pyrenees, said to have been cut into the mountains by Roland while attempting to destroy his sword to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
Similarly, the real history that eventually grew into the Chanson de Roland was also eventually being set down as a Norwegian ballad. I’m more familiar with this ballad under the title Rolandskvadet, for example, as seen here and here.
I’m unclear if there’s an established German version, but it’s clear that dArtagnan’s Chanson de Roland — despite the French title — is a German version, or at least adaptation, of the Norwegian ballad, because the melody is clearly the same.
The lyrics are slightly different than the versions of the Rolandskvadet I’m familiar with, and also rather abridged, but the key events of the narrative and the key phrases of the ballad are still present in dArtagnan’s version:
In German:
Dies Lied erzählt von einem Mann
Der ausritt ins Verderben
Mit frohem Mut und in der Hand
Ein Schwert aus kaltem Stahl
(Ein Schwert aus kaltem Stahl)
So ritt er tief ins Feindesland mit einem stolzen Heere
Da tönt sein Horn Olifant am Pass von Ronkewall
(Am Pass von Ronkewall)
And in English:
This song tells about a man
The ride to destruction
With cheerful courage and in hand
(A sword made of cold steel)
So he rode deep into enemy territory with a proud army
Then his horn Oliphant sounds at the pass of Roncevaux
(At the pass of Roncevaux)
Lyrics via musixmatch, auto-translated by Google.
Obviously, the language is different, but dArtagnan’s version still contains the phrase “two, if not three days”, the description of the sun not being visible through the haze of blood on the battlefield, Roland sounding the Oliphant in a frenzy of anger and the horn’s blast literally shaking the earth. These are all things present in the Norwegian ballad, though, obviously, in German rather than Norwegian.
The bulk of the song, however, is probably taken up by the declaration that “Das ist des Rolandslied.”
Still, it’s a fundamentally accurate abridgement of both the Rolandskvadet and the Song of Roland. It’s also a very catchy tune, though perhaps oddly jaunty for a song about a battle where everybody died…
Listen to it here:
Check out my full playlist is here:
Now, a quick reminder that I am a professional writer and editor, and if you’re in need of writing and editing support, please consider taking a look at the work and rates currently offered by Emona Literary Services™ and reach out if you think I can help you.
Please consider supporting Emona Literary Services™ to help me expanding my publishing and content creation projects, via Patreon, Ko-fi, or directly through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:
You can follow me on my various social media platforms here:
© Joel Balkovec — Published by Emona Literary Services™.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.
All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.
View the Emona Literary Services™ Privacy Policy here.
Emona Literary Services 
Leave a comment