Reliques of ancient English poetry: consisting of old heroic ballads ...

viii ANCIENT SONGS
true hiftory they fet off and embellished with the Scald3c
figments of dwarfs, giants, dragons, and inchantments.
The firft mention we have in fong of thofe
heroes of chivalry is in the mouth of a Norman warrior
at the conqueft of England (z) : and this circumftance
alone would fufficiently account for the propagation of
this kind of romantic poems among the French and
Englifh.
But this is not all ; it is very certain, that both th«
Anglo-faxons and the Franks had brought with them,
at their firft emigrations into Britain and Gaul, the
fame fondnefs for the ancient fongs of their anceftors,
which prevailed among the other Gothic tribes^, and
that all their firft annals were tranfmitted in thefe popular
oral poems. This fondnefs they even retained long
after their converfion to Chriflianity, as we learn from
the examples of Charlemagne and Alfred (b). Now
Poetry, being thus the tranfmitter of fads, would as
eafily learn to blend them with fictions in France and
England, as me ^is known to have doiie in the north,
and that much fooner, for the reafons before afTigned^J.
This, together with the example and influence of the
Normans, will eafily account to us, why the firft Romances
of Chivalry that appeared both in England and
France
(x.) Seethe Account of Tailleter in Vol. i. In trod.
(a) Jpfa casmika mentor: