La Chanson de Garet
I understand my cousins in Frankia tell a tale of loss and legacy.
This is a story of betrayal and greed, a story where good men die and wicked men are punished.
This is a story of stubbornness and folly masquerading as chivalry and nobility.
I find it peculiar, and insulting, to know that the tale of a true event has been dressed up to serve such a purpose,
the ennobling of a fool named Roland and a stooge named Charles.
I find myself compelled to tell you of the true event, to tell you the Song of Garet
La Chanson de Garet
I.
And so after many battles, the King of An Tir extracted
Promises of Friendship from the King of the West,
and the mighty Lion’s Army prepared to return home.
II.
As the hundred thousand spears of An Tir
broke camp for their trip North,
the King asked, “Who will command the rear-guard”,
and Sergeant Garet, seeing a job in need of doing, said,
“Go your way through the mountain passes,
you must not fear any man while I live”
III.
And so Garet and his 200 men stood watch
while the Lion’s Army marched north.
IV.
And in the valleys and the woods the West arms itself.
They lace on their good helms, their forged steel and rich shields.
They leave their donkeys and mount their warhorses.
The day was fair and the sun was shining bright,
their armour aflame while a thousand trumpets sounded.
They made a tremendous noise, and An Tir heard them.
V.
Said Garet: “We know our duty: to stand here for our King.
A man must bear some hardships for his lord,
Stand everything, the great heat, the great cold,
lose the hide and hair on him for his good lord.
Now let each man make sure to strike hard here:
Let them not sing a bad song about us!”
VI.
And so Garet went forth on his good swift-running war-horse
He bears his arms – how they become this man!
Grips his lance now, hefting it, working it,
Now swings the iron point up toward the sky,
Leaving his horn olifant hanging at his side,
He thinks not to ask for aid when a simple task is before him
Close behind him his good companions follow
The men of An Tir hail him; their commander.
He looks wildly towards the men of the West,
And humbly and gently to the men of An Tir;
And spoke a word to them, in all courtesy:
“My lords, easy now, keep at a walk.
These villains are searching for martyrdom.
We’ll get good spoils before this day is over,
No king of An Tir ever got such treasure!”
And with these words, the hosts are at each other.
VII.
The battle is fearful and wonderful and everywhere.
Garet never spares himself,
strikes with his lance as long as the wood lasts;
the fifteenth blow he struck, it broke, was lost.
Then he draws Yale, his good sword, bare, and spurs his horse.
He smashes through helmet, through coif,
through the hair on heads, through eye, through face
VIII.
In the meantime the fighting grew bitter.
The battle is fearful and full of grief.
Garet and his men strike like good men, more than a thousand blows,
An Tir fight side by side, all as one man.
The West die by hundreds, by thousands;
Whoever does not flee finds no refuge from death,
And the men of An Tir lose from their great arms,
They will not see their fathers, their kin again
IX.
The battle is fearful and vast
The men of An Tir strike hard with burnished lances.
There you would have seen the great pain of warriors,
So many men dead and wounded and bleeding,
one lies face up, face down, on another.
West and An Tir, willing and unwilling, they quit the field.
Garet’s man, “My lord, to sound the horn could not help us now, true,
But still it is far better that you do it:
Let the King come, he can avenge us then-
These men of the West must not go home exulting!
Our men will come, they’ll get down on their feet,
And find us here – we’ll be dead, cut to pieces.
But they will lift us up, and weep for us,
And bury us in courts and churches.”
X.
Garet knows this is true, that his duty is to protect the King,
Even with a warning and a confession his job is left undone.
Garet has put Olifant to his mouth,
He sets it well, sounds it with all his strength.
And now the mighty effort of Garet the Sergeant
He sounds his olifant, his pain is great,
And from his mouth the bright blood comes leaping out,
And the temple bursts in his forehead.
The hills are high, and that voice ranges far,
They heard it echo thirty leagues away.
The King heard it, and all his faithful men.
And the King said, “I hear Garet’s horn;
He’d never sound it unless he had a battle”
XI.
The King commands the horns to sound,
High are the hills, and tenebrous, and vast,
The valleys deep, the raging water swift;
To the rear, to the front, the trumpets sound;
They answer the lone voice of the olifant.
The King rides on, rides on in fury,
The men of An Tir in grief and indignation.
And every man of them says to the other:
“If only we find Garet before he is killed,
We’ll stand with him, and then we will do some fighting!”
What does it matter what they say? They are too late.
XII.
Garet the Sergeant fights well and with great skill,
But he is slackening, his body soaked with sweat;
Has a great wound in his head, and much pain,
His temple broken because he blew his horn.
But he must know whether his King will come;
Draws out the olifant, sounds it, so feebly.
The King draws to a halt, listened.
“Let every man who wants to be with Garet
Ride fast! Sound Trumpets! Every trumpet in the host!”
And on these words they sound, so high
The mountains sound, and the valleys resound.
XIII.
The Westers hear; it is no joke to them
“We were all born unlucky!
This Garet is a wild man, he is too great a fighter –
Let us cast at him” and so they did: arrows, wigars, darts,
Lances and spears, javelots dressed with feathers;
Struck Garet’s shield, pierced it, broke it to pieces,
Ripped his hauberk, shattered its rings of mail,
But never touched his body, never his flesh.
But step by step the men of the West come nearer
XIV.
Sergeant Garet removes his shattered shield, his broken mail,
He sees his Lion’s belt and knows it will be taken from him,
“Margaret was the Baroness who gird you about me,
And with my sword and you, my helm and book,
I knelt for Lions Gate, that land where men are free,
I served Seagirt, and every field of Hartwood,
I ministered for Danescomb, and Thornwood,
With them I provisioned Fjordland, and Lionsdale,
All of these I did for my Barony, my Principality and my Kingdom.
And now I am released from my oaths and my duty”
And Sergeant Garet unwinds the belt from his body
XV.
The wind takes this belt, and carries it through the valley
Bolstered by the voice of a thousand new trumpets.
From the woods come banners baring fresh blazons
The Lions and their Gate march in stretching numbers,
Answering the call of the olifant.
A shimmering black Whale crests over a hundred helms,
Freshly coated in sea spray and answering the call of the olifant,
Harts and Rams, Laurel Wreaths and a managerie of beasts,
Leading men in the thousands,
All waving proud, all answering the call of the olifant.
Coming to return the service of Sergeant Garet
XVI.
The high-pitched horns sound, and they ride,
Brave men with their great gathered host.
They made the men of the West show them their heels,
And they keep after them, all as one man.
When they see the daylight faltering,
They stop and pray to make the sun stand still for them,
Hold back the night, let the day linger on.
And on that day the sun stood still.
The West flee, An Tir keep at their heels,
Catch up with them in the Vale Tenebrous,
Chase them on spurring hard to Cynagua,
And always killing them, striking with fury;
The waters of the Mists lie before them,
Very deep, an amazing sight, and swift;
And there is no boat, no barge, no dromond, no galley.
XVII.
When the King sees all the dead West,
Many struck down, the great mass of them drowned,
He gives thanks that their ambush was defeated, and their enemy gone,
But even more, he gives thanks that Sergeant Garet stands,
Battered, bare of helmet and shield, stripped of his belt, but alive.
He gives thanks to the assembled hundreds
who came to return the service Garet had rendered.
On his Will, at their recommendation, and in light of his duty,
The King grants Sergeant Garet an Elevation
To make him a Master, and Companion of the Pelican
For Caemgen saw this,
and placed it upon this stone with the hand of Mathilde beside him
AS LII
I would be remiss without acknowledging, and thanking, the Frederick Goldin translation of The Song of Roland (W.W. Norton & Company, 1978) for providing the foundational elements of this piece.