Now, the band is German, and they’re signing about events during the reign of Charlemagne that are best known for a poet written in medieval French. However, I was inspired to do this one today by virtue of the fact that I posteed about Duchess Sofia (whom we’ve met) earlier today and she’s Fantasy–Italian, and one of the other famous versions of the story of Roland was written in Italian, namely, Orlando Furioso.
We’ve previously (as seen here) met 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. Fittingly, they 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, which I previously posted about.
I cover the historical and folkloric accounts of Roncevaux in my post about Orlando Furioso, so I’ll give the abridged version here. In 778, 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.
Roland’s heroic last stand at a heavily fictionalised version of Roncevaux has recorded in the Song of Roland, known as the Chanson de Roland in the original French.
More immediately relevant is the story 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:
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