Note 162 — 17 HIND HORN
Reading edition
When Horn was near the city, he stopped to see how things would go. King Modun passed, with Wikel, in gay discourse of the charms of Rimild. Horn called out to them insultingly, and Modun asked who he was. Horn said he had formerly served a man of consequence as his fisherman: he had thrown a net almost seven years ago, and had now come to give it a look. If it had taken any fish, he would love it no more; if it should still be as he left it, he would carry it away. Modun thinks him a fool. (3984-4057, and nearly the same in 'Horn Childe and Maiden Rimild,' 77-79). This is part of a story in the Gesta Romanorum, of a soldier who loved the emperor's daughter, and went to the holy land for seven years, after a mutual exchange of fidelity for that time. A king comes to woo the princess, but is put off for seven years, upon her alleging that she has made a vow of virginity for so long. At the expiration of this term, the king and the soldier meet as they are on the way to the princess. The king, from certain passages between them, thinks the soldier a fool. The soldier takes leave of the king under pretence of looking after a net which he had laid in a certain place seven years before, rides on ahead, and slips away with the princess. Gest. Rom., Oesterley, p. 597, No 193; Grässe, II, 159; Madden, p. 32; Swan, I, p. lxv. A similar story in Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands, I, 281, 'Baillie Lunnain.' (Simrock, Deutsche Märchen, No 47, is apparently a translation from the Gesta.) The riddle of the hawk, slightly varied, is met with in the romance of Blonde of Oxford and Jehan of Dammartin, v. 2811 ff, 3143 ff, 3288 ff (ed. Le Roux de Lincy, pp. 98, 109, 114), and, still further modified, in Le Romant de Jehan de Paris, ed. Montaiglon, pp. 55, 63, 111. (Le Roux de Lincy, Köhler, Mussafia, G. Paris). 'Horn et Rimenhild,' it will be observed, has both riddles, and that of the net is introduced under circumstances entirely like those in the Gesta Romanorum. The French romance is certainly independent of the English in this passage.