CHAPTER I.
Of ancient deeds so long forgot; Of feuds whose memory was not; Of forests now laid waste and bare; Of towers which harbor now the hare; Of manners long since changed and gone; Of chiefs who under their gray stone So long had slept, that fickle fame Hath blotted from her rolls their name.
SCOTT.
Reader! if your mind, harassed with the cares of a utilitarian age, require an hour of recreation; if a legend of a far different and far distant day have aught that can claim your sympathy or awaken your attention; if the "Dark Ages" be to you Ages of Faith, or even lit with the gray morning-light of civilization, come wander back with me beyond the experimental revolution of the sixteenth century, to the time when the Gothic temples of the living God were new.
It was the eleventh century: the sun shone as brightly then as now; ay, and virtue too, though sympathy for a lustful tyrant has stamped the age with infamy.

Through an extensive forest in Suabia, as the old chronicle from which I copy relates, a gallant youth was urging on, with voice and rein, a steed that seemed as bold and fiery as his rider.

The youth's flashing eye, and the spear in his hand, told clearly enough that the boar was before him.

On he went, as if the forest were his element, now bending low beneath the knotted bough, now swerving aside from the stern old trunk which sturdily opposed his progress, and seemed to mock him as he passed.

On he went, as if danger were behind and safety before him; as if he galloped to save his own life, not to risk it in taking a boar's.