THE FOLIO SOCIETY

'Friend Roland, I beseech you, sound your horn!
Then Charles will hear; the army will turn back . . .'

High in the Pyrenees, in the narrow pass at Roncevaux, as the Saracen army closes on them, Count Oliver begs his friend to summon help for the beleaguered rearguard. It is too late. Pride and betrayal have done for them, and all that is left for the flower of the French is a fight to the death - a fight that will go down in history in the epic of hot-blooded courage and tragedy that is The Song of Roland.

The great strength of the medieval epics is that, however superhuman the deeds of their champions, they were rooted in real events. Many, like The Song of Roland and William of Orange, were inspired by the exploits of Charlemagne's reign, centuries before; others were nearly contemporary: El Cid, the story of Rodrigo Diaz of Vivar, a noble knight caught up in the vicious struggle between Christians and Moors in Spain, was begun in 1140, only forty years after his death. Here are William the Conqueror, Godfrey of Boulogne, famed commander of the First Crusade, Robert the Bruce, fighter for Scottish independence and victor over the English at Bannockburn . . . historical figures, transmuted by the epics into the superheroes of legend. Told in simple and direct style, reflecting their knightly audience's desire for fame and fortune in a violent and glorious world, these are sweeping dramas, packed with sieges and campaigns, with liege lords and sworn foes, divided loyalties, dark treacheries and undying friendships.