This bough broke in two, A.D. 1617: but the mutilated
limb was still called the knights' bough, nobody knew why. So do names
survive their ideas.
What had not this tree seen since first it came green and tender as
a cabbage above the soil, and stood at the mercy of the first hare or
rabbit that should choose to cut short its frail existence!
Since then eagles had perched on its crown, and wild boars fed without
fear of man upon its acorns. Troubadours had sung beneath it to lords
and ladies seated round, or walking on the grass and commenting the
minstrel's tales of love by exchange of amorous glances. Mediaeval
sculptors had taken its leaves, and wisely trusting to nature, had
adorned churches with those leaves cut in stone.
It had seen a Norman duke conquer England, and English kings invade
France and be crowned at Paris. It had seen a girl put knights to the
rout, and seen the warrior virgin burned by envious priests with common
consent both of the curs she had defended and the curs she had defeated.
Why, in its old age it had seen the rise of printing, and the first dawn
of national civilization in Europe.
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