the Fountain of Baranton, in thus famous Forest, were not the creation of his own fancy, but were in his time already in no small repute; for we find his precursor Wace so much impressed with the desire to be an eye-witness of them, that he actually made a journey to the spot for that purpose. In his Roman de Rou he relates the whole affair with admirable naiveté. After adverting to the marvels of the slab, he tells us, that if what the Bretons say is true, Fairies are often to be seen sporting on the Fountain's bank; but he very frankly owns that he met with nothing but disappointment to repay the trouble of his expedition, and he reproaches himself for his folly in having ever undertaken it.
The passage is brought in by the mention of the Barons who accompanied William of Normandy to the conquest of England, some of whom he says were
"de verz Brecheliant,
Dune Bretunz vont sovent fablant,
Une forest mult lunge é le'e,
Ki en Bretaigne est mult loée;
La Fontaine de Berenton
Sort d'une part lez le perron;
Aler i solent venéor
A Berenton par grant chalor,
Et o lor cors l'ewe puisier
Et li perron de suz moillier,
For ço soleient pluée aveir;
Issi soleit jadis pluveir
En la forest tut envirun,
Maiz jo ne sai par kel raisun.
Lá solt l'en li fées véir,
Se li Bretunz disent veir,
Et altres merveilles plusors;
Aigres solt avéir destors
E de granz cers mult grant plenté,
Maiz li vilain ont deserté
Lá alai jo merveilles querre,
tually, by arts which he himself had taught her, that it never after could be opened.—See Morte d' Arthur, ii. 463–8.
It is this version that Ariosto appears to have followed; but he places in the South of France, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Garonne, the tomb in which
"Col corpo morto il vivo spirto alberga."
