Accordingly the snake was conducted with much ceremony into the Emperor’s presence, where it was distinctly observed to make a low obeisance. The Kaiser addressed the animal courteously, as though it were a human being, and inquired what it wanted. Whereupon the snake made a sign which the company took to indicate that it desired the Emperor to follow it. Charlemagne did not hesitate, but followed the creature to the shores of the lake, attended by all his courtiers. Straight to its nest went the snake, and there, among the eggs, was an enormous toad, puffing out its bloated body and staring with glassy eyes at the company. The reason for the snake’s appeal was at once apparent.

   “Take away that toad,” said the Emperor, as gravely as though he were pronouncing judgment in an important human case; “take away that toad and burn it. It has taken unlawful possession of the snake’s nest.”

   The court listened to the Emperor’s decree in respectful silence, and immediately carried out the sentence. The company thereupon re-entered the royal abode, and thought no more of the incident.

   On the following day, however, at about the same hour, the serpent entered the chamber in which Charlemagne sat, and glided swiftly toward the table. The attendants were somewhat astonished at the unexpected appearance, but the Kaiser motioned to them to stand aside, for he was very curious to see what the reptile would do. Raising itself till its head was on a level with the table, it dropped into his plate a magnificent diamond of the first water, gleaming with the purest light. This done, the serpent bowed low, as on the previous occasion, and quitted the room as silently as it had entered.

   The diamond, set in a gold ring of exquisite workmanship, Charlemagne presented to his wife, the beautiful Fastrada. But besides being a thing of beauty and of great value, the diamond was also a charm, for whoever received it from another received with it a wealth of personal affection. So was it with Charlemagne and Fastrada. On presenting the ring to his wife the Emperor straightway conceived for her a passion far more intense than he had hitherto experienced. From that time to the day of her death he was her devoted slave, blind and deaf to all her faults. Nay, even when she died, he refused to quit the room in which she lay, or permit the interment of her body; refused to see the approach of corruption, which spares not youth or loveliness; seemed, in short, to have lost all count of the passage of time in his grief for the beloved Fastrada. At length he was approached by Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, who had learnt, by 

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