SOURCE: “A Note on the Demon Queen Eleanor,” Modern Language Notes Vol. LXX, No. 6, pp. 393-96.

In the following essay, Chapman discusses the legend of Eleanor that resulted in the character of the demon Cassodorien in Richard Coeur de Lion, a thirteenth-century romance.

In the thirteenth-century Middle English romance Richard Coeur de Lion,¹ the hero's mother is a beautiful stranger named Cassodorien, daughter to the King of Antioch. She asks that her marriage to Henry II “be done priuily,” and the next morning at mass she swoons just before the elevation of the host. Her explanation is: “For j am ρus jschent,/ I dar neuere see ρe sacrement.”² The stricken Henry does not take these signs amiss. After fifteen years he assents to the suggestion of an earl that Cassodorien be forced to see the sacrament. He is then astonished to see her fly out through the roof...