As he comes in triumph from the war, and pounces on his bride.’ 
    The maiden laughed, but Alda sighed, and gravely shook her head. 
    ‘Full rich,’ quoth she, ’shall thy guerdon be, if thou the truth hast
           said.’ 
    ’Tis morn; her letters, stained with blood, the truth too plainly tell,
    How, in the chase of Ronceval, Sir Roland fought and fell.”
                              Lady Alda’s Dreams (Sir Edmund Head’s tr.).

[Sidenote:  Legend of Roland and Hildegarde.] A later legend, which has given rise to sundry poems, connects the name of Roland with one of the most beautiful places on the Rhine.  Popular tradition avers that he sought shelter one evening in the castle of Drachenfels, where he fell in love with Hildegarde, the beautiful daughter of the Lord of Drachenfels.  The sudden outbreak of the war in Spain forced him to bid farewell to his betrothed, but he promised to return as soon as possible to celebrate their wedding.  During the campaign, many stories of his courage came to Hildegarde’s ears, and finally, after a long silence, she heard that Roland had perished at Roncesvalles.

Broken-hearted, the fair young mourner spent her days in tears, and at last prevailed upon her father to allow her to enter the convent on the island of Nonnenworth, in the middle of the river, and within view of the gigantic crag where the castle ruins can still be seen.

“The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of water broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose fair white walls along them shine.” 

          
                                                            BYRON, Childe Harold.

With pallid cheeks and tear-dimmed eyes, Hildegarde now spent her life either in her tiny cell or in the convent chapel, praying for the soul of her beloved, and longing that death might soon come to set her free to join him.  The legend relates, however, that Roland was not dead, as she supposed, but had merely been sorely wounded at Roncesvalles.

When sufficiently recovered to travel, Roland painfully made his way back to Drachenfels, where he presented himself late one evening, eagerly calling for Hildegarde.  A few moments later the joyful light left his eyes forever, for he learned that his beloved had taken irrevocable vows, and was now the bride of Heaven.

That selfsame day Roland left the castle of Drachenfels, and riding to an eminence overlooking the island of Nonnenwoerth, he gazed long and tearfully at a little light twinkling in one of the convent windows.  As he could not but suppose that it illumined Hildegarde’s cell and lonely vigils, he watched it all night, and when morning came he recognized his beloved’s form in the long procession of nuns on their way to the chapel.