/> strong. This radical proposition was set aside through the advice of a

wise woman, named Gambara, who suggested that lots should be drawn for

the migration of a third of the population. Her counsel was taken and

the migration began, under the leadership of her two sons. These

migrants wore beards of prodigious length, whence their subsequent name.



They first entered the land of the Vandals, who refused them permission

to settle. This was a question to be decided at sword's point, and war

was declared. Both sides appealed to the gods for aid, Gambara praying

to Freya, while the Vandals invoked Odin, who answered that he would

grant the victory to the party he should first behold at the dawn of the

coming day.



The day came. The sun rose. In front of the Danish host were stationed

their women, who had loosened their long hair, and let it hang down over

their faces. "Who are these with long beards?" demanded Odin, on seeing

these Danish amazons. This settled the question of victory, and also

gave the invaders a new name, that of Longobardi,--due, in this legend,

to the long hair of the women instead of the long beards of the men.

There are other legends, but none worth repeating.



The story of their king Alboin, with whom we have particularly to deal,

begins, however, with a story which may be in part legendary. They were

now in hostile relations with the Gepidae, the first nation to throw off

the yoke of the Huns. Alboin, son of Audoin, king of the Longobardi,

killed Thurismund, son of Turisend, king of the Gepidae, in battle, but

forgot to carry away his arms, and thus returned home without a trophy

of his victory. In consequence, his stern father refused him a seat at

his table, as one unworthy of the honor. Such was the ancient Lombard

custom, and it must be obeyed.



The young prince acknowledged the justice of this reproof, and

determined to try and obtain the arms which were his by right of

victory. Selecting forty companions, he boldly visited the court of

Turisend, and openly demanded from him the arms of his son. It was a

daring movement, but proved successful. The old king received him

hospitably, as the custom of the time demanded, though filled with grief

at the loss of his son. He even protected him from the anger of his

subjects, whom some of the Lombards had provoked by their insolence of

speech. The daring youth returned to his father's court with the arms

of his slain foe, and won the seat of honor of which he had been

deprived.



Turisend died, and Cunimund, his son, became king. Audoin died, and

Alboin became king. And now new adventures of interest occurred. In his

visit to the court of Turisend, Alboin had seen and fallen in love with

Rosamond, the beautiful daughter of Cunimund. He now demanded her hand

in marriage, and as it was scornfully refused him, he revenged himself

by winning her honor through force and stratagem. War broke out in

consequence, and the Gepidae were conquered, Rosamond falling to Alboin

as part of the trophies of victory.



We are told that in this war Alboin sought the aid of Bacan, chagan of

the Avars, promising him half the spoil and all the land of the Gepidae

in case of victory. He added to this a promise of the realm of the

Longobardi, in case he should succeed in winning for them a new home in

Italy, which country he proposed to invade.



About fifteen years before, some of his subjects had made a warlike

expedition to Italy. Their report of its beauty and fertility had

kindled a spirit of emulation in the new generation, and inspired the

young and warlike king with ambitious hopes. His eloquence added to

their desire. He not only described to them in glowing words the land of

promise which he hoped to win, but spoke to their senses as well, by

producing at the royal banquets the fairest fruits that grew in that

garden land of Europe. His efforts were successful. No sooner was his

standard erected, and word sent abroad that Italy was his goal, than the

Longobardi found their strength augmented by hosts of adventurous youths

from the surrounding peoples. Germans, Bulgarians, Scythians, and others

joined in ranks, and twenty thousand Saxon warriors, with their wives

and children, added to the great host which had flocked to the banners

of the already renowned warrior.



It was in the year 568 that Alboin, followed by the great multitude of

adventurers he had gathered, and by the whole nation of the Longobardi,

ascended the Julian Alps, and looked down from their summits on the

smiling plains of northern Italy to which his success was thenceforward

to give the name of Lombardy, the land of the Longobardi.



Four years were spent in war with the Romans, city after city, district

after district, falling into the hands of the invaders. The resistance

was but feeble, and at length the whole country watered by the Po, with

the strong city of Pavia, fell into the hands of Alboin, who divided the

conquered lands among his followers, and reduced their former holders to

servitude. Alboin made Pavia his capital, and erected strong

fortifications to keep out the Burgundians, Franks, and other nations

which were troubling his new-gained dominions. This done, he settled

down to the enjoyment of the conquest which he had so ably made and so

skilfully defended.



History tells us that the Longobardi cultivated their new lands so

skilfully that all traces of devastation soon vanished, and the realm

grew rich in its productions. Their freemen distinguished themselves

from the other German conquerors by laboring to turn the waste and

desert tracts into arable soil, while their king, though unceasingly

watchful against his enemies, lived among his people with patriarchal

simplicity, procuring his supplies from the produce of his farms, and

making regular rounds of inspection from one to another. It is a picture

fitted for a more peaceful and primitive age than that turbulent period

in which it is set.



But now we have to do with Alboin in another aspect,--his domestic

relations, his dealings with his wife Rosamond, and the tragic end of

all the actors in the drama of real life which we have set out to tell.

The Longobardi were barbarians, and Alboin was no better than his

people; a strong evidence of which is the fact that he had the skull of

Cunimund, his defeated enemy and the father of his wife, set in gold,

and used it as a drinking cup at his banquets.



Doubtless this brutality stirred revengeful sentiments in the mind of

Rosamond. An added instance of barbarian insult converted her outraged

feelings into a passion for revenge. Alboin had erected a palace near

Verona, one of the cities of his new dominion, and here he celebrated

his victories with a grand feast to his companions in arms. Wine flowed

freely at the banquet, the king emulating, or exceeding, his guests in

the art of imbibing. Heated with his potations, in which he had drained

many cups of Rhaetian or Falernian wine, he called for the choicest

ornament of his sideboard, the gold-mounted skull of Cunimund, and drank

its full measure of wine amid the loud plaudits of his drunken guests.



"Fill it again with wine," he cried; "fill it to the brim; carry this

goblet to the queen, and tell her that it is my desire and command that

she shall rejoice with her father."



Rosamond's heart throbbed with grief and rage on hearing this inhuman

request. She took the skull in trembling hands, and murmuring in low

accents, "Let the will of my lord be obeyed," she touched it to her

lips. But in doing so she breathed a silent prayer, and resolved that

the unpardonable insult should be washed out in Alboin's blood.



If she had ever loved her lord, she felt now for him only the bitterness

of hate. She had a friend in the court on whom she could depend,

Helmichis, the armor-bearer of the king. She called on him for aid in

her revenge, and found him willing but fearful, for he knew too well the

great strength and daring spirit of the chief whom he had so often

attended in battle. He proposed, therefore, that they should gain the

aid of a Lombard of unequalled strength, Peredeus by name. This

champion, however, was not easily to be won. The project was broached to

him, but the most that could be gained from him was a promise of

silence.



Failing in this, more shameful methods were employed. Such was

Rosamond's passion for revenge that the most extreme measures seemed to

her justifiable. Peredeus loved one of the attendants of the queen.

Rosamond replaced this frail woman, sacrificed her honor to her

vengeance, and then threatened to denounce Peredeus to the king unless

he would kill the man who had so bitterly wronged her.



Peredeus now consented. He must kill the king or the king would kill

him, for he felt that Rosamond was quite capable of carrying out her

threat. Having thus obtained the promise of the instruments of her

vengeance, the queen waited for a favorable moment to carry out her dark

design. The opportunity soon came. The king, heavy with wine, had

retired from the table to his afternoon slumbers. Rosamond, affecting

solicitude for his health and repose, dismissed his attendants, closed

the palace gates, and then, seeking her spouse, lulled him to rest by

her tender caresses.



Finding that he slumbered, she unbolted the chamber door, and urged her

confederates to the instant performance of the deed of blood. They

entered the room with stealthy tread, but the quick senses of the

warrior took the alarm, he opened his eyes, saw two armed men advancing

upon him, and sprang from his couch. His sword hung beside him, and he

attempted to draw it, but the cunning hand of Rosamond had fastened it

securely in the scabbard. The only weapon remaining was a small

foot-stool. This he used with vigor, but it could not long protect him

from the spears of his assailants, and he quickly fell dead beneath

their blows. His body was buried beneath the stairway of the palace, and

thus tragically ended the career of the founder of the kingdom of

Lombardy.



But the story of Rosamond's life is not yet at an end. The death of

Alboin was followed by another tragic event, which brought her guilty

career to a violent termination. The wily queen had not failed to

prepare for the disturbances which might follow the death of the king.

The murder of Alboin was immediately followed by her marriage with

Helmichis, whose ambition looked to no less a prize than the throne of

Lombardy. The queen was surrounded by a band of faithful Gepidae, with

whose aid she seized the palace and made herself mistress of Verona, the

Lombard chiefs flying in alarm. But the assassination of the king who

had so often led them to victory filled the Longobardi with indignation,

the chiefs mustered their bands and led them against the stronghold of

the guilty couple, and they in their turn, were forced to fly for their

lives. Helmichis and Rosamond, with her daughter, her faithful Gepidae,

and the spoils of the palace, took ship down the Adige and the Po, and

were transported in a Greek vessel to the port of Ravenna, where they

hoped to find shelter and safety.



Longinus, the Greek governor of Ravenna, gave willing refuge to the

fugitives, the more so as the great beauty of Rosamond filled him with

admiration. She had not been long there, indeed, before he offered her

his hand in marriage. Rosamond, moved by ambition or a return of his

love, accepted his offer. There was, it is true, an obstacle in the way.

She was already provided with a husband. But the barbarian queen had

learned the art of getting rid of inconvenient husbands. Having,

perhaps, grown to detest the tool of her revenge, now that the purpose

of her marriage with him had failed, she set herself to the task of

disposing of Helmichis, this time using the cup instead of the sword.



As Helmichis left the bath he received a wine-cup from the hands of his

treacherous wife, and lifted it to his lips. But no sooner had he tasted

the liquor, and felt the shock that it gave his system, than he knew

that he was poisoned. Death, a speedy death, was in his veins, but he

had life enough left for revenge. Seizing his dagger, he pressed it to

the breast of Rosamond, and by threats of instant death compelled her to

drain the remainder of the cup. In a few minutes both the guilty

partners in the death of Alboin had breathed their last.



When Longinus was, at a later moment, summoned into the room, it was to

find his late guests both dead upon the floor. The poison had faithfully

done its work. Thus ended a historic tragedy than which the stage

possesses few of more striking dramatic interest and opportunities for

histrionic effect.