The Song of Roland part 1

A change of pace from some of our recent strip serialisations. This one is in colour, for starters, and is an adaptation from the 11th or 12th century. Originally published in France, La Chanson de Roland was an epic poem and the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It tells the story of a true historical incident, the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, in the 8th century; by the mid-9th century, the story was already widespread. By the time of the earliest surviving manuscript dating possibly from the mid-1000s, it had evolved somewhat... but let me hand you over to Michael Moorcock, who penned the following for an early issue of Look and Learn...

The illustration above is by Ron Embleton and is scanned from the original artwork, by the way.

The artwork for 'The Song of Roland' is by Luis Bermejo, one of my favourite Spanish artists. The clean-up is a bit patchy in places due to the poor original scans I have to hand, so my apologies if you feel their not up to my usual standard. It's the best I could manage in the time I had. I've saved them in a slightly larger format because the text is so small. Hopefully that will make up for the quality issues. Here's episode one of eight... enjoy!

(* Artwork © Look and Learn Ltd. Reprinted by permission.)