Huon de Bordeaux

Huon of Bordeaux is the title character of a 13th-century French epic (chanson de geste) with romance elements. He is a knight who, after unwittingly killing Charlot, the son of Emperor Charlemagne, is given a reprieve from death on condition that he fulfill a number of seemingly impossible tasks: he must travel to the court of the Amir in Babylon and return with a handful of the amir's hair and teeth, kill the Amir's mightiest knight, and three times kiss the Amir's daughter, Esclarmonde. All these Huon eventually achieves with the assistance of the fairy king Oberon.

The chanson de geste that survives (in three more or less complete manuscripts and two short fragments) comprises 10,553 decasyllable verses grouped in 91 assonanced laisses. Presumed dates for its composition vary, but 1216 and 1268 are generally given as terminus post quem and terminus ante quem.

The chanson's success gave rise to six continuations and one prologue which triple its length:

The Turin manuscript also contains the romance of Les Lorrains, a summary in seventeen lines of another version of the story, according to which Huon's exile is due to his having slain a count in the emperor's palace.

The poem and several of its continuations were converted to a rhymed version in alexandrines in the 15th century (only one manuscript exists).

The poem and most of its continuations were put into a prose version in 1454. While no manuscript exists from the 15th century prose version, this version served as the base text for 16th century printed editions (eleven exist), the earliest extant being the edition printed by Michel le Noir in 1513. The work was reprinted ten times in the 17th century, eight times in the 18th and four times in the 19th (notably in a beautifully printed and illustrated adaptation (1898) in modern French by Gaston Paris).

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