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she met the mother of Halewyn. 'Beautiful virgin, have you not seen my son?'
"'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is gone hunting: you will never see him again.
"'Your son, the Lord Halewyn, is dead. I have his head in my apron, which is red with his blood.'
"And when she arrived at her father's gate, she blew the horn like a man.
"And when her father saw her, he rejoiced at her return.
"He celebrated it by a feast, and the head of Halewyn was placed on the table."
Flemish writers claim as entirely their own that epic of the people, "Reynard the Fox." Their right to it was long contested; nor has anything been done since the labors of Willems, who, in opposition to the opinion of William Grimm, settles the authorship of the "Reinaert de Vos" on Utenhove, a priest of Aerdenburg. It seems natural to suppose that this most popular of Middle-Age productions should have originated in the very region which later gave to the world a school of painting that incarnated on canvas the phases of animal life, taking its delight and best inspirations in the burlesque side of human passions.
In its first period, Flemish literature found some encouragement from its princes. John I. of Brabant fostered it, and even took, himself, the title of Flemish Troubadour. Under Guy of Dampierre, who neither in heart nor mind was sympathetic with the people he ruled, we find Maerlant, still revered by his country; his name is ever coupled with the epithet of Father of Flemish Poets. Didactic rather than poetical, his influence was great in breaking down the barriers which separated the people from the higher classes, by adapting to their own home-idiom the best productions of the age. About this period we find prevalent those Northern singers corresponding to the _Trouvères_, _Troubadours_, and Jongleurs. They are in Flanders the _Spreker_, _Segger_, and _Vinder_, who, when travelling through the country, took the name of _Gezel_, received in town or village, court or hamlet, as the