As legend has it, a sword from God given to Roland, an eighth century navy chief below Charlemagne, was so highly effective that Roland’s final mission was to destroy it.
When the blade, referred to as Durandal, proved indestructible, Roland threw it so far as he might, and it sailed over 100 miles earlier than slicing via the aspect of a rock face within the medieval French village of Rocamadour.
That sword, because the story goes, sat wedged within the stone for almost 1,300 years, and it turned a landmark and vacationer attraction in Rocamadour, a small village in southwestern France, about 110 miles east of Bordeaux. So residents and officers there have been surprised to find late final month that the blade had vanished, in response to La Dépêche du Midi, a French newspaper.
An officer with France’s nationwide police power in Cahors, a city 30 miles southwest of Rocamadour, stated that the sword disappeared someday after dusk on June 21, and that the authorities opened an investigation after a passerby reported the following morning that it was lacking.
The officer, who declined to present his title, emphasised that the sword is “a replica,” however acknowledged that it had symbolic significance.
He referred additional inquiries to the workplace of the prosecutor of the republic in Cahors, which didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The mayor of Rocamadour, Dominique Lenfant, stated the sword had been an compulsory cease for vacationers and some extent of pleasure for residents, all of whom be taught the legend by learning the well-known Eleventh- or Twelfth-century French poem “The Track of Roland.”
When a resident referred to as on June 22 to report that the sword had vanished, she recalled in an interview on Saturday, “I had the impression that somebody had reduce a chunk of Rocamadour, as if it have been a dwelling being and somebody had simply reduce off an arm.”
“This sword belongs to this place,” Ms. Lenfant added, “because the legend says that it was thrown from the Pyrenees and landed right here. After I began telling folks what had occurred, they informed me, ‘It’s a joke, it’s not doable.’ Nobody might imagine that such a factor might occur.”
For many People, King Arthur’s Excalibur is a extra recognizable instance of a sword caught in stone. However the myths of Durandal are in style throughout France due to “The Track of Roland.”
The poem is partly set through the Battle of Roncevaux Go in 778 A.D., throughout which Charlemagne’s males who had fought towards Muslims in Spain, led by Roland, discovered themselves severely outnumbered by enemy forces. In line with the poem’s fictional account, Roland and his sword battled valiantly, however he was badly wounded and tried unsuccessfully earlier than his demise to destroy the blade.
In line with “The Track of Roland,” Roland hid the blade below his dying physique.
However tour guides in Rocamadour have inspired guests to return to the city — a postcard-worthy cluster of castles carved out of a steep mountainside — and see the blade for themselves: jutting out of a crack within the rock face, some 30 toes up within the air.
The story of how Durandal ended up in Rocamadour — 150 miles northeast of the place Roland died — has its skeptics.
A British historian, Richard Barber, wrote in 2020 that the reproduction sword was positioned in Rocamadour by an official trying to enhance tourism within the 1780s. And others, together with Helen Solterer, a professor of romance research at Duke College, referred to as the sword “a replica.”
Ms. Lenfant went a step additional, describing it as “a replica of a replica of a replica.”
“The necessary factor to grasp,” she stated, “is that it’s an emblem of our heritage in Rocamadour, and that it’s now not there.”
Others agreed that, copy or no, Durandal was a fixture of Rocamadour, and its absence has resonated all through the realm.
“I can actually think about this might be an enormous loss for Rocamadour because it was one of many medieval village’s most legendary sights,” stated Paola Westbeek, a journey journalist who has visited Rocamadour a number of occasions.
“The far proper would code the sword as a signature piece of French nationwide identification,” Ms. Solterer stated.
“The Track of Roland” has been referenced by nationalist teams for its message that Muslims are an enemy and Muslim immigrants are overtaking France, stated Ada Maria Kuskowski, an assistant professor of historical past with a specialization in medieval historical past on the College of Pennsylvania.
“The sword, which Roland struggled so arduous to steer clear of Muslim palms to protect honor, Christianity and Frenchness,” she stated, “is now gone.”
However the idea that this sword could have been stolen to ship a political message is simply conjecture. This will likely develop into a easy prank, Ms. Solterer stated.
Ms. Lenfant stated that the sword was eliminated for just a few months in 2011, when it was displayed on the Musée de Cluny, the French nationwide museum of the Center Ages in Paris. A replica was made at the moment, although officers misplaced monitor of which one was the unique.
In any occasion, she stated, 4 blacksmiths have supplied to make use of the one which has been saved on the village corridor since then to create a brand new Durandal without cost. So it appears its legend will dwell on regardless of how the police investigation pans out.
“These are unbelievable provides,” Ms. Lenfant stated. “We didn’t ask, however everyone seems to be speaking about this story and has discovered that one thing is lacking. You need to put it again.”
Susan C. Beachy contributed analysis.
