The New International Encyclopædia/Aymon
AYMON, ā'mon. The surname of four
brothers, called respectively Alard, Richard,
Guiscard, and Renaud, sons of Aymon, or Haimon,
Count of Dordogne, who figure among the
most illustrious heroes of the chivalrie poetry
of the Middle Ages. The story belongs to the
cycle of romances in which Charlemagne is the
central figure. Huon de Villeneuve, a French
poet of the time of Philip Augustus (1180-1223),
tells the story in his poem, entitled, Les quatre
fils Aymon, while Ariosto later conferred poetical
immortality on the family by the publication
of his Orlando furioso, in which Renaud, or
Roland, the bravest of the four brothers, plays
the most distinguished part. Caxton printed,
about 1489, an English translation of the story,
and in 1884-85 the Early English Text Society
reprinted Caxton's work, under the title, The
Four Sons of Aymon. Tieck, the popular German
writer, edited and published the story, but
seems to have taken it from a different source.
See .