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Termagaunt (mentioned above in p. 60.) is the name given in the old romances to the God of the Sarazens: in which he is constantly linked with Mahound or Mahomet. Thus in the legend of syr Guy the Soudan (Sultan) swears,

Sign. p. iij. b.

This word is derived by the very learned Editor of Junius from the Anglo-Saxon [for] very, and [for] mighty. —As this word had so sublime a derivation, and was so applicable to the true God, how shall we account for its being so degraded? Perhaps Termagant had been a name originally given to some Saxon idol, before our ancestors were converted to Christianity; or had been the peculiar attribute of one of their false deities; and therefore the first Christian missionaries rejected it as profane and improper to be applied to the true God. Afterwards when the irruptions of the Saracens into Europe, and the Crusades into the East, had brought them acquainted with a new species of unbelievers; our ignorant ancestors, who thought all that did not receive the Christian law, were necessarily Pagans and Idolaters, supposed the Mahometan creed was in all respects the same with that of their Pagan forefathers, and therefore made no scruple to give the ancient name of Termagant to the God of the Saracens: just in the same manner as they afterwards used the name of Sarazen to express any kind of Pagan or Idolater. In the ancient romance of Merline (in the editor's folio MS.) the Saxons themselves that came over with Hengist, because they were not Christians, are constantly called Sarazens.

However that be, it is certain that, after the times of the Crusades, both Mahound and Termagaunt made their frequent appearance in the Pageants and religious Enterludes of the barbarous ages; in which they were exhibited with gestures so furious and frantic, as to become proverbial. Thus Skelton speaks of Wolsey,

Ed. 1736. p. 158.

And Bale, describing the threats used by some Papist magistrates to his wife, speaks of them as “grennyng upon her lyke Termagauntes in a playe.” [Actes of Engl. Votaryes, pt. 2. fo. 83. Ed. 1550. 12mo.]—Hence we may conceive the force of Hamlet's expression in Shakespeare, where condemning a ranting player he says, “I could have such a fellow whipt for ore-doing Termagant: it out-Herods Herod.” A. 3. sc. 3.—By degrees the word came to be applied to an outrageous turbulent person, and especially to a violent brawling woman; to whom alone it is now confined: and this the rather as, I suppose, the character of Termagant was anciently represented on the stage after the eastern mode, with long robes or petticoats.

Another frequent character in the old pageants or enterludes of our ancestors, was the sowdan or soldan representing a grim eastern tyrant: This appears from a curious passage in Stow's Annals [p. 458.]—In a stage-play “the people know right well that he that plaieth the sowdain, is percase a sowter [shoe-maker], yet if one should cal him by his owne name, while he standeth in his majestie, one of his tormentors might bap to break his head.” The sowdain or soldan, was a name given to any Sarazen king, (being only a more rude pronunciation of the word sultan) as the soldan of Egypt, the soudan of Persia, the sowdan of Babylon, &c. who were generally represented as accompanied with grim Sarazens, whose business it was to punish and torment Christians.

I cannot conclude this short Memoir, without observing that the French romancers who had borrowed the word Termagant from us, and applied it as we in their old romances, corrupted it into Tervagaunte: And from them La Fontaine took it up, and has used it more than once in his tales.—This may be added to the other proofs adduced in these volumes of the great intercourse that formerly subsisted between the old minstrels and legendary writers of both nations, and that they mutually borrowed each others romances.