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Saracen

noun
1.
(historically) a member of the nomadic people of the Syrian and Arabian deserts at the time of the Roman Empire.
2.
(when used broadly) any Arab.
3.
(historically) a Muslim who opposed the Crusades.






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"Saracen" Quotes from Famous Books



... though grievously sick, to issue his orders, when the boat was boarded by the Saracens. One friendly Turk counselled him to leap on board the enemy's galley and give himself up as a prisoner; and afterwards this Turk saved his life, when the Saracen daggers were at his throat, by passing him off as the King's cousin. He even secured for him the scarlet furred cloak which had been his mother's gift, and under which poor Joinville lay, shivering with fever, and, as he freely owned, with ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... observed an eagle soaring majestically above the cleft where tradition points to the last exploit of the valorous nephew of Charlemagne, whose type the imperial bird might well be deemed. It was here, according to the veracious chronicle of Archbishop Turpin, that, after defeating the Saracen king, Marsires, in the pass of Roncesvalles, Roland, grievously wounded, laid himself down to die, the shrill notes of his horn having failed to bring him the succour he expected from his uncle. It is in Roncesvalles that poets have laid the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... the terrible chain which long- dead Rome once forged, still gave the power of cheating people into thinking that they were necessary lords of the world. Turn then to the lands they governed, and read and forget a long string of the causeless murders of Northern and Saracen pirates and robbers. That is pretty much the sum of what so-called history has left us of the tale of those days—the stupid languor and the evil deeds of kings and scoundrels. Must we turn away then, and say that all was evil? How then did men live from day to day? How then did Europe grow ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... fell out, that the Abbot had to speak with the Emperor of a wrong which his bailiffs had done to the abbey. The Abbot made him a goodly gift, whereas the abbey and convent were subject unto him, for the Emperor was a Saracen. When the Abbot had given him his goodly gift, the Emperor gave him day for the third day thence, whenas he should be at a castle of his, three leagues from the city ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris

... lack of symbolical representation, closes one open and easily accessible avenue of instruction and emolument against the students of the fine arts. It was not yet permitted to write upon the plastered doorway of an alehouse, or the suspended sign of an inn, "The Old Magpie," or "The Saracen's Head," substituting that cold description for the lively effigies of the plumed chatterer, or the turban'd frown of the terrific soldan. That early and more simple age considered alike the necessities of all ranks, and depicted the symbols of good cheer ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... years passed by without war and retaliation, or that treaties made piracy impossible. In the early and more pugnacious days of the Saracen domination conflicts were frequent. The F[a]tim[i] Khalifs conquered and held all the larger islands of the Western Mediterranean, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Isles. In 1002 the Saracens pillaged Pisa, and the Pisans retaliated by burning an African fleet. Three years ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... making the events succeed each other with almost breathless rapidity, and balancing success alternately from one side to the other, without letting it ever incline decisively to either. Tasso has adopted the same plan in his Jerusalem Delivered, and the contests of the Christian knights and Saracen leaders with the lance and the sword, closely resemble those of the Grecian and Trojan chiefs on the plain of Troy. Ariosto has carried it still further. The exploits of his Paladins—their adventures on earth, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... western limit of the Roman Empire. It was the plan of these terrible Saracens, after conquering Spain, to sweep over the Pyrenees into France. Then another Saracen army, after conquering Constantinople, was to flow westward, and the two streams ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... my faithful servants, wherefore I weep thus bitterly? I fear not these wretched pirates, but I am afflicted that they should dare to approach these shores, and sorely do grieve when I foresee what evil they will work on my sons and on my people." His courtiers deemed they were Breton or Saracen pirates, but the emperor knew better. They were the terrible Northmen, soon to prove a bloodier scourge to Gaul than Hun or Goth or Saracen; and to meet them Charlemagne left an empire distracted by civil war, and a nerveless, feeble prince, Louis the Pious, Louis the Forgiving, fitter for the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... The Saracens' land (Serkland) means North Africa and Spain, and the Saracen countries in Asia; that is, ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre

... 37. What is a Saracen? (Here the word means merely a Mohammedan hostile to the Christians.) What does "rode like corn" mean? (We rode through their ranks as we would ride ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... flinch when t'ward the Christian west The fell invasion of the Saracen Headed its course with crimson scimitar; Supplanting the mild precepts of the Cross With those of lust, ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... to Caper, 'Let's andiammo,' (travel,) said he, 'that woman's face will haunt me for a month. I've seen it before; yes, seen her shut up in the Vatican, immortal on an old Etruscan vase. Egypt, Etruria, the Saracen hordes who once overrun all this Southern Italy, I find, every hour, among live people, some trace of you all; but of the old ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... applied to those who were supposed to descend from Hagar, as opposed to Saracen, a superior class, claiming descent from Sarah, the wife of ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... almyros, from the Latin admirabilis, from the Saxon aenmereeal, and from the French aumer, appear all fanciful. It is extensively received that the Sicilians first adopted it from emir, the sea, of their Saracen masters; but it presents a kind of unusual etymological inversion. The term is most frequent in old Romance; but the style and title was not used by us until 1286; and in 1294, William de Leybourne was ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... called chief of knighthood; and so all the world saith, that betwixt three knights is departed clearly knighthood, that is Launcelot du Lake, Sir Tristram de Liones, and Sir Lamorak de Galis: these bear now the renown. There be many other knights, as Sir Palamides the Saracen and Sir Safere his brother; also Sir Bleoberis and Sir Blamore de Ganis his brother; also Sir Bors de Ganis and Sir Ector de Maris and Sir Percivale de Galis; these and many more be noble knights, but there be none that ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... nothing commonplace about Taormina. Their hotel was outside the walls, but a brief walk took them to the Messina Gate, a quaint archway through which they passed into the narrow streets of one of the oldest towns in Sicily. Doorways and windows of Saracen or Norman construction faced them on every side, and every inch of the ancient buildings ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... reprisals, that brutality breeds hate. After Alsace the German should have known too much to try the same method in harsher forms upon Belgium and invaded France. But the barbarian learns no spiritual lessons. Persian atrocity, Saracen atrocity, Indian atrocity, Spanish atrocity—they have all failed. An enduring triumph was never won on that principle of ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... effort by which Leo and the people of the empire saved the Roman law and the Christian religion from the conquering Saracen. It embraces the long and violent struggle between the government and the people, the emperors seeking to increase the central power by annihilating every local franchise, and to constitute themselves the fountains of ecclesiastical as completely as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... plain arches of its lantern support as perfect a cupola as if we were on the other side of the Loire. But both the arches of the lantern and the barrelled vault of the choir keep the round arch. Maine was far off from the land of the Saracen, and the pointed arch would here be a sign that later forms were not far off. From Ambrieres either the railway or, if the traveller likes it better, a road leading up and down over a series of low hills, will take him to another scene of William's victories ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman

... a talisman," she said, "Gnostic, I should think, for there is the cock upon it, and a lot that I can't read, probably a magic formula. No doubt the old Crusader got it in the East, perhaps as a gift from some Saracen in whose family it had descended. Oh! my dear boy, I do thank you. You could not have made me a present that I ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... Moorish grandeur and skill, as this Capitol is the pride of American architecture, you may see cut in stone a hand holding a key, surmounting the horse-shoe arch of the main gateway. They are the three types of strength, speed, and secresy, the boast of a now fallen Saracen race, sons of that sea of sand, the desert, who carried the glory of Islam to furthest Gades. In an evil hour of civil strife and bitter hatred of faction, the Alhambra was betrayed to Spain, 'to feed fat an ancient grudge' between political ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... a king, although it wears a crown,' Willoughby explained, 'but the head and bust of a Saracen against whom my ancestor of many hundred years ago went to fight in the Holy Land. And the words cut round it are our motto, "Vertue vauncet", ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... Roderic, you know, was king of the Goths, and seems to have been a thundering old tyrant; and one of his nobles, Julian—who had been badly treated by him—went across with his family into Africa, and put up Mousa, the Saracen governor of the province across there, to invade Spain. They first of all made a little expedition—that was in 711—with one hundred horse, and four hundred foot. They landed over there at Algeciras and, after doing some plundering and burning, sailed back ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... the race of Saracen Arabs who had brought the arts of life to such perfection in Southern Spain, but who had received the general appellation of Moors from those Africans who were continually reinforcing them, and, bringing a certain Puritan strictness ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... remonstrated Bob Sawyer, looking in at the coach window, as they pulled up before the door of the Saracen's Head, Towcester, 'this ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... towards a street which opened on the river-front, and at the end of this street the water flamed away between the tall slim poplar-trunks, and beyond the stream lay a strip of luxuriant country, from which the old Saracen towers stood out confusedly, like stone islets, in the dark. The air was full of the stifling emanations of mown hay, with now and then a whiff from putrefied silkworms in the bushes. Flights of swallows crossed this space with quick, scolding cries, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... happened that the French king passing with his armie towardes Cayro aforesayd, came to the great riuer Nilus, on the further part whereof the Soldan had pitched himselfe to withstand his comming ouer: there was at this time a Saracen lately conuerted to Christ, seruing the earle Robert the French kings brother, who told him of the absence of the Soldan from his tents, and of a shallow foord in the riuer where they might easily passe ouer. Whereupon the sayd earle Robert and the Master ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... his ideas in words which, even in a dead language, have to this day a living power. When Plato was dead, there remained his written words. They remain still. They have entered successively into the philosophies, the creeds, and the practical codes, of the Grecian world, the Roman, the Saracen, and the Christian. At this very hour hundreds of millions of human beings unconsciously hold opinions which the words of that wise old Greek have helped to mould. The mere brute force of a military conqueror may make arbitrary changes in the current of ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart

... him!" she said, "and how like unto a man he speaketh; if there were a brawl in the street, he would strike in and ask no word thereof, not even which were the better side: whereas here is my falcon-chick frighted at a little gold box and a pair of Saracen beads." ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... beautiful chain coat for Max. He already had a good, though plain, suit of steel plate which his father had given him when he received the accolade. I owned a good plate armor and the most perfect chain coat I have ever seen. I took it from a Saracen lord one day in battle, and gave him his own life in payment. Max and I each bore a long sword, a short sword, and a mace. We carried no lance. That weapon is burdensome, and we could get one at ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... sight of our destination, a British cruiser brought us to and visited the "Galopsik." As her papers were in order, and the vessel altogether untainted, I took it for granted that Lieutenant Hill would make a short stay and be off to his "Saracen." Yet, a certain "slave deck," and an unusual quantity of water-casks, aroused the officer's suspicions, so that instead of heading for our port, we were unceremoniously favored with a prize crew, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... the sale and paid a large price for the suit of armor which the Marquis de Neuville had worn, and set it up in a corner of his studio. It was in eight or a dozen pieces, and quite heavy, but was wonderfully carved and inlaid with silver, and there were dents on it that showed where a Saracen's scimetar had been dulled and many a brave knight's spear had struck. Mr. Carstairs had paid so much for it that he thought he ought to make a better use of it, if possible, than simply to keep it dusted and ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... possessed a castle all jagged at the corners, and shaped and pointed like a Spanish doublet, situated upon a bank from which it was reflected in the Loire. In the rooms were royal tapestries, furniture, Saracen pomps, vanities, and inventions which were much admired by people of Tours, and even by the archbishop and clerks of St. Martin, to whom he sent as a free gift a banner fringed with fine gold. In the neighbourhood of the said castle abounded ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... the devoted country, with but few substantial checks. Masters of all the islands in the Mediterranean, their corsairs insulted the coasts of Italy, and even threatened the destruction of the Eastern empire. While Alexis was occupied in a war with Patzinaces, on the banks of the Danube, Zachas, a Saracen pirate, scoured the Archipelago, having, with the assistance of an able Smyrniote, constructed a flotilla of forty brigantines, and some light fast-rowing boats, manned by adventurers like himself. After taking several of the surrounding islands, he established himself sovereign ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... from Aleppo to Scanderoon, which, mistaking its way, was absent for three days, and in that time had made an excursion to the island of Ceylon; a circumstance then deduced from finding green cloves in the bird's stomach, and credited at Aleppo. In the time of the holy wars, certain Saracen ambassadors who came to Godfrey of Antioch from a neighbouring prince, sent intelligence to their master of the success of their embassy, by means of pigeons, fixing the billet to the bird's tail. Hirtius and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... examination of a Scotish man, named Iohn Rough, who by the Queenes Maiesties commaundement is presently sent to Newgate, beeyng of the chief of them that vpon Sondaie laste, vnder the colour of commyng to see a Play at the Saracen's head in Islington, had prepared a Communion to be celebrated and received there among certaine other seditious and hereticall persons. And forasmuche as by the sayd Roughes examination, contayning the storie and progresse of his former life, it well appeareth of what sort he is: the ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... may remind you, all the same, that the theory of aviation is condemned beforehand, and rejected by the majority of American and foreign engineers. It is a system which was the cause of the death of the Flying Saracen at Constantinople, of the monk Volador at Lisbon, of De Leturn in 1852, of De Groof in 1864, besides the victims I ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... elected bishop and to gain possession of all ecclesiastical offices. Gregory of Tours tells how King Gontrand, on entering the city of Orleans {109} in 585, was received by a crowd praising him "in the language of the Latins, the Jews and the Syrians."[14] The merchant colonies existed until the Saracen corsairs destroyed the commerce ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... approaching sunset. Whilst passing La Tricherie I halted for a moment to show mademoiselle the ruins of Baudimont, and pointed out to her, in the distance on our right, the field of Moussaisla-Bataille, where Charles the Hammer broke the Saracen advance for ever. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... should I dwell on the disastrous tale? Forbid to see me, Percy soon embark'd With our great king against the Saracen. Soon as the jarring kingdoms were at peace, Earl Douglas, whom till then I ne'er had seen, Came to this castle; 'twas my hapless fate To please him.—Birtha! thou can'st tell what follow'd: But who shall tell the agonies I felt? My ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... ceremonial form or dogma, his life is such that a Confucian, a Buddhist, a Christian, or a Hebrew can behold in him the practitioner of the essence of either of their religions,—a conception carried out by Lessing, in his play of "Nathan the Wise," where the Jew, the Saracen, and Crusader teach the impressive lesson that nobleness is bound by no confession of faith or religion; showing the principle that ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... photographer's, "studio." Take "Nicholas Nickleby," by way of example: the room in which old Ralph Nickleby first finds his poor relations, does duty (with the slightest possible rearrangement) for the Yorkshire schoolmaster's room at the Saracen's Head; while a room in Kenwig's house becomes successively an apartment in Mr. Mantalini's residence, a green-room, Mr. Ralph Nickleby's office, Mr. Charles Cheeryble's room, a hairdresser's shop, and so ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... of Islem. There were those who had followed Muza from the fertile regions of Egypt, across the deserts of Barca, and those who had joined his standard from among the sun-burnt tribes of Mauritania. There were Saracen and Tartar, Syrian and Copt, and swarthy Moor; sumptuous warriors from the civilized cities of the east, and the gaunt and predatory rovers of the desert. The greater part of the army, however, was composed of Arabs; but differing greatly from the first rude hordes that enlisted under ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... of every merry company, an actor is necessary who feels pleasure when the others, to enliven many an indifferent moment, point the arrows of their wit at him. If he is not merely a stuffed Saracen, like those on whom the knights used to practise their lances in mock battles, but understands himself how to skirmish, to rally, and to challenge, how to wound lightly, and recover himself again, and, while he seems to expose himself, to give others ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... of the better class may, without causing much comment, go upon the street unattended. In the south, however, the position of women is very different, and they are still regarded in much the same way as are the women of Oriental countries. The long years of Saracen rule are responsible for this condition, which makes the woman little more than the slave of her husband. It is said that in some country districts it is the custom for the husband to lock his wife in the house whenever he goes from home, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... found in his camp, without regard to flag of truce or ambassage. So Sir Morgadour persuaded Ernis to send Sir Guy to the Soudan saying, that, since the war seemed likely to come to no speedy issue, it should be settled by single combat between two champions chosen from the Christian and the Saracen hosts. The counsel seemed good to Ernis, but yet he liked not to risk his son-in-law's life; wherefore he called his Parliament together and asked for some bold knight to go and bear this message. When all the others held their peace, Sir ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... walls of Capua. In fact, until the great victory of Otto I upon the Lech (955), they were the terror of two-thirds of Christian Europe. Italy, the most disunited of the new kingdoms, was further vexed by the Saracen pirates who roamed the Western Mediterranean. The only sea-power capable of dealing with them was that of the Byzantine Empire. The Greek fleet protected the southeast of Italy, but was powerless to save Sicily, which was conquered piecemeal ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... character to the infusion of Oriental blood; and with some of them it may be the case. But with many of them, the reference is a false one. Half the Spanish character was Iberic and Lusitanian before either Jew or Saracen had seen the Rock ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham

... We discussed the possible Saracen origin of the pentagonal tower, and the vicissitudes of the castle during the struggles between Mohammedans and Christians, feudal lords and kings, Catholics and Protestants, Spaniards and French. Monsieur le Maire was a Bonapartist, and he insisted that the chief glory of Villeneuve-Loubet ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... yet," she pleaded; "I want to speak to Mr.—" Having only heard the visitor's name once, and not finding her memory in good working order after the conjuring, Kitty hesitated. "Isn't your name something like Saracen?" she asked. ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... confessional, and the power of the keys; and the absence of authoritative Protestant dogma had left his mind free to expand to a yet larger belief. He had ventured to assert, that "if a Turk, a Jew, or a Saracen do trust in God and keep his law, he is a good Christian man,"[102]—a conception of Christianity, a conception of Protestantism, which we but feebly dare to whisper even at the present day. The proceedings against him commenced ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... clothes, sir, as you ordered me."—Harley nodded his head but Peter observed that his hat wanted brushing too: his master nodded again. At last Peter bethought him that the fire needed stirring; and taking up the poker, demolished the turban'd head of a Saracen, while his master was seeking out a body for it. "The morning is main cold, sir," said Peter. "Is it?" said Harley. "Yes, sir; I have been as far as Tom Dowson's to fetch some barberries he had picked for Mrs. Margery. There was a rare junketting last night at Thomas's ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie

... it never aired its grievances. These, however, were the chief subjects of conversation during the visit, which, in spite of every failure in dramatic propriety, was always spoken of in after days as "the Crusade." It came to an end in due course, the Saracen host retiring ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... church by his doctrines and miracles, and there his body was entombed. If, therefore, any difficulty should occur that cannot elsewhere be resolved, let it be brought before these Sees, and it shall, by divine grace, be decided. As Gallicia was freed in these early ages from the Saracen yoke, by the favour of God and St. James, and by the King's valour, so may it continue firm in the orthodox faith till the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... to be told how Sir Tristram loved the Lady Belle Isoult and how she loved Sir Tristram. Also how a famous knight, hight Sir Palamydes the Saracen, loved Belle Isoult and of how she loved ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... religious one, though it had also something of a chivalric character, since much of every German's imagination is concerned with the Crusades, the Order of Knight Templars, and similar historical or legendary incidents and personalities in the early stages of the struggle between the Christian and the Saracen. The birthplace of Christ has special interest for a Hohenzollern who holds his kingship by divine grace, and in the Emperor's case because his father had made the journey to Jerusalem thirty years before. The Emperor, lastly, cannot ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... Saracen, ever perpetrated such wanton and cold-blooded atrocities of cruelty as the wearers of the Cross of Christ (who, it is said, had fallen on their knees and burst into a pious hymn at the first view of the Holy City) on the capture of that city. Murder was mercy, rape tenderness, ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... times the high Alps were filled with Saracen brigands and other heathen freebooters, who celebrated in the mountain fastnesses their monstrous rites. In the mountains above Aosta the god Pen had long been worshiped; the word pen in Celtic meaning the highest. Later, Julius Caesar conquered these wild tribes, and imposed upon ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... the widow and her confidant, [Footnote: Spectator 113.] congratulating himself on having been called 'the tamest and most humane of all the brutes in the country', [Footnote: Spectator 113.] seeking to be reassured that no trace of his likeness showed through the whiskers of the Saracen's head, [Footnote: Spectator 122.] puzzled by his doubts concerning the witch, [Footnote: Spectator 117.] and pleased by the artful gipsies, [Footnote: Spectator 130.] inviting the guide to the Abbey to visit him at his lodgings in order to continue their conversation, [Footnote: ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... Will it be believed the house tittered when she first appeared? They got used to her, however, but just at the moment when she rushes into the prisoner's arms, and a number of people were actually in tears, a fellow in the pit bawls out, "Bedad! here's the Belle Savage kissing the Saracen's Head;" on which an impertinent roar of laughter sprang up in the pit, breaking out with fitful explosions during the remainder of the performance. As the wag in Mr. Sheridan's amusing Critic admirably says about the morning guns, the playwrights were not content with ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... buried in the deep beech-woods, which once were a great forest, stretching in a ring round the north of London, full of deer and boar, and of wild bulls too, even as late as the twelfth century, according to the old legend of Thomas a Becket's father and the fair Saracen, which ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... times in solitary or desolate places of Westmoreland and Cumberland, that here was a son of Ishmael walking in the wilderness of Edom. The coruscating nimbus of his curling and profuse black hair, black as erebus, strengthened the Saracen impression of his features and complexion. He wanted only a turban on his head, and a spear in his right hand, to be perfect as a Bedouin. But it affected us as all things are affecting which record great changes, to hear that for a long time before ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... female Saracen knight sent against the Crusaders, whom Tancred fell in love with, but slew on an encounter at night; before expiring she received Christian baptism at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the Saracen, likewise, have had their day of power and renown. Bagdad was the seat of science and learning at a time when the nations of Europe were sunk in darkness and superstition. The Turk and Saracen should have pointed to the Koran as the source ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... replide the Saracen, But I will teach thee how to cousen it, An oath in loue may be vnsworne againe, Ioue markes not louers oathes euery whit, Thou wilt repent beside, when riper wit Shall make thee know the magicke of thine eies, How faire thou art, and ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... incident of the chivalrous behaviour of Roland in sending for a new sword for his enemy and in giving him time for rest, a trait which finds a parallel in many other Chansons, notably in the story of the battle of Roland with Ferragus, a Saracen giant. When Ferragus is worn out with fighting, Roland watches over him while he sleeps, and on his awakening enters into a theological discussion with him in the hope of converting him to Christianity. When this pious desire fails, the combat ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo

... globes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. Mr Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen's Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistant wanted. Annual salary 5 pounds. A Master of Arts would ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... compartments, each containing a human bust, that protruded almost entirely from the wall. Some of the figures were in ancient Gothic garb; the most striking among them was a female, who was earnestly regarded by a fierce Saracen ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... instance, in his sickness, when he had seemed to be dead, and what might be the true duty of man. To be brave and upright? Surely. To fight for the Cross of Christ against the Saracen? Surely, if the chance came his way. What more? To abandon the world and to spend his life muttering prayers like those priests in the darkness behind him? Could that be needful or of service to God or man? To ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... black she sat writing at a large table before one window. Her paper was fitted on to a wooden pulpit that rose before her; one book stood open upon it, three others lay open too upon the red and blue and green pattern of the Saracen rug that covered her table. At her right hand was a three-tiered inkstand of pewter, set about with the white feathers of pens; and the snakelike pattern of the table-rug serpentined in and out beneath seals of parcel gilt, a platter of bread, a sandarach of pewter, books bound in wooden ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... mysterious companion raised his mantle to his very eyes. Meanwhile, the captain, swearing like a Saracen, hastened to "make the sun shine in a crown" as saith our ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... orator called Vanderhulke they pickt out to present him with an oration, one that had a sulpherous big swolne large face, like a Saracen, eies lyke two kentish oysters, a mouth that opened as wide euerie time hee spake, as one of those olde knit trap doores, a beard as though it had bin made of a birds neast pluckt in peeces, which consisteth of strawe, haire, and durt mixt together. Hee was apparelled in blacke ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... cast round for another subject. He had demonstrated to his own complete satisfaction that grand historical themes were the only useful material for a thoroughly "up-to-date" (date 1842—seventy years ago) composer; and while doing what may be called foraging work he had hit upon the story of The Saracen Young Woman. We may presume that this appealed to him in a mood of reaction after the intensely personal quality of the Dutchman. That mood sent him back in the direction of Rienzi. About the Dutchman he never had the slightest illusion. He knew it to ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... Poictiers then. Oh! ah! his name is in the upper school, very large, under Charles Fox. I say, Townshend, did you see Saville's turban? What was it made of? He says his mother brought it from Grand Cairo. Didn't he just look like the Saracen's Head? Here are some Dons. That's Hallam! We'll give him a cheer. I say, Townshend, look at this fellow. He doesn't think small beer of himself. I wonder who he is? The Duke of Wellington's valet come to say his master is engaged. Oh! by Jove, he heard you! I wonder ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... outpost of Europe. For hundred of year the Byzantine Empire stood as a barrier against the Saracen hosts of Asia. It might have stood still longer, but sad to say, this barrier was first broken down by the Christians themselves. For in 1204 the armies of the fourth Crusade, which had gathered ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... by a rich widow of Ctesiphon, who liberated him and on her death left him great wealth. According to another story—for the whole history of Manes rests on legends—he inherited from a rich old woman the books of a Saracen named Scythianus on the wisdom of the Egyptians. Combining the doctrines these books contained with ideas borrowed from Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, and Christianity, and also with certain additions ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... the Squire of Chandos, are you not?" said he. "My name is Delves, and I come from Doddington in Cheshire. I am the Squire of Sir James Audley, yonder round-backed man with the dark face and close-cropped beard, who hath the Saracen head as a crest ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... horns is chosen to symbolize the Pagan Roman empire. The glorious body of God's reformers is set forth under the symbol of an angel from heaven, with his face as the sun, his feet as pillars of fire, and a rainbow upon his head; whereas the Saracen warriors of Mahomet are locusts upon the earth, with stings of scorpions. The department of human and angelic life is chosen to set forth the spiritual affairs of the church, while the department ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... do all he could to show how highly he thought of so brave a man. Once Saladin sent him a beautiful horse; Richard told the Earl of Salisbury to try it, and no sooner was the earl mounted, than the horse ran away with him to the Saracen army. Saladin was very much vexed, and was afraid it would be taken for a trick to take the English king prisoner, and he gave the earl a quieter horse to ride back with. Richard fought one terrible battle at Joppa with the Saracens, and ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the English Knight, announcing his determination to fight and vanquish the Turkish Knight, a vastly superior swordsman, who promptly made mincemeat of him. After the Saracen had celebrated his victory in verse, and proclaimed himself the world's champion, entered Snt George, who, after some preliminary patriotic flourishes, promptly made mincemeat of the Saracen—to the blank amazement of an audience which included several retired army ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... it was caused by the approach of the Saracen chieftains, our allies, who had heard that the emperor was besieging Ctesiphon in great force: some again affirmed that the Persians were lying in wait for us on ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... Salerno had a different character, and one far more prominent in the eyes of the world. Salerno has a history full of events of the most varied and stirring character. Fought for by Greek, and Roman, and German, and Saracen, and Norman, its streets have witnessed the march of hundreds of warlike arrays, and it has known every extreme of good or evil fortune. Two things make. Salerno full of interest to the traveller who ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... the Franks. The most important of his wars was one with the Saracens, who came across the Pyrenees from Spain and invaded the land of the Franks, intending to establish Mohammedanism there. Their army was led by Abd-er-Rahman (Abd-er-Rah'-man), the Saracen governor ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.

... in the mediaeval history of Spain. The intercontinental location of the Iberian Peninsula exposed it to the Saracen conquest and to the constant reinforcements to Islam power furnished by the Mohammedanized Berbers of North Africa. For seven centuries this location was the dominant geographic factor in Spain's history. It made the expulsion of the Moors the sole object of all the Iberian states, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... it appeared, the son of her mother's sister. He was all Spanish. There was not a drop of Arab blood in his veins, unless it came through Saracen ancestors in the days when ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... into the City to meet her daughter at the Saracen's Head, whither the York coach used to run, and received her almost in silence. "Oh, mamma, dear mamma," said Lady Anna, "I am so glad to be back with you again." Sarah, the lady's-maid, was there, useless, officious, ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... time there have come down to us the Chansons de Geste, narrative poems composed by the professional caste of poets to celebrate the deeds and adventures of the knights who fought the battles of Charlemagne against the Saracen invader. ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh

... habitation. Of all the cities upon the Ionian Sea, only Tarentum and Croton continued to exist through the Middle Ages, for they alone occupied a position strong for defence against pirates and invaders. A memory of the Saracen wars lingers in the name borne by the one important relic of Metapontum, the Tavola de' Paladini; to this ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... Boileau, provost of the merchants in 1258-1268, contains a curious enumeration of the different craft-guilds of Paris, among which we find 'the tapiciers, or makers of the tapis sarrasinois (or Saracen cloths), who say that their craft is for the service only of churches, or great men like kings and counts'; and, indeed, even in our own day, nearly all our words descriptive of decorative textures and decorative methods point to an Oriental origin. What the inroads of the Mohammedans did ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... railway-station we found no cab, (it being an unknown vehicle in Lincoln,) but only an omnibus belonging to the Saracen's Head, which the driver recommended as the best hotel in the city, and took us thither accordingly. It received us hospitably, and looked comfortable enough; though, like the hotels of most old English towns, it had a musty fragrance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... tavern. "Near to the jail, and by consequence near to Smithfield, and on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibuses going eastward seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westward not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coachyard of the Saracen's Head Inn; its portals guarded by two Saracens' heads and shoulders frowning upon you from each side of the gateway. The Inn itself garnished with another Saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard. When you walk up this ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... at the Saracen's Head,' said the old man promptly. 'Though all forbid I should recommend any man where it's a question of horses, no more than I'd take anybody else's recommending if I was a-buying one. But if your pa's thinking of a ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... Lion's heart will 'gainst the Saracen rise, And purchase from him many a glorious prize; The rose and lily shall at first unite, But, parting of the prey prove opposite. * * * But while abroad these great acts shall be done, All things at home shall to disorder run. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... the Saracen Turks invading Western Europe were utterly overthrown by the Franks under ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... same merciless vigour which Napoleon had displayed on similar occasions in Italy, the country appears to have remained in more quiet, and probably enjoyed, in spite of the presence of an invading army, more prosperity, than it had ever done during any period of the same length, since the Saracen government was ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... Theodosius. This fact, which has not been sufficiently noticed, shows conclusively that the energy imparted by Mohammedanism to Oriental nations would have lasted but a short time, and encountered in the West a successful resistance, had not the Turks appeared on the scene, destroyed the Saracen dynasties, and, by infusing the blood of Central Asia into the veins of Eastern and Southern fanatics, prolonged for so many ages the sway of the Crescent over a large ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... novitiate, amid the rigors of a monastic life, was tracing the course of the planets, and solving the problem in which Virgil delighted[47]—problems which had baffled Chaldean and Persian, Egyptian and Saracen. Columbus explained the earth, Copernicus explained the heavens. Neither of the great discoverers lived to see the result of his labors, for the Prussian astronomer died on the day that his work was published. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... it for the misguided man that morning that he happened to have purchased a new and strong billycock the day before, else would that mace have sent him—as it had sent many a Saracen of old—to his long home. The blow effectually spoilt the billycock, however, and stretched its owner insensible on ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... sayest that I usurp another's titles. In youth I saw the Wise Men of the East, Magalath and Pangalath and Saracen, Who followed the bright star, but home returned For fear of Herod by another way. O shining worlds above me! in what deep Recesses of your realms of mystery Lies hidden now that star? and where are they That brought the gifts of frankincense ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... low, And every knight felt bound to "go The pace," and just like Richard do, By running his purse and a Paynim through. Yet do not suppose that Vidomar Was ever a knight in the Holy War: For Richard many a Saracen's head Had lopped before the old Count was dead; And Richard was home from Palestine, Home from the dungeon of Tiernstein, And many a Christian corpse had made, Ere the time in which the story is laid. But the fashion he set became so ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... while I peep, Old Bell-the-Cat came from the keep, Wrapped in a gown of sables fair, As fearful of the morning air; Beneath, when that was blown aside, A rusty shirt of mail I spied, By Archibald won in bloody work Against the Saracen and Turk: Last night it hung not in the hall; I thought some marvel would befall. And next I saw them saddled lead Old Cheviot forth, the earl's best steed; A matchless horse, though something old, Prompt in his paces, cool, and bold. I heard the sheriff ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... And now the Saracen King Marsilas began to gather his army. He laid a strict command on all his nobles and chiefs that they should bring with them to Saragossa as many men as they could gather together. And when they were come to the city, it being the third day from the issuing of the King's command, ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various



Words linked to "Saracen" :   Muslim, nomad, Moslem, history, Arabian, Arab



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