Chapter Monmouth Caps to Montespan of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

At Linton is a fine conical hill attributed to two sisters, nuns, who were compelled to pass the whole of the sand through a sieve, by way of penance, to obtain pardon for some crime committed by their brother.

Mont Rognon (Baron of), a giant of enormous strength and insatiable appetite. He was bandy-legged, had an elastic stomach, and four rows of teeth. The baron was a paladin of Charlemagne, and one of the four sent in search of Croquemitaine and Fear Fortress.—Croquemitaine.

Mont St. Jean or Waterloo. So-and-so was my Mont St. Jean, means it was my coup de grace, my final blow, the end of the end.

Juan was my Moscow [turning-point], and Faliero [Fa.lec.ro]
My Leipsic [downfall], and my Mont St. Jean seems Cain.

Byron: Don Juan, xi. 56 (1824).

Mont St. Michel, in Normandy. Here nine druidesses used to sell arrows to sailors to charm away storms. The arrows had to be discharged by a young man 25 years of age. (See Michael, p. 702.)

The Laplanders drove a profitable trade by selling winds to sailors. Even so late as 1814, Bessie Millie, of Pomona (Orkney Islands), helped to eke out a livelihood by selling winds for sixpence.

Eric king of Sweden could make the winds blow from any quarter he liked by a turn of his cap. Hence he was nicknamed “Windy Cap.”

Mont Tresor, in France; so called by Gontran “the Good,” king of Burgundy (sixteenth century). One day, weary with the chase, Gontran laid himself down near a small river, and fell asleep. The ’squire, who watched his master, saw a little animal come from the king’s mouth, and walk to the stream, over which the ’squire laid his sword, and the animal, running across, entered a hole in the mountain. When Gontran was told of this incident, he said he had dreamt that he crossed a bridge of steel, and, having entered a cave at the foot of a mountain, entered a palace of gold. Gontran employed men to undermine the hill, and found there vast treasures, which he employed in works of charity and religion. In order to commemorate this event, he called the hill Mont Trésor.—Claud Paradin: Symbola Heroica.

This story has been ascribed to numerous persons.

Montague, head of a noble hou se in Verona, at feudal enmity with the house of Capulet. Romeo belonged to the former, and Juliet to the latter house.

Lady Montague, wife of lord Montague, and mother of Romeo.—Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (1598).

Montalban, now called Montauban (a contraction of Mons Albanus), in France, in the department of Tarn-et-Garonne.

Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban.

Milton: Paradise Lost, i. 583 (1665).

Don Kyrie Elyson de Montalban, a hero of romance, in the History of Tirante the White.

Thomas de Montalban, brother of don Kyrie Elyson, in the same romance of chivalry.

Rinaldo de Montalban, a hero of romance, in the Mirror of Knighthood, from which work both Bojardo and Ariosto have largely borrowed.