how he regrets the fact that they have no offspring. She shows him his sons and Aymon is very impressed with Renaud who is of great height, feisty and strong. He gives Renaud the horse Bayard. The horse is so big that it can carry the four brothers on its back. When the four brothers are presented at Charles' court in Paris, Renaud kills Charles' son Louis. He and his brothers flee to the court of King Loup de Gascogne who betrays them to Charles. Nonetheless, they escape their pursuers with the help of King Son of Aquitaine, who gives his daughter Claire or Clarisse to Renaud to wife and the castle of Montauban. Charles attacks the castle and after months of siege Renaud has to surrender. The cost of their survival is the drowning of his horse Bayard. Charles urges Renaud to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem. When Renaud comes back he helps to build the shrine of St. Peter in Cologne. Envious men kill him and throw his body in the River Rhine. German versions Ein schöne und lüstige Histori von den vier Heymonskindern appeared at Cologne in 1604. It was largely an adaptation of the then current Dutch version and based on a French original. A previous German adaptation of 1535 was based directly on the prose romance Les quatre fils Aymon. Ludwig Tieck edited and published the story, but seems to have taken it from a different source. English version The story was known in England by the first half of the 13th century. and William Caxton published a prose translation under the name "The Right Pleasant and Goodly Historie of the Foure Sonnes of Aymon". The translation was repeatedly reprinted, as well as dramatised, in the 16th and early 17th centuries, and its popular story was referred to (and used) by figures such as Thomas Nashe and Samuel Rowlands—though by 1673 Francis Kirkman would call the text a rarity. Italian version A prose and a verse version of the story called Rinaldo existed in Italian in the 14th century. Sequels and related texts From the 13th century on, other texts concerning separate elements of the extended Renaud de Montauban story were created. Together with the original, these are termed the "Renaud de Montauban cycle". These poems are: Maugis d'Aigremont (story of the youth of Maugis), Mort de Maugis (story of