Graf von Gleichen Blallade

1. Graf (Count) joined the Second Crusade in the quest to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslim nemesis. He was taken prisoner by the noble Saracen, became his gardener. His captor’s daughter fell in love with Graf and arranged for their escape. The grateful knight vowed fidelity to her. They reached his domain, the city of Erfurt, where Graf’s wife offered a Saracen to become her sister. The three of them lived together happily ever after, a Countess managed to obtain a special permission from the Pope for their ménage de trios. I read this story in The Notes of a Russian Traveler, a book written by Nikolai Karamzin, an18th Century Russian writer and traveler who claimed that he saw a grave stone in Erfurt profiles of Graf and his two wives engraved on it.