Bhamdoun, is a town in Lebanon 23 kilometers from Beirut on the main road that leads to Damascus and in the suburbs of the main tourist city of Aley, lying at an altitude of 1,150 meters above the Lamartine valley. Two separate villages compose Bhamdoun-el-mhatta and Bhamdoun-el-day ` aa. A railroad used to link Bhamdoun to Beirut with the train station being a prominent feature of the town for many years; the station and railroad were abandoned when cars became more popular. The population is Orthodox Christian. Before the Lebanese civil war, Bhamdoun was one of Lebanon's most renowned and favorite summer resorts. Today, the town has regained some of its past tourism industry as most of its hotels and entertainment centers have been renovated or rebuilt. Tourists from Kuwait and the Persian Gulf region spend their summer vacation in Bhamdoun. Kuwaiti citizens own more than 30% of the properties in Bhamdoun Station since the 1950s. A branch of Kuwait airways and the National bank of kuwait reopened in 2001.

Bhamdoun has seven churches, two mosques built by Kuwaitis, the Bhamdoun synagogue. There are four Greek Orthodox churches, three Maronite, one Protestant but was not reconstructed after the war. Most of the population is Christian, whereas the Muslim population is Druze with a Sunni Muslim minority; the Bhamdoun synagogue, built in 1910, was one of three grand synagogues in Lebanon. It was abandoned shortly before the civil war which started in 1975, but the shell of the structure still stands. In 2000, a winery called, it began producing wine in 2003. The "Renaissance 2003" blend that it produced won the International Spirits and Wine Competition's Gold Medal Best in Class award in 2005; the town contains the Safir Hotel, Four Points Hotel by Sheraton, Carlton Hotel, Alsheikh Hotel and many others. Families who have roots in Bhamdoun are: Khairallah Abdel Nour Haddad Abou Rjeili Aboukhaled Haber Jabbour Azo Nehme Matta Moujaes Salibi Tabet Bou Mansour Nasrallah Khalil Raad

Murgleys, or Murgleis is the sword of Ganelon, a traitorous French count and nemesis to the titular hero of the epic La chanson de Roland. According to the French version, its "gold pommel" held some kind of a "holy relic". In the Middle High German adaptation the sword is called Mulagir, touted to be the "best seax in all of France", described as having a carbuncle shining on its pommel, forged by a smith named Madelger in Regensburg. Dorothy L. Sayers, a translator of The Song of Roland suggests the sword means "Death brand". Belgian scholar Rita Lejeune gave the meaning "Moorish sword," but Arabist James A. Bellamy proposed the Arabic etymology māriq ʾalyas meaning "valiant piercer". At least three swords bearing the similar name Murglaie occur in other chansons de geste. Murglaie - sword of Elias, the Swan Knight of the Crusades cycle, Murglaie - sword of Cornumarant, the Saracen king of Jerusalem, taken by Baudouin de Syrie Murglaie - sword of Boeve de Haumtone. Note that "Morglay" has been given the etymology morte "death" + "glaive" coinciding with the conjectural meaning of "Death brand" for Ganelon's sword, proposed by Sayers