The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, Page 3

we all must go, to church to lie

  on bier before the altar high.’

  She looked upon them, dark and deep,

  and saw them in the shadows weep.

  440

  ‘Then tall, and fair, and brave was he,

  or tale of sorrow there must be

  concerning him, that still ye keep,

  if for a stranger thus ye weep!

  What know ye more? Ah, say! ah, say!’

  445

  They answered not, and turned away.

  ‘Ah me,’ she said, ‘that I could sleep

  this night, or least that I could weep!’

  But all night long she tossed and turned,

  and in her limbs a fever burned;

  450

  and yet when sudden under sun

  a fairer morning was begun,

  ‘Good folk, to church I wend,’ she said.

  ‘My raiment choose, or robe of red,

  or robe of blue, or white and fair,

  455

  silver and gold – I do not care.’

  ‘Nay, lady,’ said they, ‘none of these.

  The custom used, as now one sees,

  for women that to churching14 go

  is robe of black and walking slow.’

  460

  In robe of black and walking bent

  the lady to her churching went,

  in hand a candle small and white,

  her face so pale, her hair so bright.

  They passed beneath the western door;

  465

  there dark within on stony floor

  a bier was covered with a pall,

  and by it yellow candles tall.

  The watchful tapers still and bright

  upon his blazon cast their light:

  470

  the arms and banner of her lord;

  his pride was ended, vain his hoard.

  To bed they brought her, swift to sleep

  for ever cold, though there might weep

  her women by her dark bedside,

  475

  or babes in cradle waked and cried.

  There was singing slow at dead of night,

  and many feet, and taper-light.

  At morn there rang the sacring knell;

  and far men heard a single bell

  480

  toll, while the sun lay on the land;

  while deep in dim Broceliande

  a silver fountain flowed and fell

  within a darkly woven dell,

  and in the homeless hills a dale

  485

  was filled with laughter cold and pale.

  Beside her lord at last she lay

  in their long home beneath the clay;

  and if their children lived yet long,

  or played in garden hale and strong,

  490

  they saw it not, nor found it sweet

  their heart’s desire at last to meet.

  In Brittany beyond the waves

  are sounding shores and hollow caves;

  in Brittany beyond the seas

  495

  the wind blows ever through the trees.

  Of lord and lady all is said:

  God rest their souls, who now are dead!

  Sad is the note and sad the lay,

  but mirth we meet not every day.

  500

  God keep us all in hope and prayer

  from evil rede15 and from despair,

  by waters blest of Christendom

  to dwell, until at last we come

  to joy of Heaven where is queen

  505

  the maiden Mary pure and clean.

  NOTES AND COMMENTARY

  Britain’s land beyond the seas (l.1). Brittany, ‘Little Britain’, Armorica. A western part of France, settled by British refugees from the fifth-century Anglo-Saxon incursion into the westernmost parts of the isle of Britain. Tolkien takes care to identify the Breton locale of his poem.

  Briton harpers (l.12). Tolkien is here using Briton interchangeably with Breton.

  witch (l.27). In spite of the Breton locale and the Breton words that make up the title, Tolkien chooses the English word, derived from Old English wicce, with which to introduce his fairy woman. He may have counted on the connotations of ‘old, ugly, bent’ traditionally associated with the word.

  before her cave she sat (l.40). The cave is a traditional fairy locus. In The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Walter Evans-Wentz writes that, ‘unlike most water-fairies, the Fée lives in a grotto … according to Villemarqué … one of those ancient monuments called in Breton dolmen or tí (dwelling-place) ar corrigan’ (210).

  a phial of glass (l.70). Usually a tall, narrow vessel, container for a medication or potion.

  philter (l.73). From Latin philtrum from Greek phíltron, ‘love potion’.

  frore (l.75). Archaic past participle of freeze, hence frozen, icy cold.

  ‘Nay, we shall see!’ (l.80). See Christopher Tolkien’s comment in his Note. Direct speech set off by italic occurs first in the emended typescript and is replicated in the published version. Since the manuscript versions are in Tolkien’s italic hand, there is no opportunity to further distinguish narrative from direct speech.

  ‘Itroun mine’ (l.119). This is the first occurrence in the text of the Breton title ‘Lady’. As Tolkien uses it, it seems to be almost a proper name. Throughout the poem, the lord and lady address each other by their Breton titles.

  fallow deer (l.225). Having a reddish yellow coat. From Middle English falwe, sallow, Old English fealo.

  Broceliande (l.254). This was the great forest of ancient Brittany, where Merlin dwelt with the fay Niniane, and where even now, so goes the legend, he lies imprisoned under a stone. The forest survives today, although greatly reduced in size, as the forest of Paimpont, in central Brittany.

  The forest was a standard topos in medieval romance as a landscape contiguous with yet separate from reality, an ‘other’ world which could on occasion become the actual Otherworld of Celtic myth. Combining real and symbolic associations, the forest became a literary construction with its own rules and associations. Dante made good use of the ‘otherness’ of the forest, and Shakespeare was not unaware of its function as a setting for unusual or magical happenings.

  Tolkien’s forests – Mirkwood, Nan Elmoth, Doriath, the Old Forest, Lórien, Fangorn – are some of the most recent in a long and distinguished line of descent. Tolkien used the name Broceliand, soon altering the spelling to Broseliand, in his Lay of Leithian. By September of 1931 it had become, as it subsequently remained in his mythology, Beleriand. While the Broceliande connection seems clear, we should not overlook an earlier connection of which Tolkien might well have been aware, the notion of Belerion, the term used by Diodorus Siculus in the first century BCE for that corner of Britain now known as Cornwall, a Celtic stronghold. The spelling is closer to Tolkien’s Beleriand than the more attested Broceliand.

  white doe (l.260). Not fallow, as in line 225 above. The colour of the doe identifies her as an Otherworld creature. A common motif in medieval ballads and folktales is the hunter who pursues an elusive deer only to have her change into a beautiful woman. Marie de France’s lai of Lanval, which tells of a knight who meets two fairy women by a river, is probably based on the older Breton lai of Graelent, who follows a white hind through the wood to a place where fairy maidens are bathing in a fountain (see There twinkled the fountain of the fay below). The bride of the Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhal appeared to him in the shape of a deer. One function of such an animal is to lead the mortal deep into a wood, traditionally a point of contact with the Otherworld.

  There twinkled the fountain of the fay (l.284). The fountain and the cavern by which the fay stands are traditional points of entry into the Otherworld.

  ‘O Corrigan!’ (l.311). This is the first occurrence in the poem of the Breton word which ties Aotrou and Itroun to the two earlier poems given in the next section. Corrigan, sometimes spell
ed Korrigan or Gorrigan, with variants Corrikêt or Corriganed, is interchangeable in common usage with French fée, ‘fairy’. John Rhys’s Celtic Folklore cites Breton korr, ‘a dwarf, a fairy, a wee little sorcerer’, and korrigan, ‘a she dwarf, a fairy, a fairy woman, a diminutive sorceress’ (Rhys vol. II, 671). The word is glossed in Tom Taylor’s Ballads and Songs of Brittany, his translation of Villemarqué’s Barzaz-Breiz, as derived from kor, ‘dwarf’, and gan, ‘genius’, ‘spirit’. MacKillop’s Dictionary of Celtic Mythology defines corrigan as a ‘Wanton, impish, sprightly female fairy of Breton folklore who desires sexual union with humans’, and is often found ‘near wells, fountains, dolmens, and menhirs, especially in the forest Broceliand’.

  ‘With love thou shalt me here requite’ (l.317). Tolkien here introduces the folklore motif cited in the preceding entry of the fairy woman who tries to seduce a mortal man, as corrigans were said to do.

  sacring-bell (l.350). Rung at the Elevation of the Host during the Mass.

  Dirige (l.429). Latin ‘guide, direct’. The first word in the Catholic service for the dead. Dirige, Domine, deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam; ‘Guide, O Lord my God, my way in thy sight.’ Dirige occurs twice in Tolkien’s middle period work, once here in Aotrou and Itroun and once in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, where the monks of Ely chant as they bear Beorhtnoth’s body from the battlefield. In both cases it follows and counters something pagan, either the triumph of the corrigan in the death of the lord, or the victory of the Norsemen at Maldon.

  laughter cold and pale (l.486). The cold laughter of the fay is heard five times throughout the poem, and contrasts with the ‘mirth’ and laughter of the lord and lady. It thus becomes a leitmotif, a kind of fate-theme both presaging and commenting on the lord’s doom, and signalling the hostility of the fairy world toward mortals.

  maiden Mary pure and clean (l.506). Though the poem ends with an invocation to ‘the maiden Mary pure and clean’ Tolkien nevertheless gives the corrigan the last laugh.

  PART TWO

  THE CORRIGAN POEMS

  INTRODUCTION

  To trace how Tolkien arrived at the finished Lay of Aotrou and Itroun we must go back to what appear to be his first ventures into that territory, the ‘Corrigan’ poems. Clearly meant as a pair – Christopher Tolkien describes them as a composite – they are a kind of diptych, adjoining works hinged by a shared title, ‘The Corrigan’. The general theme in both poems is the same as that of Aotrou and Itroun, the interaction of a fairy, a corrigan, with the human world. Nevertheless the plots of parts I and II are quite different, and it is only the presence of the corrigan that links them.16

  Where in the long Lay Tolkien interchangeably uses the terms witch, fay, and corrigan, here in these shorter poems he uses only the Breton word. Corrigan, or korrigan, is the feminine diminutive of Breton corr or korr, ‘dwarf’, and seems to derive from the notion that these beings have dwindled from their original stature. According to the British folklorist Katherine Briggs, it is because ‘they are eager to reinforce their dwindling stock’ that ‘the Korrigans [the spelling is apparently optional] make every effort to steal mortal babies and allure mortal men to be their lovers’ (Briggs 156). The plot of ‘The Corrigan’ I turns on the first of these situations, the theft of a mortal baby and its replacement by a changeling, a faerie child. The plot of ‘The Corrigan’ II, like the published Aotrou and Itroun, deals with the second circumstance, the attempt by a faërie woman to seduce or entrap a mortal man, with fatal consequences for the man. The presence of a fountain or well in both poems shows that the corrigan was a water-fairy, one who dwelt in or near sites associated with water.

  ‘THE CORRIGAN’ I

  As noted above by Christopher Tolkien, a pencilled note in Tolkien’s hand reading: ‘Suggested by “Ar Bugel Laec’hiet” a lay of Cornuoaille’, appears in the margin at the head of the fair copy of this poem.17 This is a reference to entry no. IV in ‘Chants Mythologiques’, the first section of Villemarqué’s Barzaz-Breiz. The Breton title, ‘Ar bugel Laec’hiet’, carries the note ‘Ies Kerne’ (‘of Kerne, or Cornouaille’). Villemarqué’s facing-page French translation is titled ‘L’Enfant Supposé’ and has a corresponding note, ‘Dialecte de Cornouaille.’ The region cited as Kerne or Cornouaille by Villemarqué and noted by Tolkien is a distinct area on the southwest coast of Brittany, having its own dialect, folk customs, and folklore.

  The specific locale notwithstanding, the story itself – the familiar folklore motif of the changeling child and the mother’s ruse to unmask him and get her own child back – appears in folk and fairy tales from all parts of Western Europe and the British Isles. In addition to that in Villemarqué there is J. Loth’s Le Nain de Kerhuiton (‘The Fairy of Kerhuiton’), and versions of the story are to be found as well in Joseph Jacobs’ Celtic Fairy Tales, and in the brothers Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen.

  ‘The Corrigan’ I is in rhymed tercets with a shorter rhyming fourth line. All the lines are direct speech. The text below is given as it appears in Tolkien’s fair copy, but I have noted in the Commentary section certain revisions from rough draft to final version, which markedly change one aspect of the poem (see below).

  The Corrigan

  * *

  *

  I

  ‘Mary on earth, why dost thou weep?’

  ‘My little child I could not keep:

  A corrigan stole him in his sleep,

  And I must weep.

  4

  To a well they went for water clear,

  In cradle crooning they left him here,

  And I found him not, my baby dear,

  Returning here.

  8

  In the cradle a strange cry I heard.

  Dark was his face like a wrinkled toad;

  With hands he clawed, he mouthed and mowed,18

  12

  But made no word.

  And ever he cries and claws the breast:

  Seven long years, and still no rest;

  Unweaned he wails, though I have pressed

  My weary breast.

  16

  O Mary Maiden, who on throne of snow

  Thine own babe in thine arms dost know,

  Joy is round thee; but I have woe

  And weep below.

  20

  Thy holy child thou hast on knee,

  But mine is lost. A! where is he?

  Mother of pity, pity me

  Who cry to thee!’

  24

  ‘Mary on earth, do not mourn!

  Thy child is not lost. He will return.

  Go to the hermit that dwells by the burn,

  And counsel learn.’

  28

  ‘Why dost thou knock? Why dost thou weep?

  Why hast thou climbed my path so steep?’

  ‘My little child I could not keep,

  And ever I weep.’

  32

  ‘Bid them grind an acorn, bid them feign

  In a shell to cook it for master and men

  At midday hour. If he sees that then,

  He will speak again.

  36

  And if he speaks, there hangs on thy wall

  A cross-hilt sword old and tall –

  Raise it to strike and he will call,

  And the spell will fall.’

  40

  ‘What do they here, mother of me?

  I marvel much at what I see

  In this kitchen to-day. What can it be?

  That I here see?’

  44

  ‘What wouldst thou son? – on embers hot

  Meal for men in a white pot

  They grind and cook, that our food be got.

  Why should they not?’

  48

  ‘Mast19 in a shell for many men!

  I saw the first egg before the white hen,

  And the acorn before the oak in den20 –

  There were strange things then.

  52

  The land of Brezai
l was fair, I trow:

  I saw once silver birds enow,

  And acorns of gold on every bough.

  This is stranger now!’

  56

  ‘Thou hast seen too much, too much, my son!

  Thy words are wild, thy looks are wan.

  This sword shall make thy dark blood run,

  Thou art not my son!’

  60

  ‘A! stay, a! stay thy cruel hand!

  Soft thy son lay in our land,

  But thou wouldst slay one who did stand

  A prince in our land.’

  64

  ‘Mary on earth, what didst thou find

  When thou didst look in the room behind?

  In cloth of silver who did wind

  The child of thine?’

  68

  ‘I looked on my child with heaven’s bliss,

  I stooped to the cradle him to kiss,

  And he opened the sweet eyes of his

  For me to kiss.

  72

  He sat him up and arms he spread,

  He caught my breast and to me said:

  “A! mother of me, I am late in bed!

  My dream is sped.”’

  76

  * *

  *

  NOTES AND COMMENTARY

  Although there are similar tales about changeling children in other Celtic mythologies, they are cast in prose. I have not found any versions in verse form other than in Villemarqué.

  Mary on earth (l.1). With these three words of address the voice that opens the poem establishes the situation, the heavenly Mary’s concern for the earthly mother, and sets up the conflict between pagan folklore and Christianity.

  a corrigan stole him in his sleep (l.3). Thomas Keightley’s discussion in the ‘Brittany’ section of his 1892 The Fairy Mythology cites Villemarqué, and gives a synopsis of,

  ‘the story of a changeling. In order to recover her own child the mother is advised, by the Virgin, to whom she has prayed, to prepare a meal for ten farm-servants in an egg-shell, which will make the Korrid [sic] speak, and she is then to whip him well till he cries, and when he does so he will be taken away’ (Keightley, 436).

  A variant in which the mother, not the child, is abducted into Faërie is given in an early Scottish account of the Faërie Otherworld, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies. The author, the Reverend Robert Kirk, Minister of Aberfoyle, Scotland, wrote in 1691 that,