Chapter IV: Introduction (2)

The Jinn are not immortal; they are to survive mankind, but to die before the general resurrection. Even at present many of them are slain by other Jinn, or by men; but chiefly by shooting-stars hurled at them from Heaven. The fire of which they were created, circulates in their veins instead of blood, and when they receive a mortal wound, it bursts forth and consumes them to ashes. They eat and drink, and propagate their species. Sometimes they unite with human beings, and the offspring partakes of the nature of both parents. Some of the Jinn are obedient to the will of God, and believers in the Prophet, answering to the Peries of the Persians; others are like the Deevs, disobedient and malignant. Both kinds are divided into communities, and ruled over by princes. They have the power to make themselves visible and invisible at pleasure. They can assume the form of various animals, especially those of serpents, cats, and dogs. When they appear in the human form, that of the good Jinnee is usually of great beauty; that of the evil one, of hideous deformity, and sometimes of gigantic size.

When the Zôba'ah, a whirlwind that raises the sand in the form of a pillar of tremendous height, is seen sweeping over the desert, the Arabs, who believe it to be caused by the flight of an evil Jinnee, cry, Iron! Iron! (_Hadeed!_ _Hadeed!_) or Iron! thou unlucky one! (_Hadeed! yâ meshoom!_) of which metal the Jinn are believed to have a great dread. Or else they cry, God is most great! (_Allâhu akbar!_) They do the same when they see a water-spout at sea; for they assign the same cause to its origin.[47]

The chief abode of the Jinn of both kinds is the Mountains of Kâf, already described. But they also are dispersed through the earth, and they occasionally take up their residence in baths, wells, latrinæ, ovens, and ruined houses.[48] They also frequent the sea and rivers, cross-roads, and market-places. They ascend at times to the confines of the lowest heaven, and by listening there to the conversation of the angels, they obtain some knowledge of futurity, which they impart to those men who, by means of talismans or magic arts, have been able to reduce them to obedience.[49]

The following are anecdotes of the Jinn, given by historians of eminence.[50]

It is related, says El-Kasweenee, by a certain narrator of traditions, that he descended into a valley with his sheep, and a wolf carried off a ewe from among them; and he arose and raised his voice, and cried, "O inhabitant of the valley!" whereupon he heard a voice saying, "O wolf, restore him his sheep!" and the wolf came with the ewe and left her, and departed.

Ben Shohnah relates, that in the year 456 of the Hejra, in the reign of Kaiem, the twenty-sixth khaleefeh of the house of Abbas, a report was raised in Bagdad, which immediately spread throughout the whole province of Irak, that some Turks being out hunting saw in the desert a black tent, beneath which there was a number of people of both sexes, who were beating their cheeks, and uttering loud cries, as is the custom in the East when any one is dead. Amidst their cries they heard these words--_The great king of the Jinn is dead, woe to this country!_ and then there came out a great troop of women, followed by a number of other rabble, who proceeded to a neighbouring cemetery, still beating themselves in token of grief and mourning.

The celebrated historian Ebn Athir relates, that when he was at Mosul on the Tigris, in the year 600 of the Hejra, there was in that country an epidemic disease of the throat; and it was said that a woman, of the race of the Jinn, having lost her son, all those who did not condole with her on account of his death were attacked with that disease; so that to be cured of it men and women assembled, and with all their strength cried out, _O mother of Ankood, excuse us! Ankood is dead, and we did not mind it!_

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Compare Antar and the Suspended Poems (translated by Sir W. Jones) with the later Arabic works. Antar, though written by Asmai the court-poet of Haroon-er-Rasheed, gives the manners and ideas of the Arabs of the Desert.

[43] The Jinn are mentioned in the Kurân and also in Antar.

[44] See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 37, _seq._ Lane, Thousand and One Nights, _passim_.

[45] Genius and Jinn, like Fairy and Peri, is a curious coincidence. The Arabian Jinnee bears no resemblance whatever to the Roman Genius.

[46] "When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and they worshiped except Iblees (who) was of the Jinn."--Kurân. chap. xviii. v. 48. Worship is here prostration. The reply of Iblees was, "Thou hast created _me_ of fire, and hast created _him_ of earth."--_Ib._ vii. 11; xxxviii. 77.

[47] It was the belief of the Irish peasantry, that whirlwinds of dust on the roads were raised by the Fairies, who were then on a journey. On such occasions, unlike the Arabs, they used to raise their hats and say, "God speed you, gentlemen!" For the power of iron, see _Scandinavia_.

[48] The Arabs when they pour water on the ground, let down a bucket into a well, enter a bath, etc., say, "Permission!" (_Destoor!_) or, Permission, ye blessed! (_Destoor, yâ mubârakeen!_)

[49] For the preceding account of the Jinn, we are wholly indebted to Lane's valuable translation of the Thousand and One Nights, i. 30, _seq._

[50] The first is given by Lane, the other two by D'Herbelot.

MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE.

Ecco quei che le carte empion di sogni,
Lancilotto, Tristano e gli altri erranti,
Onde conven che il volgo errante agogni.
PETRARCA.

Few will now endeavour to trace romantic and marvellous fiction to any individual source. An extensive survey of the regions of fancy and their productions will incline us rather to consider the mental powers of man as having an uniform operation under every sky, and under every form of political existence, and to acknowledge that identity of invention is not more to be wondered at than identity of action. It is strange how limited the powers of the imagination are. Without due consideration of the subject, it might be imagined that her stores of materials and powers of combination are boundless; yet reflection, however slight, will convince us that here also 'there is nothing new,' and charges of plagiarism will in the majority of cases be justly suspected to be devoid of foundation. The finest poetical expressions and similes of occidental literature meet us when we turn our attention to the East, and a striking analogy pervades the tales and fictions of every region. The reason is, the materials presented to the inventive faculties are scanty. The power of combination is therefore limited to a narrow compass, and similar combinations must hence frequently occur.

Yet still there is a high degree of probability in the supposition of the luxuriant fictions of the East having through Spain and Syria operated on European fancy. The poetry and romance of the middle ages are notoriously richer in detail, and more gorgeous in invention, than the more correct and chaste strains of Greece and Latium; the island of Calypso, for example, is in beauty and variety left far behind by the retreats of the fairies of romance. Whence arises this difference? No doubt

When ancient chivalry display'd
The pomp of her heroic games,
And crested knights and tissued dames
Assembled at the clarion's call,
In some proud castle's high-arch'd hall,

that a degree of pomp and splendour met the eye of the minstrel and romancer on which the bards of the simple republics of ancient times had never gazed, and this might account for the difference between the poetry of ancient and of middle-age Europe. Yet, notwithstanding, we discover such an Orientalism in the latter as would induce us to acquiesce in the hypothesis of the fictions and the manner of the East having been early transmitted to the West; and it is highly probable that along with more splendid habits of life entered a more lavish use of the gorgeous stores laid open to the plastic powers of fiction. The tales of Arabia were undoubtedly known in Europe from a very early period. The romance of Cleomades and Claremonde, which was written in the thirteenth century,[51] not merely resembles, but actually is the story of the Enchanted Horse in the Thousand and One Nights. Another tale in the same collection, The two Sisters who envied their younger Sister, may be found in Straparola, and is also a popular story in Germany; and in the Pentamerone and other collections of tales published long before the appearance of M. Galland's translation of the Eastern ones, numerous traces of an oriental origin may be discerned. The principal routes they came by may also be easily shown. The necessities of commerce and the pilgrimage to Mecca occasioned a constant intercourse between the Moors of Spain and their fellow-sectaries of the East; and the Venetians, who were the owners of Candia, carried on an extensive trade with Syria and Egypt. It is worthy of notice, that the Notti Piacevoli of Straparola were first published in Venice, and that Basile, the author of the Pentamerone, spent his youth in Candia, and was afterwards a long time at Venice. Lastly, pilgrims were notorious narrators of marvels, and each, as he visited the Holy Land, was anxious to store his memory with those riches, the diffusal of which procured him attention and hospitality at home.

We think, therefore, that European romance may be indebted, though not for the name, yet for some of the attributes and exploits of its fairies to Asia. This is more especially the case with the romances composed or turned into prose in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries; for in the earlier ones the Fairy Mythology is much more sparingly introduced.

But beside the classic and oriental prototypes of its fairies, romance may have had an additional one in the original mythology of the Celtic tribes, of which a being very nearly allied to the fay of romance appears to have formed a part. Such were the damoiselles who bestowed their favours upon Lanval and Graelent. This subject shall, however, be more fully considered under the head of Brittany.

Romances of chivalry, it is well known, may be divided into three principal classes; those of Arthur and his Round Table, of Charlemagne and his Paladins, and those of Amadis and Palmerin, and their descendants and kindred. In the first, with the exception of Isaie le Triste, which appears to be a work of the fifteenth century, the fairies appear but seldom; the second exhibits them in all their brilliancy and power; in the third, which all belong to the literature of Spain, the name at least does not occur, but the enchantress Urganda la Desconecida seems equal in power to La Dame du Lac, in the romance of Lancelot du Lac.[52]

Among the incidents of the fine old romance just alluded to,[53] is narrated the death of King Ban, occasioned by grief at the sight of his castle taken and in flames through the treachery of his seneschal. His afflicted queen had left her new-born infant on the margin of a lake, while she went to soothe the last moments of the expiring monarch. On her return, she finds her babe in the arms of a beautiful lady. She entreats her pathetically to restore the orphan babe; but, without heeding her entreaties, or even uttering a single word, she moves to the edge of the lake, into which she plunges and disappears with the child. The lady was the celebrated Dame du Lac: the child was Lancelot, afterwards styled Du Lac. The name of the lady was Vivienne, and she had dwelt "en la marche de la petite Bretaigne." Merlin the demon-born, the renowned enchanter, became enamoured of her, and taught her a portion of his art; and the ill-return she made is well known in the annals of female treachery.[54] In consequence of the knowledge thus acquired she became a fairy; for the author informs us that "the damsel who carried Lancelot to the lake was a fay, and in those times all those women were called fays who had to do with enchantments and charms--and there were many of them then, principally in Great Britain--and knew the power and virtues of words, of stones, and of herbs, by which they were kept in youth and in beauty, and in great riches, as they devised."[55]

The lake was a _feerie_, an illusion raised by the art which the devil had taught Merlin, and Merlin the lady. The romance says: "The lady who reared him conversed only in the forest, and dwelt on the summit of a hill, which was much lower than that on which King Ban had died. In this place, where it seemed that the wood was large and deep, the lady had many fair houses, and very rich; and in the plain beneath there was a gentle little river well-stored with fish; and this place was so secret and so concealed, that right difficult was it for any one to find, for the semblance of the said lake covered it so that it could not be perceived."[56]

When her young _protégé_ had gone through his course of knightly education, she took him to King Arthur's court, and presented him there; and his subsequent history is well known.

In the romance of Maugis d'Aygremont et de Vivian son Frère, when Tapinel and the female slave had stolen the two children of Duke Bevis of Aygremont, the former sold to the wife of Sorgalant the child which he had taken, whose name was Esclarmonde, and who was about fifteen years of age, and was "plus belle et plus blanche qu'une fée." The slave having laid herself to rest under a white-thorn (_aube-spine_), was devoured by a lion and a leopard, who killed one another in their dispute for the infant. "And the babe lay under the thorn, and cried loudly, during which it came to pass that Oriande la Fée, who abode at Rosefleur with four other fays, came straight to this thorn; for every time she passed by there she used to repose under that white-thorn. She got down, and hearing the child cry, she came that way and looked at him, and said, 'By the god in whom we believe, this child here is lying badly (_mal gist_), and this shall be his name;' and from that time he was always called Maugis."

Oriande la Fée brought the child home with her and her damsels; and having examined him, and found, by a precious ring that was in his ear, that he was of noble lineage, "she prayed our Lord that he would be pleased of his grace to make known his origin (_nation_)." When she had finished her prayer, she sent for her nephew Espiet, "who was a dwarf, and was not more than three feet high, and had his hair yellow as fine gold, and looked like a child of seven years, but he was more than a hundred; and he was one of the falsest knaves in the world, and knew every kind of enchantment." Espiet informed her whose child he was; and Oriande, having prayed to our Lord to preserve the child, took him with her to her castle of Rosefleur, where she had him baptised and named Maugis. She and her damsels reared him with great tenderness; and when he was old enough she put him under the care of her brother Baudris, "who knew all the arts of magic and necromancy, and was of the age of a hundred years;" and he taught what he knew to Maugis.

When Maugis was grown a man, the Fay Oriande clad him in arms, and he became her _ami_; and she loved him "de si grand amour qu'elle doute fort qu'il ne se departe d'avecques elle."

Maugis shortly afterwards achieved the adventure of gaining the enchanted horse Bayard, in the isle of Boucaut. Of Bayard it is said, when Maugis spoke to him, "Bayard estoit _feyé_, si entendoit aussi bien Maugis comme s'il (_Bayard_) eust parlé." On his return from the island, Maugis conquers and slays the Saracen admiral Anthenor, who had come to win the lands and castle of Oriande, and gains the sword Flamberge (Floberge), which, together with Bayard, he afterwards gave to his cousin Renaud.

In Perceforest, Sebille la Dame du Lac, whose castle was surrounded by a river on which lay so dense a fog that no one could see across the water, though not called so, was evidently a fay. The fortnight that Alexander the Great and Floridas abode with her, to be cured of their wounds, seemed to them but as one night. During that night, "la dame demoura enceinte du roy dung filz, dont de ce lignage yssit le roi Artus."[57]

In the same romance[58] we are told that "en lysle de Zellande jadis fut demourante une _faee_ qui estoit appellee Morgane." This Morgane was very intimate with "ung esperit (named Zephir) qui repairoit es lieux acquatiques, mais jamais nestoit veu que de nuyt." Zephir had been in the habit of repairing to Morgane la Faee from her youth up, "car elle estoit malicieuse et subtille et tousjours avoit moult desire a aucunement sçavoir des enchantemens et des conjurations." He had committed to her charge the young Passelyon and his cousin Bennucq, to be brought up, and Passelyon was detected in an intrigue with the young Morgane, daughter of the fay. The various adventures of this amorous youth form one of the most interesting portions of the romance.

In Tristan de Leonois,[59] king Meliadus, the father of Tristan, is drawn to a chase _par mal engin et negromance_ of a fairy who was in love with him, and carries him off, and from whose thraldom he was only released by the power of the great enchanter Merlin.

In Parthenopex of Blois,[60] the beautiful fairy Melior, whose magic bark carries the knight to her secret island, is daughter to the emperor of Greece.

In no romance whatever is the fairy machinery more pleasingly displayed than in Sir Launfal, a metrical romance, composed[61] by Thomas Chestre, in the reign of Henry VI.

Before, however, we give the analysis of this poem, which will be followed by that of another, and by our own imitations of this kind of verse, we will take leave to offer some observations on a subject that seems to us to be in general but little understood, namely, the structure of our old English verse, and the proper mode of reading it.

Our forefathers, like their Gotho-German kindred, regulated their verse by the number of accents, not of syllables. The foot, therefore, as we term it, might consist of one, two, three, or even four syllables, provided it had only one strongly marked accent. Further, the accent of a word might be varied, chiefly by throwing it on the last syllable, as _natúre_ for _náture_, _honoúr_ for _hónour_, etc. (the Italians, by the way, throw it back when two accents come into collision, as, _Il Pástor Fido_[62]); they also sounded what the French call the feminine e of their words, as, _In oldè dayès of the King Artoúr_; and so well known seems this practice to have been, that the copyists did not always write this _e_, relying on the skill of the reader to supply it.[63] There was only one restriction, namely, that it was never to come before a vowel, unless where there was a pause. In this way the poetry of the middle ages was just as regular as that of the present day; and Chaucer, when properly read, is fully as harmonious as Pope. But the editors of our ancient poems, with the exception of Tyrwhitt, seem to have been ignorant or regardless of this principle; and in the Canterbury Tales alone is the verse properly arranged.

We will now proceed to the analysis of the romance of Sir Launfal.

Sir Launfal was one of the knights of Arthur, who loved him well, and made him his steward. But when Arthur married the beautiful but frail Gwennere, daughter of Ryon, king of Ireland, Launfal and other virtuous knights manifested their dissatisfaction when she came to court. The queen was aware of this, and, at the first entertainment given by the king,

The queen yaf (_gave_) giftès for the nones,
Gold and silver, precious stones,
Her courtesy to kythe (_show_):
Everiche knight she yaf broche other (_or_) ring,
But Sir Launfal she yaf no thing,
That grieved him many a sythe (_time_).

Launfal, under the feigned pretext of the illness of his father, takes leave of the king, and retires to Karlyoun, where he lives in great poverty. Having obtained the loan of a horse, one holyday, he rode into a fair forest, where, overcome by the heat, he lay down under the shade of a tree, and meditated on his wretched state. In this situation he is attracted by the approach of two fair damsels splendidly arrayed.

Their faces were white as snow on down,
Their rode[64] was red, their eyne were brown;
I saw never none swiche.
That one bare of gold a basín,
That other a towel white and fine,
Of silk that was good and riche;
Their kerchevès were welè skire (_clear_)
Araid (_striped_) with richè goldè wire--
Launfal began to siche--
They comè to him over the hoth (_heath_),
He was curteís, and against them goeth,
And greet them mildeliche.

They greet him courteously in return, and invite him to visit their mistress, whose pavilion is at hand. Sir Launfal complies with the invitation, and they proceed to where the pavilion lies. Nothing could exceed this pavilion in magnificence. It was surmounted by an _erne_ or eagle, adorned with precious stones so rich, that the poet declares, and we believe, that neither Alexander nor Arthur possessed "none swiche jewel."

He foundè in the paviloun
The kingès daughter of Oliroun,
Dame Tryamour that hight;
Her father was king of Faërie,
Of occientè[65] fer and nigh,
A man of mickle might.

The beauty of dame Tryamour was beyond conception.

For heat her cloathès down she dede
Almostè to her girdle stede (_place_),
Than lay she uncover't;
She was as white as lily in May,
Or snow that snoweth in winter's day:
He seigh (_saw_) never none so pert (_lively_).

The redè rose, when she is new,
Against her rode was naught of hew
I dare well say in cert;
Her hairè shone as goldè wire:
May no man redè her attire,
Ne naught well think in hert (_heart_).

This lovely dame bestows her heart on Sir Launfal, on condition of his fidelity. As marks of her affection, she gives him a never-failing purse and many other valuable presents, and dismisses him next morning with the assurance, that whenever he wished to see her, his wish would be gratified on withdrawing into a private room, where she would instantly be with him. This information is accompanied with a charge of profound secrecy on the subject of their loves.

The knight returns to court, and astonishes every one by his riches and his munificence. He continues happy in the love of the fair Tryamour, until an untoward adventure interrupts his bliss. One day the queen beholds him dancing, with other knights, before her tower, and, inspired with a sudden affection, makes amorous advances to the knight. These passages of love are received on his part with an indignant repulse, accompanied by a declaration more enthusiastic than politic or courteous, that his heart was given to a dame, the foulest of whose maidens surpassed the queen in beauty. The offence thus given naturally effected an entire conversion in the queen's sentiments; and, when Arthur returned from hunting, like Potiphar's wife, she charges Launfal with attempting her honour. The charge is credited, and the unhappy knight condemned to be burned alive, unless he shall, against a certain day, produce that peerless beauty. The fatal day arrives; the queen is urgent for the execution of the sentence, when ten fair damsels, splendidly arrayed, and mounted on white palfreys, are descried advancing toward the palace. They announce the approach of their mistress, who soon appears, and by her beauty justifies the assertion of her knight. Sir Launfal is instantly set at liberty, and, vaulting on the courser his mistress had bestowed on him, and which was held at hand by his squire, he follows her out of the town.

The lady rode down Cardevile,
Fer into a jolif ile,
Oliroun that hight;[66]
Every year upon a certain day,
Men may heare Launfales steedè neighe,
And him see with sight.
He that will there axsy (_ask_) justes
To keep his armès fro the rustes,
In turnement other (_or_) fight,
Dar (_need_) he never further gon;
There he may find justès anon,
With Sir Launfal the knight.
Thus Launful, withouten fable,
That noble knight of the roundè table,
Was taken into the faërie;
Since saw him in this land no man,
Ne no more of him tell I ne can,
For soothè, without lie.[67]

No romance is of more importance to the present subject than the charming Huon de Bordeaux.[68] Generally known, as the story should be, through Wieland's poem and Mr. Sotheby's translation, we trust that we shall be excused for giving some passages from the original French romance, as Le petit roy Oberon appears to form a kind of connecting link between the fairies of romance and the Elves or Dwarfs of the Teutonic nations. When we come to Germany it will be our endeavour to show how the older part of Huon de Bordeaux has been taken from the story of Otnit in the Heldenbuch, where the dwarf king Elberich performs nearly the same services to Otnit that Oberon does to Huon, and that, in fact, the name Oberon is only Elberich slightly altered.[69]

Huon, our readers must know, encounters in Syria an old follower of his family named Gerasmes; and when consulting with him on the way to Babylon he is informed by him that there are two roads to that city, the one long and safe, the other short and dangerous, leading through a wood, "which is sixteen leagues long, but is so full of Fairie and strange things that few people pass there without being lost or stopt, because therewithin dwelleth a king, Oberon the Fay. He is but three feet in height; he is all humpy; but he hath an angelic face; there is no mortal man who should see him who would not take pleasure in looking at him, he hath so fair a face. Now you will hardly have entered the wood, if you are minded to pass that way, when he will find how to speak to you, but of a surety if you speak to him, you are lost for evermore, without ever returning; nor will it lie in you, for if you pass through the wood, whether straightforwards or across it, you will always find him before you, and it will be impossible for you to escape at all without speaking to him, for his words are so pleasant to hear, that there is no living man who can escape him. And if so be that he should see that you are nowise inclined to speak to him, he will be passing wroth with you. For before you have left the wood he will cause it so to rain on you, to blow, to hail, and to make such right marvellous storms, thunder and lightning, that you will think the world is going to end. Then you will think that you see a great flowing river before you, wondrously black and deep; but know, sire, that right easily will you be able to go through it without wetting the feet of your horse, for it is nothing but a phantom and enchantments that the dwarf will make for you, because he wishes to have you with him, and if it so be that you keep firm to your resolve, not to speak to him, you will be surely able to escape," etc.[70]

Huon for some time followed the sage advice of Gerasmes, and avoided Oberon le fayé. The storms of rain and thunder came on as predicted, the magic horn set them all dancing, and at last the knight determined to await and accost the dwarf.

"The Dwarf Fay came riding through the wood, and was clad in a robe so exceeding fine and rich, that it would be a marvel to relate it for the great and marvellous riches that were upon it; for so much was there of precious stones, that the great lustre that they cast was like unto the sun when he shineth full clear. And therewithal he bare a right fair bow in his fist, so rich that no one could value it, so fine it was; and the arrow that he bare was of such sort and manner, that there was no beast in the world that he wished to have, that it did not stop at that arrow. He had at his neck a rich horn, which was hung by two rich strings of fine gold."[71]

This horn was wrought by four Fairies, who had endowed it with its marvellous properties.

Oberon, on bringing Huon to speech, informed him that he was the son of Julius Cæsar, and the lady of the Hidden Island, afterwards called Cephalonia. This lady's first love had been Florimont of Albania, a charming young prince, but being obliged to part from him, she married, and had a son named Neptanebus, afterwards King of Egypt, who begot Alexander the Great, who afterwards put him to death. Seven hundred years later, Cæsar, on his way to Thessaly, was entertained in Cephalonia by the lady of the isle, and he loved her, for she told him he would defeat Pompey, and he became the father of Oberon. Many a noble prince and noble fairy were at the birth, but one Fairy was unhappily not invited, and the gift she gave was that he should not grow after his third year, but repenting, she gave him to be the most beautiful of nature's works. Other Fairies gave him the gift of penetrating the thoughts of men, and of transporting himself and others from place to place by a wish; and the faculty, by like easy means, of raising and removing castles, palaces, gardens, banquets, and such like. He further informed the knight, that he was king and lord of Mommur; and that when he should leave this world his seat was prepared in Paradise--for Oberon, like his prototype Elberich, was a veritable Christian.

When after a variety of adventures Oberon comes to Bordeaux to the aid of Huon, and effects a reconciliation between him and Charlemagne, he tells Huon that the time is at hand that he should leave this world and take the seat prepared for him in Paradise, "en faerie ne veux plus demeurer." He directs him to appear before him within four years in his city of Mommur, where he will crown him as his successor.

Here the story properly ends, but an addition of considerable magnitude has been made by a later hand, in which the story is carried on.

Many are the perils which Huon encounters before the period appointed by Oberon arrives. At length, however, he and the fair Esclairmonde (the Rezia of Wieland) come to Mommur. Here, in despite of Arthur (who, with his sister Morgue la faée and a large train, arrives at court, and sets himself in opposition to the will of the monarch, but is reduced to order by Oberon's threat of turning him into a _Luyton de Mer_[72]), Huon is crowned king of all Faerie "tant du pais des Luytons comme des autres choses secretes reservées dire aux hommes." Arthur gets the kingdom of Bouquant, and that which Sybilla held of Oberon, and all the Faeries that were in the plains of Tartary. The good king Oberon then gave Huon his last instructions, recommending his officers and servants to him, and charging him to build an abbey before the city, in the mead which the dwarf had loved, and there to bury him. Then, falling asleep in death, a glorious troop of angels, scattering odours as they flew, conveyed his soul to Paradise.

Isaie le Triste is probably one of the latest romances, certainly posterior to Huon de Bordeaux, for the witty but deformed dwarf Tronc, who is so important a personage in it, is, we are told, Oberon, whom Destiny compelled to spend a certain period in that form. And we shall, as we have promised, prove Oberon to be the handsome dwarf-king Elberich. In Isaie the Faery ladies approach to the Fées of Perrault, and Madame D'Aulnoy. Here, as at the birth of Oberon and of Ogier le Danois, they interest themselves for the new-born child, and bestow their gifts upon it. The description in this romance of the manner in which the old hermit sees them occupied about the infant Isaie is very pleasing. It was most probably Fairies of this kind, and not the diminutive Elves, that Milton had in view when writing these lines:

Good luck betide thee, son, for, at thy birth,
The Faery ladies danced upon the hearth.
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And, sweetly singing round about thy bed,
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.

The description of the Vergier des Fées in Isaie le Triste, and of the beautiful valley in which it was situated, may rival in richness and luxuriancy similar descriptions in Spenser and the Italian poets.[73]

We have now, we trust, abundantly proved our position of the Fairies of romance being, at least at the commencement, only 'human mortals,' endowed with superhuman powers, though we may perceive that, as the knowledge of Oriental fiction increased, the Fairies began more and more to assume the character of a distinct species. Our position will acquire additional strength when in the course of our inquiry we arrive at France and Italy.

Closely connected with the Fairies is the place of their abode, the region to which they convey the mortals whom they love, 'the happy lond of Faery.'

FOOTNOTES:

[51] On the subjects mentioned in this paragraph, see Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ii. and iii.

[52] In the Amadigi of B. Tasso, she is La Fata Urganda.

[53] Lancelot is regarded as probably the earliest prose romance of chivalry. It was first printed in 1494. The metrical romance called La Charrette, of which Lancelot is the hero, was begun by Chrestien de Troyes, who died in 1191, and finished by Geoffrey de Ligny. We may here observe that almost all the French romances of chivalry were written originally in verse in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, principally by Chrestien de Troyes and Huon de Villeneuve. The prose romances in general were made from them in the fifteenth century.

[54]

For while it was in hand, by loving of an elf,
For all his wondrous skill was cozened of himself:
For walking with his Fay, her to the rock he brought,
In which he oft before his nigromancies wrought.
And going in thereat, his magics to have shown,
She stopt the cavern's mouth with an enchanted stone,
Whose cunning strongly crossed, amazed while he did stand,
She captive him conveyed unto the Fairy-land.
Drayton, _Poly-Olb._ Song IV.--See above, p. 2.

[55] La damoiselle qui Lancelot porta au lac estoit une _fée_, et en cellui temps estoient appellées _fees_ toutes celles qui sentremcloient denchantements et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principallement en la Grand Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoi elles estoient en jeunesse, et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses, comment elles divisoient.

[56] La dame qui le nourissoit ne conversoit que en forest, et estoit au plain de ung tertre plus bas assez que celui ou le roy Ban estoit mort: en ce lieu ou il sembloit que le bois fust grant et parfont (_profond_) avoit la dame moult de belles maisons et moult riches; et au plain dessoubs y avoit une gente petite riviere moult plantureuse de poissons; et estoit ce lieu si cele et secret que bien difficille estoit a homme de le trouver, car la semblance du dit lac le couvroit si que il ne pouvoit estre apperceu. And farther, La damoiselle nestoit mie seulle, mais y avoit grande compaignie de chevaliers et de dames et damoiselles.

[57] Vol. i. ch. 42.

[58] Vol. iii. ch. 31.

[59] Tristan was written in verse by Chrestien de Troyes. The prose romance was first printed in 1489.

[60] Parthenopex was written in French in the twelfth century, according to Le Grand; in the thirteenth, according to Roquefort.

[61] _Composed_--for to call it, with Ellis, Ritson, and others, a translation, would be absurd. How Ellis, who had at least read Le Grand's and Way's Fabliaux, could say of Chestre, that he "seems to have given a _faithful_ as well as spirited version of this old Breton story," is surprising. It is in fact no translation, but a poem on the adventures of Sir Launfal, founded chiefly on the Lais de Lanval and de Graelent, in Marie de France, with considerable additions of Chestre's own invention, or derived from other sources. These Lais will be considered under Brittany.

[62] Thus we ourselves say _the Príncess Royal, éxtreme need_, etc. This, by the way, is the cause why the Greeks put a grave and not an acute accent on words accented on the last syllable, to show that it is easily moveable.

[63] As this seems to be one of the lost arts, we will here and elsewhere mark the feminine _e_ and the change of accent.

[64] Rode--complexion; from _red_.

[65] Occient--_occident_ or _océan_? The Gascon peasantry call the Bay of Biscay _La Mer d'Occient_. The Spaniards say _Mar Oceano_.

[66] It is strange to find the English poet changing the Avalon of the Lai de Lanval into the well-known island of Oléron. It is rather strange too, that Mr. Ritson, who has a note on "Oliroun," did not notice this.

[67] The Lai ends thus:

Od (_avec_) li sen vait en Avalun,
Ceo nus recuntent le Bretun;
En une isle que mut est beaus,
La fut ravi li dameiseaus,
Nul humme nen ot plus parler,
Ne jeo nen sai avant cunter.

In Graelent it is said that the horse of the knight used to return annually to the river where he lost his master. The rest is Thomas Chestre's own, taken probably from the well-known story in Gervase of Tilbury.

[68] Huon, Hue, or Hullin (for he is called by these three names in the poetic romance) is, there can be little doubt, the same person with Yon king of Bordeaux in the Quatre Filz Aymon, another composition of Huon de Villeneuve, and with Lo Re Ivone, prince or duke of Guienne in Bojardo and Ariosto. See the Orl. Inn. l. i. c. iv. st. 46. I Cinque Canti, c. v. st. 42.

[69] Otnit was supposed to have been written by Wolfram von Eschembach, in the early part of the thirteenth century. It is possibly much older. Huon de Bordeaux was, it is said, written in French verse by Huon de Villeneuve, some time in the same century. It does not appear in the list of Huon de Villeneuve's works given by Mons. de Roquefort. At the end of the prose romance we are told that it was written at the desire of Charles seigneur de Rochefort, and completed on the 29th of January, 1454.

[70] Qui a de long seizes lieues, mais tant est plain de faerie et chose estrange que peu de gens y passent qui n'y soient perdus ou arrestez, pour ce que la dedans demeure un roi, Oberon le fayé. Il n'a que trois pieds de hauteur; il est tout bossu; mais il a un visage angelique; il n'est homme mortel que le voye que plaisir ne prengne a le regarder tant a beau visage. Ja si tost ne serez entrez au bois se par la voulez passer qu'il ne trouve maniere de parler a vous, si ainsi que a luy parliez perdu estus a tousjours sans jamais plus revenir; ne il ne sera en vous, car se par le bois passez, soit de long ou de travers, vous le trouverez tousjours au devant de vous, et vous sera impossible que eschappiez nullement que ne parliez a luy, car ses parolles sont tant plaisantes a ouyr qu'il n'est homme mortel qui de luy se puisse eschapper. Et se chose est qu'il voye que nullement ne vueillez parler a luy, il sera moult troublé envers vous. Car avant que du bois soyez parti vous fera pleuvoir, ventrer, gresiller, et faire si tres-mervueilleux orages, tonnerres, et esclairs, que advis vous sera que le monde doive finir. Puis vous sera advis que par devant vous verrez une grande riviere courante, noire et parfonde a grand merveilles; mais sachez, sire, que bien y pourrez aller sans mouiller les pieds de vostre cheval, car ce n'est que fantosme et enchantemens que le nain vous fera pour vous cuider avoir avec lui, et se chose est que bien tenez propos en vous de non parler a luy, bien pourrez eschapper, etc.

[71] Le Nain Fee s'en vint chevauchant par le bois, et estoit vestu d'une robbe si tres-belle et riche, que merveilles sera ce racompter pour la grand et merveilleuse richesse que dessus estoit, car tant y avoit de pierres precieuses, que la grand clarté qu'elles jettoient estoit pareille au soleil quant il luit bien clair. Et avec ce portoit un moult bel arc en son poing, tant riche que on ne le sauroit estimer tant estoit beau. Et la fleche qu'il portoit est it de telle sorte et maniere, qu'il n'estoit beste au monde qu'il vousist souhaiter qu'a ieelle fleche elle ne s'arrestast. Il avoit a son cou un riche cor, lequel estoit pendu a deux riches attaches de fin or.

[72] This sort of transformation appears to have been a usual mode of punishing in a Fairy land. It may have come from Circe, but the Thousand and One Nights is full of such transformations. For _luyton_ or _lutin_, see below, _France_.

[73] We are only acquainted with this romance through Mr. Dunlop's analysis.

FAIRY LAND.

There, renewed the vital spring,
Again he reigns a mighty king
And many a fair and fragrant clime,
Blooming in immortal prime,
By gales of Eden ever fanned,
Owns the monarch's high command.
T. WARTON.

Among all nations the mixture of joy and pain, of exquisite delight and intense misery in the present state, has led the imagination to the conception of regions of unmixed bliss destined for the repose of the good after the toils of this life, and of climes where happiness prevails, the abode of beings superior to man. The imagination of the Hindoo paints his Swergas as 'profuse of bliss,' and all the joys of sense are collected into the Paradise of the Mussulman. The Persian lavished the riches of his fancy in raising the Cities of Jewels and of Amber that adorn the realms of Jinnestân; the romancer erected castles and palaces filled with knights and ladies in Avalon and in the land of Faerie; while the Hellenic bards, unused to pomp and glare, filled the Elysian Fields and the Island of the Blest with tepid gales and brilliant flowers. We shall quote without apology two beautiful passages from Homer and Pindar, that our readers may at one view satisfy themselves of the essential difference between classic and romantic imagination.

In Homer, Proteus tells Menelaus that, because he had had the honour of being the son-in-law of Zeus, he should not die in "horse-feeding Argos."

But thee the ever-living gods will send
Unto the Elysian plain and distant bounds
Of Earth, where dwelleth fair-hair'd Rhadamanthus.
There life is easiest unto men; no snow,
Or wintry storm, or rain, at any time,
Is there; but evermore the Ocean sends
Soft-breathing airs of Zephyr to refresh
The habitants.--_Od._ iv. 563.

This passage is finely imitated by Pindar, and connected with that noble tone of pensive morality, so akin to the Oriental spirit, and by which the 'Dircæan Swan' is distinguished from all his fellows.

They speed their way
To Kronos' palace, where around
The Island of the Blest, the airs
Of Ocean breathe, and golden flowers
Blaze; some on land
From shining trees, and other kinds
The water feeds. Of these
Garlands and bracelets round their arms they bind,

Beneath the righteous sway
Of Rhadamanthus.--_Ol._ ii. 126.

Lucretius has transferred these fortunate fields to the superior regions, to form the abode of his _fainéans_, gods; and Virgil has placed them, with additional poetic splendour, in the bosom of the earth.

Widely different from these calm and peaceful abodes of parted warriors are the Faeries of the minstrels and romancers. In their eyes, and in those of their auditors, nothing was beautiful or good divested of the pomp and pride of chivalry; and chivalry has, accordingly, entered deeply into the composition of their pictures of these ideal realms.

The Feeries of romance may be divided into three kinds: Avalon, placed in the ocean, like the Island of the Blest; those that, like the palace of Pari Banou, are within the earth; and, lastly, those that, like Oberon's domains, are situate 'in wilderness among the holtis hairy.'

Of the castle and isle of Avalon,[74] the abode of Arthur and Oberon, and Morgue la faye, the fullest description is to be seen in the romance of Ogier le Danois, from which, as we know no sure quarter but the work itself to refer to for the part connected with the present subject, we will make some extracts.[75]

At the birth of Ogier several Fairies attended, who bestowed on him various gifts. Among them was Morgue la Faye, who gave him that he should be her lover and friend. Accordingly, when Ogier had long distinguished himself in love and war, and had attained his hundredth year, the affectionate Morgue thought it was time to withdraw him from the toils and dangers of mortal life, and transport him to the joys and the repose of the castle of Avalon. In pursuance of this design, Ogier and king Caraheu are attacked by a storm on their return from Jerusalem, and their vessels separated. The bark on which Ogier was "floated along the sea till it came near the castle of loadstone, which is called the castle of Avalon, which is not far on this side of the terrestrial paradise, whither were rapt in a flame of fire Enock and Helias; and where was Morgue la Faye, who at his birth had endowed him with great gifts, noble and virtuous."[76]

The vessel is wrecked against the rock; the provisions are divided among the crew, and it is agreed that every man, as his stock failed, should be thrown into the sea. Ogier's stock holds out longest, and he remains alone. He is nearly reduced to despair, when a voice from heaven cries to him: "God commandeth thee that, as soon as it is night, thou go unto a castle that thou wilt see shining, and pass from bark to bark till thou be in an isle which thou wilt find. And when thou wilt be in that isle thou wilt find a little path, and of what thou mayest see within be not dismayed at anything. And then Ogier looked, but he saw nothing."[77]

When night came, Ogier recommended himself to God, and seeing the castle of loadstone all resplendent with light, he went from one to the other of the vessels that were wrecked there, and so got into the island where it was. On arriving at the gate he found it guarded by two fierce lions. He slew them and entered; and making his way into a hall, found a horse sitting at a table richly supplied. The courteous animal treats him with the utmost respect, and the starving hero makes a hearty supper. The horse then prevails on him to get on his back, and carries him into a splendid chamber, where Ogier sleeps that night. The name of this horse is Papillon, "who was a Luiton, and had been a great prince, but king Arthur conquered him, so he was condemned to be three hundred years a horse without speaking one single word, but after the three hundred years he was to have the crown of joy which they wore in Faerie."[78]

Next morning he cannot find Papillon, but on opening a door he meets a huge serpent, whom he also slays, and follows a little path which leads him into an orchard "tant bel et tant plaisant, que cestoit ung petit paradis a veoir." He plucks an apple from one of the trees and eats it, but is immediately afflicted by such violent sickness as to be put in fear of speedy death. He prepares himself for his fate, regretting "le bon pays de France, le roi Charlemaigne ... et principallement la bonne royne dangleterre, sa bonne espouse et vraie amie, ma dame Clarice, qui tant estoit belle et noble." While in this dolorous state, happening to turn to the east, he perceived "une moult belle dame, toute vestue de blanc, si bien et si richement aornee que cestoit ung grant triumphe que de la veoir."

Ogier, thinking it is the Virgin Mary, commences an Ave; but the lady tells him she is Morgue la Faye, who at his birth had kissed him, and retained him for her loyal amoureux, though forgotten by him. She places then on his finger a ring, which removes all infirmity, and Ogier, a hundred years old, returns to the vigour and beauty of thirty. She now leads him to the castle of Avalon, where were her brother king Arthur, and Auberon, and Mallonbron, "ung luiton de mer."

"And when Morgue drew near to the said castle of Avalon, the Fays came to meet Ogier, singing the most melodiously that ever could be heard, so he entered into the hall to solace himself completely. There he saw several Fay ladies adorned and all crowned with crowns most sumptuously made, and very rich, and evermore they sung, danced, and led a right joyous life, without thinking of any evil thing whatever, but of taking their mundane pleasures."[79] Morgue here introduces the knight to Arthur, and she places on his head a crown rich and splendid beyond estimation, but which has the Lethean quality, that whoso wears it,

Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain;

for Ogier instantly forgot country and friends. He had no thought whatever "ni de la dame Clarice, qui tant estoit belle et noble," nor of Guyon his brother, nor of his nephew Gauthier, "ne de creature vivante." His days now rolled on in never-ceasing pleasure. "Such joyous pastime did the Fay ladies make for him, that there is no creature in this world who could imagine or think it, for to hear them sing so sweetly it seemed to him actually that he was in Paradise; so the time passed from day to day, from week to week, in such sort that a year did not last a month to him."[80]

But Avalon was still on earth, and therefore its bliss was not unmixed. One day Arthur took Ogier aside, and informed him that Capalus, king of the Luitons, incessantly attacked the castle of Faerie with design to eject king Arthur from its dominion, and was accustomed to penetrate to the basse court, calling on Arthur to come out and engage him. Ogier asked permission to encounter this formidable personage, which Arthur willingly granted. No sooner, however, did Capalus see Ogier than he surrendered to him; and the knight had the satisfaction of leading him into the castle, and reconciling him to its inhabitants.