Legends & Romances of Brittany Part 29

It is scarcely necessary to outline the history of Abelard. Suffice it to say that he was one of the most brilliant scholars and dialecticians of all time, possessing a European reputation in his day. Falling in love with Helose, niece of Fulbert, a canon of Paris, he awoke in her a similar absorbing pa.s.sion, which resulted in their mutual disgrace and Abelard's mutilation by the incensed uncle. He and his Helose were buried in one tomb at the Paraclete.

The story of their love has been immortalized by the world's great poets and painters.

An ancient Breton ballad on the subject has been spoken of as a "naf and horrible" production, in which one will find "a bizarre mixture of Druidic practice and Christian superst.i.tion." It describes Helose as a sorceress of ferocious and sanguinary temper. Thus can legend magnify and distort human failing! As its presentation is important in the study of Breton folk-lore, I give a very free translation of this ballad, in which, at the same time, I have endeavoured to preserve the atmosphere of the original.

THE HYMN OF HeLOSE

O Abelard, my Abelard, Twelve summers have pa.s.sed since first we kissed.

There is no love like that of a bard: Who loves him lives in a golden mist!

Nor word of French nor Roman tongue, But only Brezonek could I speak, When round my lover's neck I hung And heard the harmony of the Greek,

The march of Latin, the joy of French, The valiance of the Hebrew speech, The while its thirst my soul did quench In the love-lore that he did teach.

The bossed and bound Evangel's tome Is open to me as mine own soul, But all the watered wine of Rome Is weak beside the magic bowl.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HeLOSE AS SORCERESS]

The Ma.s.s I chant like any priest, Can shrive the dying or bury the dead, But dearer to me to raise the Beast Or watch the gold in the furnace red.

The wolf, the serpent, the crow, the owl, The demons of sea, of field, of flood, I can run or fly in their forms so foul, They come at my call from wave or wood.

I know a song that can raise the sea, Can rouse the winds or shudder the earth, Can darken the heavens terribly, Can wake portents at a prince's birth.

The first dark drug that ever we sipped Was brewed from toad and the eye of crow, Slain in a mead when the moon had slipped From heav'n to the fetid fogs below.

I know a well as deep as death, A gloom where I cull the frondent fern, Whose seed with that of the golden heath I mingle when mystic lore I'd learn.

I gathered in dusk nine measures of rye, Nine measures again, and brewed the twain In a silver pot, while fitfully The starlight struggled through the rain.

I sought the serpent's egg of power In a dell hid low from the night and day: It was shown to me in an awful hour When the children of h.e.l.l came out to play.

I have three spirits--seeming snakes; The youngest is six score years young, The second rose from the nether lakes, And the third was once Duke Satan's tongue.

The wild bird's flesh is not their food, No common umbles are their dole; I nourish them well with infants' blood, Those precious vipers of my soul.

O Satan! grant me three years still, But three short years, my love and I, To work thy fierce, mysterious will, Then gladly shall we yield and die.

Helose, wicked heart, beware!

Think on the dreadful day of wrath, Think on thy soul; forbear, forbear!

The way thou tak'st is that of death!

Thou craven priest, go, get thee hence!

No fear have I of fate so fell.

Go, suck the milk of innocence, Leave me to quaff the wine of h.e.l.l!

It is difficult to over-estimate the folk-lore value of such a ballad as this. Its historical value is clearly _nil_. We have no proof that Helose was a Breton; but fantastic errors of this description are so well known to the student of ballad literature that he is able to discount them easily in gauging the value of a piece.

In this weird composition the wretched abbess is described as an alchemist as well as a sorceress, and she descends to the depths of the lowest and most revolting witchcraft. She practises shape-shifting and similar arts. She has power over natural forces, and knows the past, the present, and the things to be. She possesses sufficient Druidic knowledge to permit her to gather the greatly prized serpent's egg, to acquire which was the grand aim of the Celtic magician. The circ.u.mstances of the ballad strongly recall those of the poem in which the Welsh bard Taliesin recounts his magical experiences, his metamorphoses, his knowledge of the darker mysteries of nature.

_Nantes of the Magicians_

The poet is in accord with probability in making the magical exploits of Abelard and Helose take place at Nantes--a circ.u.mstance not indicated in the translation owing to metrical exigencies. Nantes was, indeed, a cla.s.sic neighbourhood of sorcery. An ancient college of Druidic priestesses was situated on one of the islands at the mouth of the Loire, and the traditions of its denizens had evidently been cherished by the inhabitants of the city even as late as the middle of the fourteenth century, for we find a bishop of the diocese at that period obtaining a bull of excommunication against the local sorcerers, and condemning them to the eternal fires with bell, book, and candle.[53]

The poet, it is plain, has confounded poor Helose with the dark sisterhood of the island of the Loire. The learning she received from her gifted lover had been her undoing in Breton eyes, for the simple folk of the duchy at the period the ballad gained currency could scarcely be expected to discriminate between a training in rhetoric and philosophy and a schooling in the _grimoires_ and other accomplishments of the pit.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Rice Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest_, pp. 532-536.

[51] See Rolleston, _Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race_, p. 66.

[52] See Gomme, _Ethnology in Folk-lore_, p. 94.

[53] It is of interest to recall the fact that Abelard was born near Nantes, in 1079.

CHAPTER X: ARTHURIAN ROMANCE IN BRITTANY

Fierce and prolonged has been the debate as to the original birthplace of Arthurian legend, authorities of the first rank, the 'Senior Wranglers' of the study, as Nutt has called them, hotly advancing the several claims of Wales, England, Scotland, and Brittany. In this place it would be neither fitting nor necessary to traverse the whole ground of argument, and we must content ourselves with the examination of Brittany's claim to the invention of Arthurian story--and this we will do briefly, pa.s.sing on to some of the tales which relate the deeds of the King or his knights on Breton soil.

Confining ourselves, then, to the proof of the existence of a body of Arthurian legend in Brittany, we are, perhaps, a little alarmed at the outset to find that our ma.n.u.script sources are scanty. "It had to be acknowledged," says Professor Saintsbury, "that Brittany could supply _no ancient texts whatever_, and hardly any ancient traditions."[54]

But are either of these conditions essential to a belief in the Breton origin of Arthurian romance?

The two great hypotheses regarding Arthurian origins have been dubbed the 'Continental' and the 'Insular' theories. The first has as its leading protagonist Professor Wendelin Forster of Bonn, who believes that the immigrant Britons brought the Arthur legend with them to Brittany and that the Normans of Normandy received it from their descendants and gave it wider territorial scope. The second school, headed by the brilliant M. Gaston Paris, believes that it originated in Wales.

If we consider the first theory, then, we can readily see that ancient _texts_ are not essential to its acceptance. In any case the entire body of Arthurian texts prior to the twelfth century is so small as to be almost negligible. The statement that "hardly any ancient traditions" of the Arthurian legend exist in Brittany is an extraordinary one. In view of the circ.u.mstances that in extended pa.s.sages of Arthurian story the scene is laid in Brittany (as in the Merlin and Vivien incident and the episode of Yseult of the White Hand in the story of Tristrem), that Geoffrey of Monmouth speaks of "the Breton book" from which he took his matter, and that Marie de France states that her tales are drawn from old Breton sources, not to admit the possible existence of a body of Arthurian tradition in Brittany appears capricious. Thomas's _Sir Tristrem_ is professedly based on the poem of the Breton Breri, and there is no reason why Brittany, drawing sap and fibre as it did from Britain, should not have produced Arthurian stories of its own.

On the whole, however, that seems to represent the sum of its pretensions as a main source of Arthurian romance. The Arthurian story seems to be indigenous to British soil, and if we trace the origin of certain episodes to Brittany we may safely connect these with the early British immigrants to the peninsula. This is not to say, however, that Brittany did not influence Norman appreciation of the Arthurian saga. But that it did so more than did Wales is unlikely, in view of doc.u.mentary evidence. Both Wales and Brittany, then, supplied matter which the Norman and French poets shaped into verse, and if Brittany was not the birthplace of the legend it was, in truth, one of its cradle-domains.

_The Sword of Arthur_

Let us collect, then, Arthurian incidents which take place in Brittany. First, Arthur's finding of the marvellous sword Excalibur would seem to happen there, as Vivien, or Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, was undoubtedly a fairy of Breton origin who does not appear in British myth.

For the manner in which Arthur acquired the renowned Excalibur, or Caliburn, the _Morte d'Arthur_ is the authority. The King had broken his sword in two pieces in a combat with Sir Pellinore of Wales, and had been saved by Merlin, who threw Sir Pellinore into an enchanted sleep.

"And so Merlin and Arthur departed, and as they rode along King Arthur said, 'I have no sword.' 'No force,'[55] said Merlin; 'here is a sword that shall be yours, an I may.' So they rode till they came to a lake, which was a fair water and a broad; and in the midst of the lake King Arthur was aware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in the hand. 'Lo,' said Merlin unto the King, 'yonder is the sword that I spoke of.' With that they saw a damsel going upon the lake. 'What damsel is that?' said the King. 'That is the Lady of the Lake,' said Merlin; 'and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on earth, and richly beseen; and this damsel will come to you anon, and then speak fair to her that she will give you that sword.' Therewith came the damsel to King Arthur and saluted him, and he her again. 'Damsel,' said the King, 'what sword is that which the arm holdeth yonder above the water? I would it were mine, for I have no sword.' 'Sir King,' said the damsel of the lake, 'that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it.' 'By my faith,' said King Arthur, 'I will give you any gift that you will ask or desire.' 'Well,' said the damsel, 'go into yonder barge, and row yourself unto the sword, and take it and the scabbard with you; and I will ask my gift when I see my time.' So King Arthur and Merlin alighted, tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the barge. And when they came to the sword that the hand held, King Arthur took it up by the handles, and took it with him, and the arm and the hand went under the water; and so came to the land and rode forth. King Arthur looked upon the sword, and liked it pa.s.sing well. 'Whether liketh you better,' said Merlin, 'the sword or the scabbard?' 'Me liketh better the sword,' said King Arthur. 'Ye are more unwise,' said Merlin, 'for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword; for while ye have the scabbard upon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded; therefore keep well the scabbard alway with you.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: KING ARTHUR AND MERLIN AT THE LAKE]

Sir Lancelot du Lac, son of King Ban of Benwik, was stolen and brought up by the Lady of the Lake, from whose enchanted realm he took his name. But he does not appear at all in true Celtic legend, and is a mere Norman new-comer.