Legends & Romances of Brittany Part 5

At sight of this fair quarry the Seigneur followed into the greenwood.

Ever his prey rustled among the leaves ahead, and in the hot chase he recked not of the forest depths into which he had plunged. But coming upon a narrow glade where the interlacing leaves above let in the sun to dapple the moss-ways below, he saw a strange lady sitting by the broken border of a well, braiding her fair hair and binding it with golden pins.

The Seigneur louted low, begged that he might drink, and bending down set his lips to the water; but she, turning strange eyes upon him--eyes not blue like those of his bride, nor grey, nor brown, nor black, like those of other women, but red in their depths as the heart's blood of a dove--spoke to him discourteously.

"Who are you who dare to trouble the waters of my fountain?" she asked. "Do you not know that your conduct merits death? This well is enchanted, and by drinking of it you are fated to die, unless you fulfil a certain condition."

"And what is that?" asked the Seigneur.

"You must marry me within the hour," replied the lady.

"Demoiselle," replied the Seigneur, "it may not be as you desire, for I am already espoused to a fair bride who has borne me this very day a son and a daughter. Nor shall I die until it pleases the good G.o.d.

Nevertheless, I wot well who you are. Rather would I die on the instant than wed with a Korrigan."

Leaping upon his horse, he turned and rode from the woodland as a man possessed. As he drew homeward he was overshadowed by a sense of coming ill. At the gate of his chateau stood his mother, anxious to greet him with good news of his bride. But with averted eyes he addresses her in the refrain so familiar to the folk-poetry of all lands:

"My good mother, if you love me, make my bed. I am sick unto death. Say not a word to my bride. For within three days I shall be laid in the grave. A Korrigan has done me evil."

Three days later the young spouse asks of her mother-in-law:

"Tell me, mother, why do the bells sound? Wherefore do the priests chant so low?"

"'Tis nothing, daughter," replies the elder woman. "A poor stranger who lodged here died this night."

"Ah, where is gone the Seigneur of Nann? Mother, oh, where is he?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SEIGNEUR OF NANN AND THE KORRIGAN]

"He has gone to the town, my child. In a little he will come to see you."

"Ah, mother, let us speak of happy things. Must I wear my red or my blue robe at my churching?"

"Neither, daughter. The mode is changed. You must wear black."

Unconscious in its art, the stream of verse carries us to the church, whence the young wife has gone to offer up thanks for the gift of children. She sees that the ancestral tomb has been opened, and a great dread is at her heart. She asks her mother-in-law who has died, and the old woman at last confesses that the Seigneur of Nann has just been buried.

That same night the young mother was interred beside her husband-lover.

And the peasant folk say that from that tomb arose two saplings, the branches of which intertwined more closely as they grew.

_A G.o.ddess of Eld_

In the depths of Lake Tegid in our own Wales dwelt Keridwen, a fertility G.o.ddess who possessed a magic cauldron--the sure symbol of a deity of abundance.[22] Like Demeter, she was strangely a.s.sociated with the harmless necessary sow, badge of many earth-mothers, and itself typical of fertility. Like Keridwen, the Korrigan is a.s.sociated with water, with the element which makes for vegetable growth.

Christian belief would, of course, transform this discredited G.o.ddess into an evil being whose one function was the destruction of souls.

May we see a relation of the Korrigan and Keridwen in Tridwan, or St Triduana, of Restalrig, near Edinburgh, who presided over a certain well there, and at whose well-shrine offerings were made by sightless pilgrims for many centuries?

Many are the traditions which tell of human infants abducted by the Korrigan, who at times left an ugly changeling in place of the babe she had stolen. But it was more as an enchantress that she was dreaded. By a stroke of her magic wand she could transform the leafy fastnesses in which she dwelt into the semblance of a lordly hall, which the luckless traveller whom she lured thither would regard as a paradise after the dark thickets in which he had been wandering. This seeming castle or palace she furnished with everything that could delight the eye, and as the doomed wretch sat ravished by her beauty and that of her nine attendant maidens a fatal pa.s.sion for her entered his heart, so that whatever he cherished most on earth--honour, wife, demoiselle, or affianced bride--became as naught to him, and he cast himself at the feet of this forest Circe in a frenzy of ardour. But with the first ray of daylight the charm was dissolved and the Korrigan became a hideous hag, as repulsive as before she had been lovely; the walls of her palace and the magnificence which had furnished it became once more tree and thicket, its carpets moss, its tapestries leaves, its silver cups wild roses, and its dazzling mirrors pools of stagnant water.

_The Unbroken Vow_[23]

Sir Roland of Brittany rides through gloomy Broceliande a league ahead of his troop, unattended by squire or by page. The red cross upon his shoulder is witness that he is vowed to service in Palestine, and as he pa.s.ses through the leafy avenues on his way to the rendezvous he fears that he will be late, most tardy of all the knights of Brittany who have sworn to drive the paynim from the Holy Land. Fearful of such disgrace, he spurs his jaded charger on through the haunted forest, and with anxious eye watches the sun sink and the gay white moon sail high above the tree-tops, pouring light through their branches upon the mossy ways below.

A high vow has Roland taken ere setting out upon the crusade--a vow that he will eschew the company of fair ladies, in which none had delighted more than he. No more must he mingle in the dance, no more must he press a maiden's lips with his. He has become a soldier of the Cross. He may not touch a lady's hand save with his mailed glove, he must not sit by her side. Also must he fast from dusk till dawn upon that night of his setting forth. "Small risk," he laughs a little sadly, as he spurs his charger onward, "small risk that I be mansworn ere morning light."

But the setting of the moon tells him that he must rest in the forest until dawn, as without her beams he can no longer pursue his way. So he dismounts from his steed, tethers it to a tree, and looks about for a bed of moss on which to repose. As he does so his wandering gaze fixes upon a beam of light piercing the gloom of the forest. Well aware of the traditions of his country, he thinks at first that it is only the glimmer of a will-o'-the-wisp or a light carried by a wandering elf. But no, on moving nearer the gleam he is surprised to behold a row of windows brilliantly lit as if for a festival.

"Now, by my vow," says Roland, "methought I knew well every chateau in this land of Brittany, nor wist I that seigneur or count held court in this forest of Broceliande."

Resolved to view the chateau at still closer quarters, he draws near it. A great court fronts him where neither groom nor porter keeps guard, and within he can see a fair hall. This he enters, and immediately his ears are ravished by music which wanders through the chamber like a sighing zephyr. The murmur of rich viols and the call of flutes soft as distant bird-song speak to his very soul. Yet through the ecstasy comes, like a serpent gliding among flowers, the discord of evil thoughts. Grasping his rosary, he is about to retire when the doors at the end of the hall fly open, and he beholds a rapturous vision. Upon a couch of velvet sits a lady of such dazzling beauty that all other women compared with her would seem as kitchen-wenches. A mantle of rich golden hair falls about her, her eyes shine with the brightness of stars, her smile seems heavenly.

Round her are grouped nine maidens only less beautiful than herself.

As the moon moving among attendant stars, so the lady comes toward Roland, accompanied by her maidens. She welcomes him, and would remove his gauntlet, but he tells her of the vow he has made to wear it in lady's bower, and she is silent. Next she asks him to seat himself beside her on the couch, but he will not. In some confusion she orders a repast to be brought. A table is spread with fragrant viands, but as the knight will partake of none of them, in chagrin the lady takes a lute, which she touches with exquisite skill. He listens unmoved, till, casting away her instrument, she dances to him, circling round and round about him, flitting about his chair like a b.u.t.terfly, until at length she sinks down near him and lays her head upon his mailed bosom. Upward she turns her face to him, all pa.s.sion-flushed, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with love. Sir Roland falters.

Fascinated by her unearthly beauty, he is about to stoop down to press his lips to hers. But as he bends his head she shrinks from him, for she sees the tender flush of morning above the eastern tree-tops. The living stars faint and fail, and the music of awakening life which accompanies the rising of the young sun falls upon the ear. Slowly the chateau undergoes transformation. The glittering roof merges into the blue vault of heaven, the tapestried walls become the ivied screens of great forest trees, the princely furnishings are transformed into mossy banks and mounds, and the rugs and carpets beneath Roland's mailed feet are now merged in the forest ways.

But the lady? Sir Roland, glancing down, beholds a hag hideous as sin, whose malicious and distorted countenance betrays baffled hate and rage. At the sound of a bugle she hurries away with a discordant shriek. Into the glade ride Roland's men, to see their lord clasping his rosary and kneeling in thanksgiving for his deliverance from the evils which beset him. He had been saved from breaking his vow!

The nine attendant maidens of the Korrigan bring to mind a pa.s.sage in Pomponius Mela[24]: "Sena [the Ile de Sein, not far from Brest], in the British Sea, opposite the Ofismician coast, is remarkable for an oracle of the Gallic G.o.d. Its priestesses, holy in perpetual virginity, are said to be nine in number. They are called Gallicenae, and are thought to be endowed with singular powers. By their charms they are able to raise the winds and seas, to turn themselves into what animals they will, to cure wounds and diseases incurable by others, to know and predict the future. But this they do only for navigators, who go thither purposely to consult them."

Like the sylphs and salamanders so humorously described by the Abbe de Villars in _Le Comte de Gabalis_,[25] the Korrigans desired union with humanity in order that they might thus gain immortality. Such, at least, is the current peasant belief in Brittany. "For this end they violate all the laws of modesty." This belief is common to all lands, and is typical of the fay, the Lorelei, countless well and water sprites, and that enchantress who rode off with Thomas the Rhymer:

For if you dare to kiss my lips Sure of your bodie I shall be.

Unlike the colder Sir Roland, 'True Thomas' dared, and was wafted to a realm wondrously described by the old balladeer in the vivid phrase that marks the poetry of vision.

_Merlin and Vivien_

It was in this same verdant Broceliande that Vivien, another fairy, that crafty dame of the enchanted lake, the instructress of Lancelot, bound wise Merlin so that he might no more go to Camelot with oracular lips to counsel British Arthur.

But what say the folk of Broceliande themselves of this? Let us hear their version of a tale which has been so battered by modern criticism, and which has been related in at least half a score of versions, prose and poetic. Let us have the Broceliande account of what happened in Broceliande.[26] Surely its folk, in the very forest in which he wandered with Vivien, must know more of Merlin's enchantment than we of that greater Britain which he left to find a paradise in Britain the Less, for, according to Breton story, Merlin was not imprisoned by magic art, but achieved bliss through his love for the fairy forest nymph.

Disguised as a young student, Merlin was wandering one bright May morning through the leafy glades of Broceliande, when, like the Seigneur of Nann, he came to a beautiful fountain in the heart of the forest which tempted him to rest. As he sat there in reverie, Vivien, daughter of the lord of the manor of Broceliande, came to the water's edge. Her father had gained the affection of a fay of the valley, who had promised on behalf of their daughter that she should be loved by the wisest man in the world, who should grant all her wishes, but would never be able to compel her to consent to his.

Vivien reclined upon the other side of the fountain, and the eyes of the sage and maiden met. At length Merlin rose to depart, and gave the damsel courteous good-day. But she, curious and not content with a mere salutation, wished him all happiness and honour. Her voice was beautiful, her eyes expressive, and Merlin, moved beyond anything in his experience, asked her name. She told him she was a daughter of a gentleman of that country, and in turn asked him who he might be.

"A scholar returning to his master," was the reply.

"Your master? And what may he teach you, young sir?"

"He instructs me in the magic art, fair dame," replied Merlin, amused.

"By aid of his teaching I can raise a castle ere a man could count a score, and garrison it with warriors of might. I can make a river flow past the spot on which you recline, I can raise spirits from the great deeps of ether in which this world rolls, and can peer far into the future--aye, to the extreme of human days."

"Would that I shared your wisdom!" cried Vivien, her voice thrilling with the desire of hidden things which she had inherited from her fairy mother. "Teach me these secrets, I entreat of you, n.o.ble scholar, and accept in return for your instruction my most tender friendship."

Merlin, willing to please her, arose, and traced certain mystical characters upon the greensward. Straightway the glade in which they sat was filled with knights, ladies, maidens, and esquires, who danced and disported themselves right joyously. A stately castle rose on the verge of the forest, and in the garden the spirits whom Merlin the enchanter had raised up in the semblance of knights and ladies held carnival. Vivien, delighted, asked of Merlin in what manner he had achieved this feat of faery, and he told her that he would in time instruct her as to the manner of accomplishing it. He then dismissed the spirit attendants and dissipated the castle into thin air, but retained the garden at the request of Vivien, naming it 'Joyous Garden.'

Then he made a tryst with Vivien to meet her in a year on the Vigil of St John.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERLIN AND VIVIEN]