The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun

The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun Verlyn Flieger Unavailable for more than 70 years, this early but important work is published for the first time with Tolkien’s ‘Corrigan’ poems and other supporting material, including a prefatory note by Christopher Tolkien.Set ‘In Britain’s land beyond the seas’ during the Age of Chivalry, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun tells of a childless Breton Lord and Lady (the ‘Aotrou’ and ‘Itroun’ of the title) and the tragedy that befalls them when Aotrou seeks to remedy their situation with the aid of a magic potion obtained from a corrigan, or malevolent fairy. When the potion succeeds and Itroun bears twins, the corrigan returns seeking her fee, and Aotrou is forced to choose between betraying his marriage and losing his life.Coming from the darker side of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imagination, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, together with the two shorter ‘Corrigan’ poems that lead up to it and which are also included, was the outcome of a comparatively short but intense period in Tolkien's life when he was deeply engaged with Celtic, and particularly Breton, myth and legend.Originally written in 1930 and long out of print, this early but seminal work is an important addition to the non-Middle-earth portion of his canon and should be set alongside Tolkien’s other retellings of myth and legend, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudr?n, The Fall of Arthur and The Story of Kullervo. Like these works, it belongs to a small but important corpus of his ventures into ‘real-world’ mythologies, each of which in its own way would be a formative influence on his own legendarium. ‘Aotrou & Itroun’ first folio of the manuscript. Copyright (#ulink_b661eca7-21de-52ca-b13b-86047659a502) Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.tolkien.co.uk (http://www.tolkien.co.uk) www.tolkienestate.com (http://www.tolkienestate.com) First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016 All texts and materials by J.R.R. Tolkien © The Tolkien Trust 1945, 2019 Note on the Text © Christopher Tolkien 2019 Introduction, Notes and Commentary © Verlyn Flieger 2019 ® and ‘Tolkien’® are registered trade marks of The Tolkien Estate Limited The Proprietor on behalf of the Author and the Editors hereby asserts their respective moral rights to be identified as the authors of the Work. All manuscript and typescript pages reproduced courtesy of the Tolkien Trust. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008202156 Ebook Edition © November 2016 ISBN: 9780008202149 Version: 2019-05-01 Epigraph (#ulink_be69179a-1ee7-5c4f-b1c8-2472e4540072) ‘The fear of the beautiful fay that ran through the elder ages almost eludes our grasp.’ J.R.R. Tolkien ‘On Fairy-stories’ Contents COVER (#ue74585eb-e7ff-53b6-ae15-3e8a1cb5bf01) TITLE PAGE (#u41e25520-ae75-5b5b-b24c-ca22fe376975) COPYRIGHT (#u22b903ce-490d-5457-807e-c08afd0eea1a) EPIGRAPH (#u279bd5a1-7e3b-5720-ae44-ec2148926da4) LIST OF PLATES (#udbe80822-abf4-535a-b5bd-767d500638ca) NOTE ON THE TEXT (#u41553beb-2f4a-59c0-a78f-b7a28c240d1d) INTRODUCTION (#u8ade97af-7aa5-550e-ba8b-45dfb9f95fa7) PART ONE: THE LAY OF AOTROU AND ITROUN (#u6a42c012-f448-5d16-96b1-074553a74e39) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (#u0c3ea02a-7728-5432-8e17-0b7642c32659) Notes and Commentary (#litres_trial_promo) PART TWO: THE CORRIGAN POEMS (#litres_trial_promo) Introduction (#litres_trial_promo) ‘The Corrigan’ I (#litres_trial_promo) Notes and Commentary (#litres_trial_promo) ‘The Corrigan’ II (#litres_trial_promo) Notes and Commentary (#litres_trial_promo) PART THREE: THE FRAGMENT, MANUSCRIPT DRAFTS AND TYPESCRIPT (#litres_trial_promo) The Fragment (#litres_trial_promo) The Manuscript Drafts (#litres_trial_promo) Aotrou & Itroun fair copy manuscript (#litres_trial_promo) Notes and Commentary (#litres_trial_promo) The Typescript (#litres_trial_promo) Commentary (#litres_trial_promo) PART FOUR: COMPARATIVE VERSES (#litres_trial_promo) Comparative Verses (#litres_trial_promo) Opening verses: Breton, French, English; Tolkien (#litres_trial_promo) Closing verses: Breton, French, English; Tolkien (#litres_trial_promo) FOOTNOTES (#litres_trial_promo) WORKS CITED (#litres_trial_promo) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo) WORKS BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN (#litres_trial_promo) ABOUT THE PUBLISHER (#litres_trial_promo) PLATES (#ulink_6916e89f-ce5e-57e3-be1f-b088dcbd5fd1) 1 (#litres_trial_promo). ‘The Corrigan’ I, first folio of the manuscript. 2 (#litres_trial_promo). ‘The Corrigan’ II, first folio of the manuscript. 3 (#litres_trial_promo). The fragment. 4 (#litres_trial_promo). ‘Aotrou & Itroun’, first folio of the manuscript. 5 (#litres_trial_promo). ‘Aotrou & Itroun’, first page of the typescript. NOTE ON THE TEXT (#ulink_37744d3c-90d7-5adf-9f3c-a3f7bce2f326) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun was once previously printed, in The Welsh Review, Vol. IV, no. 4, December 1945. There are three texts of the poem extant (but no original workings). The first is a good but incomplete manuscript that was apparently overtaken by the second text (very little changed from the first), a fine fair copy on which my father wrote at the end a date: Sept. 23 1930. This is notable, for dates on the fair copy manuscript of The Lay of Leithian run consecutively for a week from September 25, 1930 (against line 3220), while the previous date on the manuscript is November 1929 (against line 3031, apparently referring forwards). Clearly then Aotrou and Itroun interrupted the composition of Canto X of The Lay of Leithian. The third text is a typescript of the manuscript, incorporating a relatively small number of corrections that had been made to it; this typescript is closely similar to that of The Lay of Leithian, and certainly belongs to this time. Both use the same mode of typing direct speech in italic. Subsequently the typescript was heavily revised, with more than a quarter of the original lines undergoing minor change or complete rewriting: but none of these revisions alter the narrative. My father visited Aberystwyth as an examiner in June 1945 and left with his friend Professor Gwyn Jones several unpublished works, Aotrou and Itroun, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, and Sellic Spell. This led to the publication of Aotrou and Itroun in The Welsh Review, of which Gwyn Jones was the editor, at the end of that year, at the editor’s request. There are a few discrepancies between the text printed in The Welsh Review and the typescript which I feel sure was its basis. Nearly all of these are insignificant points of punctuation and spacing. The title in the typescript is Aotrou and Itroun (‘Lord and Lady’). A ‘Breton Lay.’ It is to be noted that it is incorrect to say that Aotrou and Itroun ‘is in alliterative verse, and also incorporates a rhymescheme’ (Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, p. 168). The poem is in octosyllabic couplets, in style closely related to The Lay of Leithian, and alliteration is decorative, not in any way structural, though here and there it becomes very marked: In the homeless hills was her hollow dale, black was its bowl, its brink was pale; there silent on a seat of stone … But the Lay of Aotrou and Itroun has a longer history, being in fact a development from the second part of a composite poem called The Corrigan (a Breton word meaning ‘fairy’), which is also given here. There is no evidence for the date of The Corrigan, though it seems unlikely that any long interval separated it from Aotrou and Itroun. A pencilled note to the first part of this poem says that it was ‘suggested by “Ar Bugel Laec’hiet”, a lay of Cornuaille’ (in Brittany). The metre of the second part, though distinct from that adopted for Aotrou and Itroun, is not so distinct that lines from it could not be taken up into the second work (and in fact there are more such in the earlier versions of Aotrou and Itroun, rejected in the final revision); but the tale is told in a different manner, and contains no suggestion of the essential element in Aotrou and Itroun that the lord was childless, that he went to a witch to obtain her aid, and that she was the fairy of the fountain. CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN INTRODUCTION (#ulink_b5de2877-233e-58d6-8d77-275a0b15a12f) Coming from the darker side of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imagination, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, as well as the two shorter poems that precede and lead up to it, are important additions to the non-Middle-earth portions of his canon and should be set alongside his other retellings of existing myth and legend, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudr?n, The Fall of Arthur and The Story of Kullervo. While Tolkien’s title makes no reference to the ‘beautiful fay’ that is the epigraph for this volume – focusing instead on the Lord (‘Aotrou’) and Lady (‘Itroun’) who are her victims – the character plays a part in several of Tolkien’s poems in his middle years. In addition to the Lay, she appears in ‘Ides ?lfsc?ne’ (Elf-bright Lady), one of his contributions to the Songs For The Philologists, a collection privately printed in 1936. Here an elf-maiden beguiles a mortal man into fairyland; when he returns fifty years later, all his friends are dead. Although Tolkien’s poem is in Old English, the character is a commonly recurring one in Celtic folklore, the seductive otherworld female who lures a mortal man. In the Lay she represents a particular subset of this type, a continental Celtic female fairy called a corrigan, malevolent, sometimes seductive, whose dangerous attraction embodies both the lure and terror, the ‘fear of the beautiful fay’ of my epigraph. The corrigan figures prominently in all the poems in the present volume, moving from behind the scenes in the first poem, ‘The Corrigan’ I, based on a Breton ballad, to take centre stage in ‘The Corrigan’ II, derived from a Breton lay. She becomes an increasingly ominous presence in the two longer versions that Tolkien developed out of ‘The Corrigan’ II. The sequence charts her increasingly powerful presence as, poem by poem, she takes an ever more active role in the lives of human beings. And finally she foreshadows the greatest and best-known of Tolkien’s magical, mysterious ladies of the forest, one also linked to a fountain and a phial: the beautiful and terrible Lady of the Golden Wood, Tolkien’s Elven Queen, Galadriel, of The Lord of the Rings. All the poems in this volume are the products of a comparatively short but intense period in Tolkien’s life when he was deeply engaged with Celtic languages and mythologies. All the poems derive to a greater or lesser degree from a single source: Theodore Claude Henri Hersart de la Villemarqu?’s dual-language (Breton and French) folklore collection, Barzaz-Breiz: Chants Populaire de la Bretagne, first published in 1839 and reprinted in 1840, 1845, 1846, and 1857. Villemarqu?’s work was a part of the nineteenth-century folklore movement in Europe and the British Isles, a last-minute effort to capture and preserve the indigenous folk and fairy tales and ballads that were even then rapidly disappearing. What the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausm?rchen did for Germany, the Child collection of English and Scottish Popular Ballads and Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry did for Britain, and Elias L?nnrot’s Kalevala did for Finland, Villemarqu? intended Barzaz-Breiz to do for Brittany (and, it might be added, Tolkien wanted his ‘Silmarillion’ legendarium to do, imaginatively, for England). This was to recover (or, in Tolkien’s case, supply) a folk tradition that would contribute to and validate a cultural identity. Particularly in the cases of the Grimms and L?nnrot the underlying effort was not just to preserve the stories but to discover their lore, and especially their language, the often archaic regional vocabulary or dialect containing the remains of a lost or submerged mythology and worldview, the roots of a native culture. So it was with Villemarqu?. Although Brittany had been a part of France since 1532, it was the Breton identity celtique of the anciens bardes, as well as the Breton language, that he sought to preserve, and so he was careful to note the regional sources and indigenous dialects for his material, chiefly L?on, Cornouaille, and Tr?guier. Immensely popular when it was first published, the Chants Populaire was immediately translated into German, Italian, and Polish. An English translation by Tom Taylor was published in 1865 as Ballads and Songs of Brittany. Villemarqu? was later accused, as were L?nnrot and the Grimms, of tampering with the originals, of ‘improving’ on the sources. Although the accusations are to some extent true, the underlying myth and folklore elements are authentic, and such accusations have not markedly reduced the popularity of the works in question. Barzaz-Breiz has been continuously in print since it first appeared. Tolkien owned the 1846 two-volume edition, and his signature, John Reuel Tolkien, and the date of purchase, 1922, are written on the flyleaf of each volume. They are listed in a catalogue of his books now held in the English Faculty Library in Oxford, which shows over a hundred entries for Celtic books, histories, grammars, glosses, and dictionaries, as well as primary mythological texts. Many of these, like the Villemarqu?, were purchased in the early 1920s. Tolkien was also in this period working on the stories of his own mythology, so it is not surprising that one activity should influence the other, the Celtic content of his studies affecting the form and subject matter of his creative work. Among other efforts, he was at work on The Lay of Leithian, a long poem in rhymed octosyllabic couplets that tells the great love story of Beren and L?thien, a story whose textual history has been edited and published by Christopher Tolkien in The Lays of Beleriand. Christopher’s Note on the Text of Aotrou and Itroun (see here (#ulink_41a848c1-e9f9-54e1-bb90-977279aeb608)) cites the ‘fair copy’ on which, as he writes, ‘my father wrote at the end a date: Sept. 23, 1930. This is notable,’ Christopher continues, ‘for dates on the fair copy manuscript of The Lay of Leithian run consecutively for a week from September 25, 1930 (against line 3220), while the previous date on the manuscript is November 1929 (against line 3031, apparently referring forwards). Clearly then Aotrou and Itroun intersected the composition of Canto X of The Lay of Leithian.’ No beginning date for Aotrou and Itroun has come to light, but the cluster of dates cited in Christopher’s Note – November 1929 against line 3031 of The Lay of Leithian, Sept. 23 marking the end of the fair copy of Aotrou and Itroun, and Sep. 25 against line 3220 for resumption of work on The Lay of Leithian – support his conclusion that in November of 1929 Tolkien interrupted his copying of Canto X of The Lay of Leithian for almost a year, and that the product of that interruption was Aotrou and Itroun, perhaps even the entire ‘Breton’ sequence beginning with ‘The Corrigan’ I. Because all the poems included here interconnect and overlap in their treatment of shared material, it has seemed best for clarity to separate them into shorter sections, each poem followed by notes and commentary. Part I contains the title-poem originally published in The Welsh Review. Part II introduces the two (presumably) preliminary poems leading up to it, which Christopher Tolkien has treated together as a composite, since they are conjoined by title. These are ‘The Corrigan’ I, a story of a changeling, and ‘The Corrigan’ II, subtitled ‘A Breton Lay – after “Aotrou Nann Hag ar Gorrigan” a lay of Leon’. ‘The Corrigan’ II follows closely the Breton source, but is missing the elements mentioned by Christopher, the couple’s childlessness, the Lord’s first visit to the witch, and that she is the fairy of the fountain. Part III includes a transcription of the fair manuscript which adds those elements, and facsimile pages from the emended typescript which was the base text for the finished poem published in The Welsh Review. Part IV compares Tolkien’s poems with verses from the original Breton text and its contemporary French and English translations. PART ONE (#ulink_64db089d-2537-5386-8a25-1ef2e720de8f) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (#ulink_fc78666f-8030-52b6-a66f-709c55f2e22d) as published in The Welsh Review In Britain’s land beyond the seas the wind blows ever through the trees; in Britain’s land beyond the waves are stony shores and stony caves. There stands a ruined toft now green 5 where lords and ladies once were seen, where towers were piled above the trees and watchmen scanned the sailing seas. Of old a lord in arch?d hall with standing stones yet grey and tall 10 there dwelt, till dark his doom befell, as still the Briton harpers tell. No child he had his house to cheer, to fill his courts with laughter clear; though wife he wooed and wed with ring, 15 who love to board and bed did bring, his pride was empty, vain his hoard, without an heir to land and sword. Thus pondering oft at night awake his darkened mind would visions make 20 of lonely age and death; his tomb unkept, while strangers in his room with other names and other shields were masters of his halls and fields. Thus counsel cold he took at last; 25 his hope from light to darkness passed. A witch there was, who webs could weave to snare the heart and wits to reave, who span dark spells with spider-craft, and as she span she softly laughed; 30 a drink she brewed of strength and dread to bind the quick and stir the dead. In a cave she housed where winging bats their harbour sought, and owls and cats from hunting came with mournful cries, 35 night-stalking near with needle eyes. In the homeless hills was her hollow dale, black was its bowl, its brink was pale; there silent on a seat of stone before her cave she sat alone. 40 Dark was her door, and few there came, whether man, or beast that man doth tame. In Britain’s land beyond the waves are stony hills and stony caves; the wind blows ever over hills 45 and hollow caves with wailing fills. The sun was fallen low and red, behind the hills the day was dead, and in the valley formless lay the misty shadows long and grey. 50 Alone between the dark and light there rode into the mouth of night the Briton lord, and creeping fear about him closed. Dismounting near he slowly then with lagging feet 55 went halting to the stony seat. His words came faltering on the wind, while silent sat the crone and grinned. Few words he needed; for her eyes were dark and piercing, filled with lies, 60 yet needle-keen all lies to probe. He shuddered in his sable robe. His name she knew, his need, his thought, the hunger that thither him had brought; while yet he spoke she laughed aloud, 65 and rose and nodded; head she bowed, and stooped into her darkening cave, like ghost returning to the grave. Thence swift she came. In his hand she laid a phial of glass so fairly made 70 ’twas wonder in that houseless place to see its cold and gleaming grace; and therewithin a philter lay as pale as water thin and grey that spills from stony fountains frore 75 in hollow pools in caverns hoar. He thanked her, trembling, offering gold to withered fingers shrunk and old. The thanks she took not, nor the fee, but laughing croaked: ‘Nay, we shall see! 80 Let thanks abide till thanks be earned! Such potions oft, men say, have burned the heart and brain, or else are nought, only cold water dearly bought. Such lies you shall not tell of me; 85 Till it is earned I’ll have no fee. But we shall meet again one day, and rich reward then you shall pay, what e’er I ask: it may be gold, it may be other wealth you hold.’ 90 In Britain ways are wild and long, and woods are dark with danger strong; and sound of seas is in the leaves, and wonder walks the forest-eaves. The way was long, the woods were dark; 95 at last the lord beheld the spark of living light from window high, and knew his halls and towers were nigh. At last he slept in weary sleep beside his wife, and dreaming deep, 100 he walked with children yet unborn in gardens fair, until the morn came slowly through the windows tall, and shadows moved across the wall. Then sprang the day with weather fair, 105 for windy rain had washed the air, and blue and cloudless, clean and high, above the hills was arched the sky, and foaming in the northern breeze beneath the sky there shone the seas. 110 Arising then to greet the sun, and day with a new thought begun, that lord in guise of joy him clad, and masked his mind in manner glad; his mouth unwonted laughter used 115 and words of mirth. He oft had mused, walking alone with furrowed brow; a feast he bade prepare him now. And ‘Itroun mine,’ he said, ‘my life, ’tis long that thou hast been my wife. 120 Too swiftly by in love do slip our gentle years, and as a ship returns to port, we soon shall find once more that day of spring we mind, when we were wed, and bells were rung. 125 But still we love, and still are young: A merry feast we’ll make this year, and there shall come no sigh nor tear; and we will feign our love begun in joy anew, anew to run 130 down happy paths – and yet, maybe, we’ll pray that this year we may see our heart’s desire more quick draw nigh than yet we have seen it, thou and I; for virtue is in hope and prayer.’ 135 So spake he gravely, seeming-fair. In Britain’s land across the seas the spring is merry in the trees; the birds in Britain’s woodlands pair when leaves are long and flowers are fair. 140 A merry feast that year they made, when blossom white on bush was laid; there minstrels sang and wine was poured, as it were the marriage of a lord. A cup of silver wrought he raised 145 and smiling on the lady gazed: ‘I drink to thee for health and bliss, fair love,’ he said, ‘and with this kiss the pledge I pass. Come, drink it deep! The wine is sweet, the cup is steep!’ 150 The wine was red, the cup was grey; but blended there a potion lay as pale as water thin and frore in hollow pools of caverns hoar. She drank it, laughing with her eyes. 155 ‘Aotrou, lord and love,’ she cries, ‘all hail and life both long and sweet, wherein desire at last to meet!’ Now days ran on in great delight with hope at morn and mirth at night; 160 and in the garden of his dream the lord would walk, and there would deem he saw two children, boy and maid, that fair as flowers danced and played on lawns of sunlight without hedge 165 save a dark shadow at their edge. Though spring and summer wear and fade, though flowers fall and leaves are laid, and winter winds his trumpet loud, and snows both fell and forest shroud, 170 though roaring seas upon the shore go long and white, and neath the door the wind cries with houseless voice, in fire and song yet men rejoice, till as a ship returns to port 175 the spring comes back to field and court. A song now falls from windows high, like silver dropping from the sky, soft in the early eve of spring. ‘Why do they play? Why do they sing?’ 180 ‘Light may she lie, our lady fair! Too long hath been her cradle bare. Yestreve there came as I passed by the cry of babes from windows high. Twin children, I am told there be. 185 Light may they lie and sleep, all three!’ ‘Would every prayer were answered twice! The half or nought must oft suffice for humbler men, who wear their knees more bare than lords, as oft one sees.’ 190 ‘Not every lord wins such fair grace. Come wish them speed with kinder face! Light may she lie, my lady fair; long live her lord her joy to share!’ A manchild and an infant maid 195 as fair as flowers in bed were laid. Her joy was come, her pain was passed; in mirth and ease Itroun at last in her fair chamber softly lay singing to her babes lullay. 200 Glad was her lord, as grave he stood beside her bed of carven wood. ‘Now full,’ he said, ‘is granted me both hope and prayer, and what of thee? Is ’t not, fair love, most passing sweet 205 the heart’s desire at last to meet? Yet if thy heart still longing hold, or lightest wish remain untold, that will I find and bring to thee, though I should ride both land and sea!’ 210 ‘Aotrou mine,’ she said, ‘’tis sweet at last the heart’s desire to meet, thus after waiting, after prayer, thus after hope and nigh despair. I would not have thee run nor ride 215 to-day nor ever from my side; yet after sickness, after pain, oft cometh hunger sharp again.’ ‘Nay, love, if thirst or hunger strange for bird or beast on earth that range, 220 for wine, or water from what well in any secret fount or dell, vex thee,’ he smiled, ‘now swift declare! If more than gold or jewel rare, from greenwood, haply, fallow deer, 225 or fowl that swims the shallow mere thou cravest, I will bring it thee, though I should hunt o’er land and lea. No gold nor silk nor jewel bright can match my gladness and delight, 230 the boy and maiden lily-fair that here do lie and thou did’st bear.’ ‘Aotrou, lord,’ she said, ‘’tis true, a longing strong and sharp I knew in dream for water cool and clear, 235 and venison of the greenwood deer, for waters crystal-clear and cold and deer no earthly forests hold; and still in waking comes unsought the foolish wish to vex my thought. 240 But I would not have thee run nor ride to-day nor ever from my side.’ In Brittany beyond the seas the wind blows ever through the trees; in Brittany the forest pale Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/pages/biblio_book/?art=39763233&lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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