The Fairy Mythology - Thomas Keightley

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On a white palfrey by his side, And brought me in to his palís, Right well ydight over all ywis. He shewed me castels and toures, Meadows, rivers, fields and flowres, And his forests everiche one, And sith he brought me again home.

      The fairy-king orders her, under a dreadful penalty, to await him next morning under the ymp tree. Her husband and ten hundred knights stand in arms round the tree to protect her,

      And yet amiddès them full right

       The queenè was away y-twight (snatched); With Faëry forth y-nome (taken); Men wist never where she was become.

      Orfeo in despair abandons his throne, and retires to the wilderness, where he solaces himself with his harp, charming with his melody the wild beasts, the inhabitants of the spot. Often while here,

      He mightè see him besides

       Oft in hot undertides

       The king of Faëry with his rout

       Come to hunt him all about,

       With dim cry and blowíng,

       And houndes also with him barkíng.

       Ac (yet) no beastè they no nome, Ne never he nist whither they be come; And other while he might them see As a great hostè by him te.[83] Well atourned ten hundred knightes Each well y-armed to his rightes, Of countenancè stout and fierce, With many displayéd bannérs, And each his sword y-drawè hold; Ac never he nistè whither they wold. And otherwhile he seigh (saw) other thing, Knightès and levedis (ladies) come dauncíng In quaint attirè guisëly, Quiet pace and softëly. Tabours and trumpès gede (went) him by, And allè manere minstracy. And on a day he seigh him beside Sixty levedis on horse ride, Gentil and jolif as brid on ris (bird on branch), Nought o (one) man amonges hem ther nis, And each a faucoun on hond bare, And riden on hauken by o rivér. Of game they found well good haunt, Mallardes, heron, and cormeraunt. The fowlès of the water ariseth, Each faucoun them well deviseth, Each faucoun his preyè slough[84] (slew).

      Among the ladies he recognises his lost queen, and he determines to follow them, and attempt her rescue.

      In at a roche (rock) the levedis rideth, And he after and nought abideth. When he was in the roche y-go Well three milès other (or) mo, He came into a fair countráy As bright soonne summers day, Smooth and plain and allè grene, Hill ne dale nas none y-seen. Amiddle the lond a castel he seigh, Rich and real and wonder high. Allè the utmostè wall Was clear and shinè of cristal. An hundred towers there were about, Deguiselich and batailed stout. The buttras come out of the ditch, Of redè gold y-arched rich. The bousour was anowed all Of each manere diverse animal. Within there werè widè wones All of precious stones. The worstè pillar to behold Was all of burnished gold. All that lond was ever light, For when it should be therk (dark) and night, The richè stonès lightè gonne (yield[85]) Bright as doth at nonne the sonne, No man may tell ne think in thought The richè work that there was wrought.

      Orfeo makes his way into this palace, and so charms the king with his minstrelsy, that he gives him back his wife. They return to Winchester, and there reign, in peace and happiness.

      Another instance of this kind of Feerie may be seen in Thomas the Rymer, but, restricted by our limits, we must omit it, and pass to the last kind.

      Sir Thopas was written to ridicule the romancers; its incidents must therefore accord with theirs, and the Feerie in it in fact resembles those in Huon de Bordeaux. It has the farther merit of having suggested incidents to Spenser, and perhaps of having given the idea of a queen regnante of Fairy Land. Sir Thopas is chaste as Graelent.

      Full many a maidè bright in bour

       They mourned for him par amour; When hem were bete to slepe; But he was chaste and no lechour, And sweet as is the bramble flour That bereth the red hepe.

      He was therefore a suitable object for the love of a gentle elf-queen. So Sir Thopas one day "pricketh through a faire forest" till he is weary, and he then lies down to sleep on the grass, where he dreams of an elf-queen, and awakes, declaring

      An elf-queen wol I love, ywis.

       All other women I forsake,

       And to an elf-queen I me take

       By dale and eke by down.

      He determines to set out in quest of her.

      Into his sadel he clombe anon,

       And pricked over style and stone,

       An elf-quene for to espie;

       Till he so long had ridden and gone,

       That he found in a privee wone

       The countree of Faerie,[86]

      Wherein he soughtè north and south,

       And oft he spied with his mouth

       In many a forest wilde;

       For in that countree n'as there none

       That to him dorst ride or gon,

       Neither wif ne childe.

      The "gret giaunt" Sire Oliphaunt, however, informs him that

      Here is the quene of Faërie,

       With harpe and pipe and simphonie,

       Dwelling in this place.

      Owing to the fastidiousness of "mine hoste," we are unable to learn how Sir Thopas fared with the elf-queen, and we have probably lost a copious description of Fairy Land.

      From the glimmering of the morning star of English poetry, the transition is natural to its meridian splendour, the reign of Elizabeth, and we will now make a few remarks on the poem of Spenser.

       Table of Contents

      A braver lady never tript on land,

       Except the ever-living Faerie Queene,

       Whose virtues by her swain so written been

       That time shall call her high enhanced story,

       In his rare song, the Muse's chiefest glory.

       Brown.

      During the sixteenth century the study of classical literature, which opened a new field to imagination, and gave it a new impulse, was eagerly and vigorously pursued. A classic ardour was widely and extensively diffused. The compositions of that age incessantly imitate and allude to the beauties and incidents of the writings of ancient Greece and Rome.

      Yet amid this diffusion of classic taste and knowledge, romance had by no means lost its influence. The black-letter pages of Lancelot du Lac, Perceforest, Mort d'Arthur, and the other romances of chivalry, were still listened to with solemn attention, when on winter-evenings the family of the good old knight or baron 'crowded round the ample fire,' to hear them made vocal, and probably no small degree of credence was given to the wonders they recorded. The passion for allegory, too, remained unabated. Fine moral webs were woven from the fragile threads of the Innamorato and the Furioso; and even Tasso was obliged, in compliance with the reigning taste, to extract an allegory from his divine poem; which Fairfax, when translating the Jerusalem, was careful to preserve. Spenser, therefore, when desirous of consecrating his genius to the celebration of the glories of the maiden reign, and the valiant warriors and grave statesmen who adorned it, had his materials ready prepared. Fairy-land, as described by the romancers, gave him a scene; the knights and dames with whom it was peopled, actors; and its court, its manners, and usages, a facility of transferring thither whatever real events might suit his design.

      It is not easy to say positively to what romance the poet was chiefly indebted for his Faery-land. We might, perhaps, venture to conjecture that his principal authority was Huon de Bordeaux, which had been translated some time before by Lord Berners, and from which it is most likely

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