King Orfeo [Child 19]

DESCRIPTION: The wife of (King) Orfeo, perhaps in a fit of madness, flees from him and his court. Orfeo sets out to find her. Encountering her under guard in a high hall, he plays his pipes so well that his wife is returned to him.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1880
KEYWORDS: music magic separation madness royalty
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Hebr))
REFERENCES (33 citations):
Child 19, "King Orfeo" (1 text)
Bronson 19, "King Orfeo" (1 version plus 1 in addenda)
Bronson-SingingTraditionOfChildsPopularBallads 19, "King Orfeo" (2 versions: #1, #2)
Davis-MoreTraditionalBalladsOfVirginia 11, pp. 79-80, "King Orfeo," comments only
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 15, "King Orfeo (A Shetland Ballad)" (1 text)
DT 19, KNGORFEO*
ADDITIONAL: Emily Lyle, _Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition_, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007, pp. 63-65, article "King Orpheus" (2 texts in parallel, 1 tune)
Karin Boklund-Lagopolou, _I have a yong suster: Popular song and Middle English lyric_, Four Courts Press, 2002, pp. 141-142, "(King Orfeo)" (1 text)
RELATED: Versions of the Romance "Sir Orfeo" --
A. J. Bliss, editor, _Sir Orfeo_, second edition, Oxford University Press, 1966, pp. 2-57, "Sir Orfeo" (3 texts, the texts of the three extant manuscripts, presenting a somewhat confusing set of parallel versions)
J. A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre, _A Book of Middle English_, second edition, 1996 (I cite the 1999 Blackwell paperback edition), pp. 112-131, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 604 lines)
Boris Ford, editor, _The Age of Chaucer_ (The Pelican Guide to English Literature, Volume 1), Pelican, 1954, 1959, pp. 271-287, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 580 lines although it says it is based on Sisam)
A. C. Gibbs, editor, _Middle English Romances_, York Medieval Texts, Northwestern University Press, 1966, pp. 84-103, "Sir Orfeo," of 590 lines, primarily from Auchinlek with expansions from Harley)
Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury, _The Middle English Breton Lays_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2001. Much of the material in this book is also available online), pp. 15-59, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 604 lines, primarily from Auchinlek with expansions from Harley)
Thomas C. Rumble, editor, _The Breton Lays in Middle English_, 1964 (I use the 1967 Wayne State University paperback edition which corrects a few errors in the original printing), pp. 207-226, "Kyng Orfew" (1 text, of 604 lines, seemingly based on Ashmole 61)
Donald B. Sands, editor, _Middle English Verse Romances_, Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1966, pp. 185-200, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 580 lines)
George Shuffelton, editor, _Codex Ashmole 61: A Compilation of Popular Middle English Verse_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2008, pp. 386-399 (1 text, of 603 lines, obviously based on Ashmole 61)
Stephen H. A. Shepherd, _Middle English Romance: A Norton Critical Edition_, Norton, 1995, pp. 174-190, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 604 lines, primarily from Auchinlek with expansions from various sources)
Kenneth Sisam, editor, _Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose_, Oxford, 1925, pp. 13-31, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 604 lines, primarily from Auchinlek with expansions from Harley)
Celia and Kenneth Sisam, _The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse_, Oxford University Press, 1970; corrected edition 1973, #37, p. 76-98, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, of 605 lines, primarily from Auchinlek with expansions from Harley; presumably the same as SIsam's 1925 text)
Robert D. Stevick, editor, _Five Middle English Narratives_, Bobbs-Merrill, 1967, pp. 3-26, "Sir Orfeo" (1 txt, of 604 lines, based mostly on Auchinleck and Bliss's suggestions)
Modernized poetic version: J. R. R. Tolkien, translator, _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight * Pearl * Sir Orfeo_, with an introduction (and perhaps some light editing) by Christopher Tolkien, 1975 (I use the 1988 Ballantine edition), pp. 133-148, "Sir Orfeo"
Modernied prose version: Roger Sherman Loomis and Laura Hibbard Loomis, editors (and translators), _Medieval Romances_, 1957 (I use the undated Modern Library paperback), pp. 311-323, "Sir Orfeo"
Walter Hoyt French and Charles Brockway Hale, _Middle English Metrical Romances_, Prentice-Hall, 1930, pp. 323-341, "Sir Orfeo" (1 text, nominally of 602 lines, based mostly on Auchinlek with insertions from the others)
(No author), _The Auchinleck Manuscript: National Library of Scotland Advocates' MS. 19.2.1_, with an introduction by Derek Pearsall and I. C. Cunningham, The Scolar Press, 1977, (photographic reproduction of the manuscript), folios 299a-303ra, (no title, as the first 25 or so lines have been lost)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #3868
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #6172
MANUSCRIPT: {MSAuchinleck}, The Auchinleck Manuscript, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland MS. Advocates 19.2.1, folios 299a-303r
MANUSCRIPT: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 61 (Bodleian 6922), folios 151-156
MANUSCRIPT: London, British Library, MS, Harley 3810, Part I, folio 1
RELATED: Versions of the Romance "King Orphius" --
Rhiannon Purdie, _Shorter Scottish Medieval Romances: Florimond of Albany, Sir Colling the Knight, King Orphius, Roswall and Lillian_, Scottish Text Society, Fifth Sieries, No. 11, 2013, pp. 113-123, "King Orphius" (2 incomplete texts, one from NRS MS RH 13/35 and one from the David Laing papers)
MANUSCRIPT: Edinburgh, National Records of Scotland [NRS], MS. RH13/15, folio 10
Roud #136
RECORDINGS:
Kenneth Roper, "Scowan Erla Græ (King Orfeo)" (Piotr-Archive #215, recorded 08/17/2022 -- a version so complete that one must suspect regular refernce to print)
John Stickle, "King Orfeo" (on FSB4, FSBBAL1)
NOTES [5341 words]: For a detailed analysis of the history of this ballad, see now Robert B. Waltz, Romancing the Ballad: How Orpheus the Minstrel became King Orfeo, Loomis House Press, 2013. (Shameless self-promotion -- but I don't get any royalties, so I'm not out to sell more books....) For additional bibliography, see Rice, pp. 481-501 (which lists 22 different editions plus articles, although many of the editions aren't very good).
Loosely based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Euridice. (In which Orpheus's beloved wife Euridice is accidentally killed. Orpheus the minstrel goes to Hades, and plays so beautifully that even Hades, who has no pity, shows pity, and says that Orpheus can bring Euridice back to life with him. But Hades sets a condition: Orpheus must not look back until they are above the ground. Just as he reaches the surface, he looks back, and she is lost forever.) Observe, however, that "King Orfeo" has a happy endings: Orfeo and the Euridice figure are successfully reunited. In what follows, I shall use "Orfeo" to refer to all texts, including "King Orfeo," that have the happy ending, and "Orpheus" to refer to the original tragic version.
The happy ending is also found in may be (almost certainly is) the direct source of this piece, the Middle English romance "Sir Orfeo." Another possible source is the parallel but independent Scottish romance, "King Orphius," which is similar in plot as far as we can tell; Lyle, p. 66. Lyle thinks it the direct source of the ballad, as does Purdie, p. 26, but the evidence is slight. The main reason given by Purdie, p. 27, is that the Scottish romance and the ballad both call Orfeo's wife "Isabel." That name, however, occurs only once in the extant text of "King Orphius" (line 80 -- a line that isn't found in the Laing text; see the text on pp. 116-117 and the Index of Names on p. 280 of Purdie). I would counter-argue that "Orpheus" is based in Portugal ("Portingale") (Purdie, p. 218), which does not at all match "King Orfeo."
Much of this essay is devoted to the two romances because, as shown in Romancing the Ballad, "King Orfeo" must be derived from a romance of the "Sir Orpheo"/"King Orphius" type; it cannot go back to the Orpheus legend.
The relationship between the two romances is complex. Since Romancing the Ballad was published, another copy of "King Orphius" has been recognized by Purdie (p. 45); a transcription of this second manuscript is found in the mostly-uncatalogued papers of David Laing. That text plus the fragment in National Records of Scotland MS. RH13/35 combine to give us more information about "King Orphius," although both are fragmentary and MS. RH13/35 is terribly decayed; despite much preservation work, it is hard to read.
The obvious thought is that "Sir Orfeo" and "King Orphius" are English and Scots versions of the same romance. The difficulty -- as was noted by Marion Stewart, who discovered "King Orphius" -- is that "Sir Orfeo" and "King Orphius," although they are very close in theme, share "[not] even a single recognizable shared line" (Purdie, p. 25). On its face, this would make literary dependence difficult. But the two texts of "King Orphius," although closer to each other than to "Sir Orfeo," also show major differences between themselves (Purdie, p. 46), implying much oral transmission. Or, perhaps, a major rewrite. There is also much divergence in the copies of "Sir Orfeo."
On the other hand, Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 113, thinks that both "Sir Orfeo" and the Scottish piece are translations of the same original, possibly the "Lai d'Orphey," a French musical piece referred to in romances but now lost. But if this were so, why isn't there more common text? To sum up, something is very strange about the two romances, and given the fragmentary state of "King Orphius," we may never be able to tell what.
It should be noted that if the date of the Laing manuscript is correct, it is two and a half centuries more recent than the Auchinleck copy of "Sir Orfeo." The National Records of Scotland copy is also from the 1580s (specifically 1586), according to Purdie, p. 47. Having a later manuscript date does not preclude priority of composition, but the strong evidence is nonetheless that "King Orphius" is a newer romance than "Sir Orfeo." Given the difference in dates, I don't think the difference in texts between "Orfeo" and "Orphus" means all that much. Despite Lyle et al, I rather suspect that "King Orphius" is a Scottish rewrite of "Sir Orfeo," or of a memory of "Sir Orfeo." "King Orphius" may be the direct ancestor of the song "King Orfeo," but "Sir Orfeo" is also an ancestor of the ballad.
Summary: I would not go so far as to claim that the ballad is derived from either romance, although my analysis in Romancing the Ballad demonstrates that "Sir Orfeo" (and so, probably "King Orphius" also) came before "King Orfeo."
As a footnote to that, Boklund-Lagopolou, p. 142, claims a Swedish analogue to "King Orfeo" called "Harpan's Kraft"; I have not seen it, but given that the hero has a different name and the heroine is stolen by a river spirit, not the King of Faerie, I wouldn't place too much weight on the links -- it certainly can't be the source of "King Orfeo."
The change to a happy ending is not the only alteration in "Orfeo." Shippey-Road, p. 63, reminds us that Orfeo is trying to overcome the forces of Faërie/Elfland, not Hell (there may be a link with "Thomas Rymer" [Child 37] or something like it; more on this in the Excursus on Faërie and Elfland), and that Orfeo's honor as well as his music plays a role in "Orfeo," whereas it's all about the music in "Orpheus."
Incidentally, the ballad should perhaps be referred to under the title "Sir Orfeo," like the romance; Lyle, p. 61, points out that the name of the ballad was supplied by Child based on one version of the Middle English romance. Lyle refers to the song as "King Orpheus" after a Scottish version (also known as "Orpheus King of Portugal") after a title mentioned in the Complaynt of Scotland of c. 1550; Lyle, p. 66. Purdie seems to think that the Complaynt of Scotland reference is to "King Orphius." But, as with much in the Complaynt, there is no way for us to know.
The interesting question is how "Sir Orfeo" evolved the ending it did. Of the 50-odd Middle English romances, "Orfeo" is generally considered the best not by Chaucer or the Gawain-Poet or derived from the work of Marie of France ("Sir Orfeo," like the works of Marie, is considered a "Breton Lei"; Bennett/Gray, p. 138). CHEL1, pp. 294-295, for instance, declares that "The best [of the romances] in English are Sir Orfeo and Sir Launfal. The first of these, which is the story of Orpheus, is proof of what can be done by mere form[;] the classical fable is completely taken over, and turned into a fairy tale; hardly anything is left to it except what it owes to the Breton form of thought and expression." Sands, pp. 186-187 says that "few narrative poems conceal artfulness under disarming artlessness so well." Similarly Bennett/Gray comment that "Of all the English verse romances, Sir Orfeo is the one that in grace and charm, lightness and neatness, comes closest to the twelfth century lays of Marie de France, and to her conception of... the goodness... of love" (p. 138).
The story of Orpheus was known in the Middle Ages, from Virgil's Georgics (Book four, roughly lines 450-550 -- the very end of the book) and from Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book X, about lines 1-100) -- indeed, it seems to have been better known from Latin than Greek sources. The tale also occurs in the writings of Boethius, much philosophized (Loomis, p. 311; Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 112), and Alfred the Great had translated Boethius into Old English (and Chaucer would put parts of it into Middle English, the "Boece"). But those accounts are clearly classical in their settings, and don't have the happy ending; it's not clear how the tale was converted to a romance, or how the ending changed into the form of the romances. If the original was indeed French, it's definitely lost (Sands, p. 185).
We do find allusions to a similar story in the writings of Walter Map (Bennett/Gray, p. 140, who however think this may be a Celtic tale; Bliss, p. xxxiii, is convinced that Map's story has already been influenced by the Orpheus legend, because in other stories, the kidnapped person is taken to a land of the living, but in Map's story, the victim is described as truly dead). Perhaps it was the combining of the Celtic and Orpheus stories which gave us the happy ending. There is a French mention of the story being told by an Irish bard (Loomis, p. 312). Certainly the piece has been thoroughly adapted to a medieval setting (Bennett/Gray, p. 143; Loomis, p. 313, notes that the Thrace of the Greek account has been transformed into Winchester! -- although that statement occurs only in Auchinleck, line 50; Bliss pp. 6-7. It is probably a gloss in Auchinleck).
"Sir Orfeo" is now found in three MSS, with the earliest and best, the Auchinleck MS., from about 1330; the others, Harley 3810 and Ashmole 61, are of the fifteenth century (Sisam, p. 13). The differences between the versions are sometimes very substantial; Harley 3810 in particular is so different as to make one suspect that it has been edited. Derek Pearsall, on p. 30 of Brewer, suggests that it is an instance of "regression into oral tradition," which Pearsall also sees in the short romances in the Percy Folio (which often seem to have been cut down from a longer romance. Harley, however, has not been cut down to anything like the same degree as the Percy romances).
It has been suggested that the Auchinleck manuscript may have been used by Chaucer (Sands, p. 185), although I personally doubt it. It is sometimes suggested that another romance in that manuscript, the "Lay Le Friene," is by the same author (Sands, p. 185; this is partly because the beginning of "Lay Le Friene" is quoted in the non-Auchinleck manuscripts of "Sir Orfeo." The "Lay Le Friene," although a Breton Lei, should not be confused with Marie of France's Lei "Le Fresne," even though both are on the same theme).
Anderson, p. 136, mentions a further speculation (praising the poet while he is at it): "The author of Sir Launfal is by tradition the same shadowy Thomas Chestre to whom was attributed the Middle English Tristan. Sir Orfeo, believed by some to be also the work of Chestre, is a beautiful and sensitive retelling of the pathetic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice."
The Orfeo poem is #3868 in the Brown and Robbins Middle English Index.
The language of "Sir Orfeo" appears to be SW English but with some northern forms, perhaps introduced by a northern copyist; the whole is perhaps from a French or Breton original, and the translation perhaps is from the fourteenth century (Sisam, p. 13; Loomis, p. 313; Bliss, p. lii, refers specifically to the "Westminster-Middlesex dialect").
The complete edition of "Sir Orfeo" was published by A. J. Bliss in 1954; the second edition, cited in the references, came out in 1966. This edition cited all three manuscripts separately, and is considered definitive -- but it presents the three manuscripts separately and does not make any attempt to reconstruct the original text, instead making the peculiar comment (Bliss, p. xv) that "no critical text is possible; we can do better than to accept the text of A[uchinleck] as it stands." This frankly shows a complete misunderstanding of the role of a textual critic, but it means that there is still need of a critically edited text.
A semi-critical text of the romance (604 lines), based on Auchinleck, is available in Sisam, pp. 14-31. Unfortunately, it is not glossed (though the book has a complete glossary by J. R. R. Tolkien). A glossed version (580 lines) is available in Sands, pp. 187-200. Tolkien-Orfeo, pp. 133-148, prepared a modernized verse version following the same lineation as Sisam (though it is not just a crib; it's a true translation, which was published posthumously; it uses almost none of the language of the original).
The alternate version of "Sir Orfeo" found in manuscript Ashmole 61, under the name "King Orfew," was published (with a facsimile of the first page of the manuscript) on pp. 206-226 of Rumble. Rumble's presentation might cause us to think it's an independent romance from Auchinleck (that was my first thought), but it is in fact just a less pure version of the tale.
Although "Sir Orfeo" is probably a sufficient source for this ballad, Lyle thinks she finds other materials which might have gone into the mix. On p. 67, she mentions the romance of "Guy of Warwick" -- another item with a theme of visiting the underworld. Lyle is right that this is an unusual theme in romance. But with Vergil and Ovid and Homer all telling tales of visits to the underworld, I don't really think it necessary to ring in "Guy." Especially since the Orpheus legend seems to have been popular in Britain; in addition to the two romances and the ballad, Robert Henryson wrote an Orpheus poem (Lyle, p. 75). And the only thing "Guy of Warwick" could have taught the author of "Sir Orfeo" is that long-winded romances are hideous.
Lyle, p. 71, also notes thematic links to the Tristan legend, and to the Orpheus tale as found in Lefevre's Recueil des Hystoires Troyennes." The latter link is made particularly complicated by the fact that the Recueil was translated by Caxton, who then (in order to put it in more people's hands) printed it -- the first English printed book. If the Recueil is an influence, is it from a French source, or did an English writer know Caxton? (The difficulty with the latter hypothesis, of course, is that Caxton lived after the Auchinleck MS. was written. But it might have influenced the later stages of the transmission).
A scholar named Whitney Stokes suggested that the types of music played by Orfeo -- the notes of joy, of noy, and the gabber reel -- are related to the "sleep music," "sad music," and "joyful music" of an early Irish poem, "The Second Battle of Moytura" (Bliss, p. lvii). To which I can only say that the types of music aren't the same, the sounds of the words aren't the same, and there is no reason to connect an Irish (as opposed to Breton) source with Orfeo.
Several other ballads also derive loosely or from Middle English romance, or from the legends that underly it, examples being:
* "Hind Horn" [Child 17], from "King Horn" (3 MSS., including Cambridge Gg.4.27.2, which also contains "Floris and Blancheflour")
* "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" [Child 31], from "The Weddynge of Sir Gawe and Dame Ragnell" (1 defective MS, Bodleian MS Rawlinson C 86)
* "Blancheflour and Jellyflorice" [Child 300], from "Floris and Blancheflour" (4 MSS, including Cambridge Gg.4.27.2, which also contains "King Horn," and the Auchinlek MS, which also contains "Sir Orfeo")
EXCURSUS: Faërie and Elfland
There are multiple ballads which refer to a place which seems, on its face, to be neither our world, nor heaven, nor hell. These ballads are:
-- King Orfeo [Child 19]
-- Thomas Rymer [Child 37]
-- Tam Lin [Child 39]
-- The Queen of Elfan's Nourice [Child 40]
In "King Orfeo," the place is called "Faërie" or something like that; in the others, it's "Elfland" or some such. The question is, Are they the same?
By origin, they of course are not. "Elfland" is the land of the elves/Ælfs -- (a)elf being a word found in almost all early Germanic languages (Old English, Middle Low German, Middle High German, Middle Dutch, Old Norse, Old Saxon) for some sort of supernatural being (Onions, p. 306). Line 112 of Beowulf, for instance, refers to "eotenas ond ylfe ond orc-neas" -- ettins and elves and (something -- no one can agree on what orc-neas mean, though it gave J. R. R. Tolkien the word "orc"; cf. Shippey-Author, p. 88, who suggests it means "demon-corpses"). I find no early references to "Elfland," but if there is going to be a land of Elves, what else do you call it? The word "elf" is common enough that there is little point in chasing all the early uses; it even became a common element in early English names.
"Faërie" is different -- the word is, without question, French by origin, from Old French faerie, faierie (modern French féerie; Onions, p. 343). It is not really the land of "fairies" as now imagined (i.e. small, delicate, magical, probably-winged things; Tolkien-Fairypp. 5-7 is caustic about this usage). The first cited English mention of Fairy/Faërie, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is c. 1330 -- in other words, the Auchinleck manuscript of "Sir Orfeo"! Line 283, as given in Auchinleck, reads "Þe king o fairy wiþ his rout" -- "The King of Faërie with his hunting-band." Harley 3810, line 273, has "kyng of fayré"; Ashmole 61, line 289, "king off fary" (Bliss, pp. 26-27), but it's clearly the same place in all three texts, even if they spell it differently.
But if the word "Faërie" was slow to appear, it quickly became established. By the end of the fourteenth century, we find it several times, in contexts which connect it with romances, although not necessarily this romance. John Gower's "Confessio Amantis," book V, line 7073, speaks of a young man who made himself up to impress the young girls and appeared "as he were of faierie" (Gower/McCaulay, volume 3, p. 146; cf. Tolkien-Fairy, p. 8).
At the ending of the romance "Sir Launfal," we read that the hero, "That noble knight of the Rounde Table, Was take in to Fairie" (lines 1035-1036; Sands, p. 232). "Sir Laundal" is interesting because, although an Arthurian romance, it has significant similarities to the True Thomas tale. Launfal falls in love with the daughter of the King of Faërie, Dame Tryamore, and refuses the advances of all the ladies of Arthur's court, including Queen Guinivere. He insists that he has a lady who is fairer than any of them -- and is ordered to produce her, because Tryamore has shown herself only to him. At the last minute, she shows up to prove her point, casts a spell which blinds Guinivere, and they take off to her home in Faërie. Once a year, Launfal and his steed can be seen riding by. (Summary includes only the key details from the longer summary on pp. 131-132 of Wells; there was a lot more going on).
The poem claims to be by Thomas Chestre; his date is unknown, but the only manuscript copy is from the early fifteenth century; some have suggested a date c. 1380, the time of the Peasants' Revolt (Laskaya/Salisbury, p. 201; Sands, p. 201 -- yes, the same page in both!), which would make it more recent than "Sir Orfeo" and about contemporary with Gower and Chaucer, although some scholars have placed it half a century or so earlier (Wells, p. 131). It is based, probably at one remove, on the romance ""Lanval" by Marie de France; in Marie's text, the lady takes him to Avalon/Avalun (Marie/Burgess/Busby, p. 81). In the intermediate Middle English romance "Sir Landevale", which is widely thought to be how Chestre learned the story, the lady takes Landevale to "Amylyone" (Laskaya/Salisbury, p. 436), which is presumably an error for Avalon; perhaps Chestre guessed at the meaning.
The most popular Middle English poem not by Chaucer, "Piers Plowman," refers to Faërie at the very beginning. The narrator is wandering in the Malvern Hills in May when
Me befel a ferly, of fairie me thoughte
I.e.
A wonder befell me, I thought it of Faërie (Line 6).
Soon after, he saw the famous "Fair Field of Folk." This is the reading of the "A" text, the earliest complete version; Langland/Knott/Fowler, p. 67. William Langland (or whatever the author's name was; we don't know) later revised and dramatically expanded this "A" text to produce what is known as the "B" text; Line 6 remained unchanged (Langland/Schmidt, p. 1). Later, Langland (or someone) produced a third revision, "C." In this, he revised the line away, referring simply to something "marvelous"; Langland/Salter/Pearsall, p. 61. This is typical of the revisions in the "C" text, which is widely regarded as inferior to "B"; it is much more orthodox, restrained, and dull. But it hardly matters that Langland deleted his reference to Faërie; he may not have wanted to admitting to knowing of it, but he clearly did!
There is a possible reference to Faërie in "Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight," line 240:
Forþi for fantoum and fayryȝe þe folk þere hit demed (Tolkien/Gordon, p. 7; it's the ninth line of the eleventh stanza)
but the interpretation of this line is very uncertain; Tolkien himself (Tolkien-Orfeo, p. 26) renders "wherefore a phantom and fay-magic folk there thought it"; Marie Boroff refers to Fairie; Brian Stone translated as "Fairyland"; Burton Raffel calls the green knight the product of "witchcraft"; James L. Rosenberg paraphrases around it; Cawley and Anderson's edition does not gloss it. It's not really clear whether the reference is to Faërie or just to fairies.
In Chaucer's "Merchant's Tale," we read:
Pluto, that is kyng of Fayerye,
And many a lady in his compaignye" (lines 2227-2228; Chaucer/Benson, p. 166). A little lower down, line 2316, Pluto's wife (whose name Proserpyna appears in line 2229) declares, "'And I,' quod she, a queene of Fayerye!'" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 167). (They are planning to interfere with the action: Old man January has gone blind, and his young wife May is about to have sex with her lover Damian; Pluto will give January back his sight -- but Proserpina will provide her with an excuse for what she is doing. Pluto, knowing he will be thwarted, declares that he will nonetheless fulfill his promise -- lines 2310-2315; Chaucer/Benson, p. 167. It's not exactly the King fulfilling his rash promise to free Euridice, but it has a similar feeling.)
This is a use that has extreme relevance in the Orfeo story. Pluto/Hades was, of course, the king of the underworld in the original Greek/Latin story of Orpheus -- but only in "Sir Orfeo" and its analogs is the underworld king made into the King of Faërie. That Chaucer makes Pluto the king of Faërie, as well as the underworld, is a strong hint of knowledge of the Orfeo legend.
This is the more significant because we explicitly know that Chaucer knew the original Orpheus legend; he refers to Orpheus several times:
-- The Book of the Duchess, line 569: "Ne Orpheus, god of melodye" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 337).
-- The House of Fame, lines 1201-1203: "There herde I pleyen on an harpe, That sowned bothe wel and sharpe, Orpheus ful craftely" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 362).
-- "The Merchant's Tale," lines 1715-1716: "That Orpheus, ne of Thebes Amphioun, Ne maden nevere swich a melodye" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 160).
-- Troilus and Criseyde, book IV, line 791: "As Orpheus and Erudice, his feere [mate]" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 548).
-- Chaucer actually translated Boethius's story of Orpheus and Euridice in Boece. Book III, Metrum 12 (Chaucer/Benson, p. 439) is the story of Orpeus; the third sentence reads "The poete of Trace, Orpheus, that whilome hadde ryghte greet sorwe for the deth of his wyf...." The second paragraph, in Chaucer/Benson's orthography, opens, "He wente hym to the houses of helle."
Chaucer would also have known of Orpheus from Ovid, but in Ovid, Pluto was king of the underworld -- of hell, as in Boethius. Yes Chaucer makes Pluto king of Faërie!
Chaucer has several other references to Faërie. In "Sir Thopas" 802-803 we read of "The countree of Fairye / So wilde," and lines 814-816 read "Heere is the queene of Fayerye [note the different spelling!] / With harpe and pipe and symphonye, Dwellynge in this place" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 214). There is a final mention of Faërie in line 96 of the "Squire's Tale," referring to Gawain "Though he were comen ayeyn out of Fairye" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 170), implying that he has somehow gone from earth to there. (This has provoked a lot of discussion among scholars, because while the French analogs of Gawain have associations with Faërie, the English ones generally don't; Chaucer/Baker, p. 149. But that isn't very relevant here -- except, perhaps, that the Wife of Bath, who mentions Elves, tells a Loathly Lady tale sometimes associated with Gawain.)
Chaucer also knew about elves. The Wife of Bath, in fact, speaks of Fairies (not Faërie) and Elves in the same sentence; in the time of "Kyng Arthour," we are told that
Al was this land fulfild of fairye (859)
The elf queene with hir joly compaignye (860; ms. Gg omits "joly")
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede.... (861; mss. Cp La Pw "withouten" for "ful ofte")
But now kan no man se none elves mo, (864; mss. Gg He omit "none")
For now the grete cheritee and prayers (865; ms. Gg omits "grete")
Of lymytours and othere holy freres... (866; mss.Cp La Pw "poure" for "holy"; He omits)
This maketh that there been no fairyes (872)
For ther as wont to walken was an elf (873; there are many variations in this line, but not very important)
The walketh now the lymytour hymself... (874)
Wommen may go saufly up and down (878; many mss. "go now" or "now go")
There is noon oother incubus but he (880) (Chaucer/Allen/Fisher, pp. 305-306).
In other words, in King Arthur's time,
All this land (was) full of fairie(s);
The elf queen with her jolly company
Danced full often on many a green mead.
But now no one can see elves any more,
Because now the great charity and prayes
Of limiters and other holy friars ["limiters" being a rare word but thought to be a cleric of some sort who walked bounds and kept out aliens]
This makes it as if there had been no fairies
For where the elves once were wont to walk,
Now there walks the limiter himself.
Women may go safely up and down;
There is no incubus but he [=the friar].
In other words, it was a lot more fun when fairies and elves were around to provide, shall we say, "service"; now, the only people who will service the women are the friars themselves.
Even more noteworthy is another Sir Thopas reference (lines 787-799; Chaucer/Benson, p. 214), Sir Thopas dreams that "An elf-queene shal my lemman be (788)... An elf-queene wil I love, ywis (790), For in this world no wooman is (791) Worthy to be my make [mate] (792)... Alle other wommen I forsake (794), And to an elf-queene I me take (795)." He sets out seeking "An elf-queene for t'espye" (799). Thus Sir Thopas seems not only to know of elves but seeks one -- reminiscent of the tales of True Thomas. And where does he go to find her? Why, "Fairye" -- that's the reference to line 802 we mentioned above.
Chaucer in fact refers to *himself* as elvish -- when the Host calls on Chaucer the Pilgrim to tell a tale, the host says Chaucer is round at the waist, a poppet (doll), with a womanish face;
He semeth elvysh by his contenaunce,
For unto no wight dooth he daliaunce (lines 704-705; Chaucer/Benson, p. 213), i.e.
He [Chaucer] seem elvish in appearance,
For with no person does he converse.
In other words, Chaucer the pilgrim is a pudgy, un-masculine-looking man who keeps to himself. Chaucer-the-pilgrim is not Chaucer-the-person, but one suspects this part of the description has some basis in reality.
Chaucer, Gower, and Langland all worked in the late fourteenth century, and Thomas Chestre probably also worked in that century. Thus the name "Faërie" must have been widely known then (if anything, better-known than now -- after all, Chestre actually changed a reference to Avalon to one to Faërie; obviously he thought it made things clearer!).So at that time, at least, the English presumably knew both the native term "Elf" and the foreign "Faërie." But that does nothing to clarify the relationship.
Both Elfland and Faërie are a third place, neither heaven nor hell nor, presumably this world. in the romance of Thomas the Rhymer, this is explicitly said of Elfland; the roads to heaven and hell are pointed out (that to heaven being narrow and difficult, that to hell being wide, and that to Elfland being "bonny"; cf. Tolkien-Fairy, p. 5). It's not as obvious of Faërie in "Sir Orfeo," but it is certainly a separate place from heaven or hell, and it is clearly not earthly -- In "Sir Orfeo," the faêrie-folk need a special crossing-place (the ympe tree) to cross into this world (this is not made as explicit for Elfland).
On the other hand, Elfland, although not part of Hell, owes it tribute; this shows up in the Thomas legend, where the Devil periodically audits the folk of Elfland, and it's the whole point of "Tam Lin" -- somebody (it was supposed to be Tam) has to be given as an offering to hell. There is no such explicit debt recorded on the part of Faërie.
In all three ballads, the ruler of Elfland seems to be its queen. In Faërie, at least as found in "Sir Orfeo," the ruler is the king (but there isn't much sign of Faërie royalty in most of the other sources).
It occurs to me that Elfland and Faërie might be mirror conjugates -- that is, in cases where there are two choices, they are opposites, although the same in other ways. So, e.g., both are "third places," but at the crossroads on the road between Heaven and Hell, one is to the left and the other is to the right. One is ruled by a king, the other by a queen. One might have winter while the other is in summer, and so forth. This would certainly be an interesting mythological concept -- but since we never get insight into both at once, it seems most unlikely.
What is noteworthy is that we never seem to see detailed Faërie and Elfland references at the same time. Possibly it really is just a matter of French versus English sources, or maybe, if a poet wanted at King, then Faërie was invoked, otherwise Elfland. We really don't have the data to say. The only source to combine them is Chaucer, and that in "Sir Thopas," which is a spoof, not a true example of mythology.
On the other hand, J. R. R. Tolkien, who by the time he wrote "Smith of Wootton Major" (his one story that actually takes place, in part, in Faërie) had been thinking about Faërie for thirty years, considered both the language and the folklore. In the story says that there were Elvish folk in Faërie, and the King of Faërie uses the name human "Alf" (=Elf), though he is not explicitly said to be an elf. (In Tolkien's notes on the story, though, he is called an elf.) Tolkien has a very interesting trait in this story: When someone who accepts its existence refers to it, Tolkien spells it "Faery"; when one of the worldly non-believers uses the word, it is spelled "fairy." In "Smith," Faërie has both King and Queen, both important though not together -- and both seem to be better people than the King in "Sir Orfeo" or the Queen in "Tam Lin."
Tolkien also used the word Faërie once in the Middle-Earth cycle, in chapter 8 of The Hobbit, where it refers to the Undying Lands where the elves migrated (Tolkien/Anderson, p. 219, with the statement that the word is used only here in the book being on p. 218 n. 20. Tolkien had in fact originally called his elves "Fairies," but abandoned the name for having too much baggage). Observe that the Undying Lands are just that -- the elves there don't die -- but just like Faërie they are not heaven or hell, and they are no accessible to humans! (Incidentally, in that same chapter, the wood-elves have their forest circles, and they dance there then vanish if one approaches; cf. Tolkien/Anderson, p. 204. Which is a motif Chaucer used in the "Wife of Bath's Tale," when the knight, desperately seeking answers, sees a fairy circle, and approaches, and finds only the Loathly Lady (Chaucer/Benson, p. 118, lines 989-999; Chaucer/Allen/Fisher, p. 244, notes to lines 989-996, says that this scene of the Fairy Ring is not in any analog of the Wife's tale).
It is interesting to see how "Elfland" has evolved in later lore. In two of the three Elfland ballads, the Elves are explicitly leaching off earth (using Tam as a sacrifice; borrowing a human wet-nurse). Hard to see how we got from that to Tennyson's "horns of Elfland faintly blowing," which are clearly worth pursuing -- but that is not relevant. - RBW
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