The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
978-0008202132
The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun is a poem of 508 lines, written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1930 and published in Welsh Review in December 1945.
Aotrou and Itroun are Breton words for "lord" and "lady". The poem is modelled on the genre of the "Breton lay" popular in Middle English literature of the 12th century, and it explores the conflict of heroic or chivalric values and Christianity, and their relation to the institution of marriage.
Sources
A major source for the poem has been identified from Breton literature as An Aotrou Nann hag ar Gorigann ("Lord Nann and the Korrigan"), which Tolkien probably knew through Wimberly's Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads (1928).[1] Tolkien adds to his source a stern moral – repudiation of all traffic with the supernatural and the occult.[2]
Thematics
In the poem, Aotrou and Itroun are a couple of Breton nobility. They are childless, and Aotrou seeks the help of a witch. When Itroun is with child, the witch reappears, revealing herself as the Corrigan, and asks for Aotrou's love as payment. Aotrou sacrifices his knightly honour to Christian values, and breaks his word.
- "I gave no love. My love is wed;
- my wife now lieth in child-bed,
- and I curse the beast that cheated me
- and drew me to this dell to thee."
Cursed by the Corrigan to die in three days, Aotrou takes the consequences and places his trust in Providence:
- In three days I shall live at ease
- and die but when it God doth please
- in eld, or in some time to come
- in the brave wars of Christendom.
Aotrou died after three days, followed by his wife with a broken heart. They are buried together, and they do not live to see their offspring grow up – something that has been interpreted as a judgement on Aotrou for excessive family pride.[3]
Publication
The lay was originally published in The Welsh Review in 1945 but had been unavailable for decades. A book form, edited by the Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger, was published in 2016.
See also
- Gwyn Jones
- List of poems by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Melusine
References
Further reading
- A. Lewis ed., Leaves from the Tree (1991)
- T. Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, rev. ed., (1878)
- v
- t
- e
and songs
- Songs for the Philologists (1936)
- The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953)
- "A Walking Song" (1954)
- The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962)
- "Errantry"
- "Fastitocalon"
- "The Sea-Bell"
- "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late"
- The Road Goes Ever On (1967)
- Bilbo's Last Song (1974)
- List of Tolkien's alliterative verse
- The Hobbit (1937)
- "Leaf by Niggle" (1947)
- The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945)
- Farmer Giles of Ham (1949)
- The Lord of the Rings:
- The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
- The Two Towers (1954)
- The Return of the King (1955)
- Tree and Leaf (1964)
- The Tolkien Reader (1966)
- Smith of Wootton Major (1967)
fiction
- The Father Christmas Letters (1976)
- The Silmarillion (1977)
- Unfinished Tales (1980)
- Mr. Bliss (1982)
- The History of Middle-earth (1983–1996)
- Roverandom (1998)
- The Children of Húrin (2007)
- The History of The Hobbit (2007)
- The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009)
- The Fall of Arthur (2013)
- The Story of Kullervo (2015)
- Beren and Lúthien (2017)
- The Fall of Gondolin (2018)
- The Nature of Middle-earth (2021)
- The Fall of Númenor (2022)
works
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English text, 1925)
- "The Devil's Coach Horses" (1925)
- "Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad" (1929)
- "Sigelwara Land" (1932–34)
- "Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale" (1934)
- "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936)
- "On Fairy-Stories" (1939)
- "On Translating Beowulf" (1940)
- Sir Orfeo (1944)
- Ancrene Wisse (1962)
- "English and Welsh" (1963)
- Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer, 1966)
academic
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (translations, 1975)
- Exodus (1981)
- Finn and Hengest (1982)
- The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983)
- Beowulf and the Critics (2002)
- Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary with "Sellic Spell" (2014)
- A Secret Vice (2016)
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