MARIE DE FRANCE
Superior. Then Eliduc wedded his love, and after some years of happiness they too resolved to retire from the world, Guilliadun joining Guildeluëc, who received her as a sister, and Eliduc going to a monastery which he had founded near by.[1]
In this charming romance, given here in epitome only, the two most interesting points, after noting the mutual suffering of the lovers for love's sake, are the episode of the sacrifice to the sea, and that of the weasel and the life-giving flower. Both these incidents point to the great antiquity of the fundamental theme of the story, which Marie, possibly like many another before her, merely reclothed in garments suited to the fancy of the time. In most stories where the sea has to be appeased by the sacrifice of some one, it is the guilty person who is thrown overboard, or if the offender is not known, lots are cast to determine who shall be the one to make expiation to the god. In the present instance Eliduc is clearly the wrong-doer, but he is the hero, and must be treated as such, and accordingly the hostile voice is the one to be silenced in the depths of the sea.
The other incident—the restoration to life by means of a flower or a herb—frequently occurs
- ↑ M. Gaston Paris (Poésie du Moyen Age, vol. ii.), in recalling various legends of "Le Mari aux deux femmes," suggests that the present story, borrowed by Marie from Celtic tradition, is probably of Occidental, and not Oriental, origin, since in the polygamous East the story of two wives would not have furnished a sufficient motive for a special narration.
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