When the hero was over a hundred years of age,
Morgan caused him to be wrecked near Avalon. In his wanderings he comes to
an orchard, where he eats an apple. A beautiful lady approaches whom he
mistakes for the Virgin; but she tells him she is Morgan le Fay. She puts a
ring on his finger and he becomes young; she puts a crown on his head, and
he forgets the past. For two hundred years he lives in unearthly delights,
and the years seem to him to be but twenty. He then returns to earth to
champion Christendom; but after triumphing over his foes he returns to
Avalon.[54]
The tale of Ogier was long popular in Denmark--of which country he is the
national hero--and also in France; and the notion of supernatural gifts at
birth has obtained a very wide vogue. But Ogier's story also exhibits
another very popular piece of superstition--that of a journey to or a
sojourn in the supernatural world.[55] Our English parallel to Ogier, as
Professor Child points out,[56] is Thomas of Erceldoune.
This leads us to the consideration of three English metrical Romances,
which in all probability are derived from French sources, containing
accounts of the visits to fairy-land made by Thomas of Erceldoune, Launfal,
and Orfeo. The first and last of these are also known in the form of
ballads; whether these ballads derive directly from the romances, or may be
supposed to have existed side by side with them in the fifteenth century,
is a question which must not delay us here.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44