The Lais of Marie de France

The Lais of Marie de France is a collection of 12 romantic narratives—known as Breton Lais—composed in the late 12th century and credited to the French-English poet Marie de France. The lay or lai is a short tale of octosyllabic rhyming couplets which is generally 600–1000 lines long. It can be accompanied by music and is typical of Brittany, a Northern French region with strong Celtic influences. Themes of love, chivalry and the supernatural are common in the lays, which lie at the cross-section of French courtly culture and Celtic mythology. While the lay was originally improvised and sung by Breton minstrels, Marie de France’s collection is the first surviving written example.

Historians have not been able to confirm Marie’s exact identity, or even whether she was the unique author of the lays attributed to her. The translators of the 1986 Penguin Classics edition of The Lais of Marie de France, Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby, say with “conviction that at least one poet by the name of Marie was writing in the second half of the twentieth century”, though “it is equally certain that the author who composed the lays contained in this volume was not called Marie de France” (7). Rather, the name Marie de France was coined by Claude Fauchet in the 1581 Receuil de l’origin de la langue et poesie françoise.

Plot Summary

In the first lay, “Guigemar,” the title character is a knight who is incapable of romantic love. On a hunting trip, a supernatural white hind curses him to suffer until he meets a woman capable of healing his psychological wounds. The woman is a lady who is imprisoned by her elderly lord. When they are discovered having sex, Guigemar is banished. Before parting, the lady puts on a chastity belt and ties a knot in Guigemar’s shirt that only she can untie. Eventually, Guigemar lays siege to the lord’s lands and reunites with the lady.

In “Equitan,” the title character is a king who falls in love with his advisor’s wife. Equitan and the wife plot to murder her husband by preparing him a bath that is so hot, it scalds him to death. Yet when the husband walks in on Equitan and his wife, a panicked Equitan accidentally jumps in the bath, dying. The husband murders his wife by throwing her into the bath as well.

“Le Fresne” tells the story of a woman who gives birth to twins, only to abandon one of them because of the superstitious belief that twins are conceived by separate fathers. The orphaned twin grows up and falls in love with a respected lord, only to compete for his affections with her twin sister. Ultimately, the truth of the protagonist’s noble birth is revealed, and she and the lord marry.

In “Bisclavret,” the title character is a werewolf who is destined to remain in his wolf form after his wife and her lover steal his human clothes. With his gentle nature, Bisclavret gains the affections of the king. Eventually, Bisclavret’s identity and his wife’s treachery are revealed. His clothes are returned to him, allowing him to transform back into a man.

“Lanval” concerns a knight in King Arthur’s court who falls in love with a beautiful fairy. The fairy makes him promise never to reveal her existence to anyone, or else he will never see her again. When the queen tries to seduce Lanval, the knight mentions that he is already in love, inadvertently breaking his promise to the fairy. Fortunately, the fairy forgives him, emerging to save his life when he is put on trial by the queen.

In “Les Deux Amants,” a father prohibits any suitor from marrying his daughter unless the suitor can carry her up a mountain. One suitor procures a potion that will give him the strength to carry the daughter up the mountain. Yet once they begin their ascent, the suitor forgoes the potion, deciding instead to be motivated up the mountain by the strength of his love alone. He makes it to the top of the mountain but dies of exhaustion at the summit. In her grief, the daughter dies as well.

“Yonec” concerns a man who transforms into a hawk so he can fly into the window of a tower and woo a lady whose husband locked her inside. The husband kills the man while he is in hawk form, but not before the lady becomes pregnant with her lover’s child. The child, named Yonec, grows up and avenges his father’s death by killing his stepfather.

In “Laüstic, a married woman is in love with a man who lives in an adjoining house. Although they never touch, they stare at one another for hours through their windows.

In “Milun,” the title character falls in love with a nobleman’s daughter and conceives a child with her. Many years later, the son and Milun meet in a jousting competition, during which Milun recognizes a ring on the younger’s man finger which indicates he is his son.

“Chaitivel” concerns a woman who loves four men equally. Even after three of them die, she cannot bring herself to be wed to the fourth because she still loves the others.

“Chevrefoil” is a loose interpretation of the legend of Tristan and Iseult, in which a knight falls in love with his uncle’s wife.

Finally, “Eliduc” tells the story of a man who juggles the affections of his wife and another woman. In the end, both women join a nunnery, abandoning earthly love for divine love.

Note: The Lais of Marie de France feature archetypical characters, who have a specific function in the story, rather than the psychologically realized model of modern narratives. The Character Analysis is a guide to these archetypes, which feature across the Lais.