Читать книгу Legends & Romances of Brittany - Льюис Спенс - Страница 44

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The Seigneur of Nann was high of heart, for that day his bride of a year had presented him with two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, both white as May-blossom. In his joy the happy father asked his wife her heart’s desire, and she, pining for that which idle fancy urged upon her, begged him to bring her a dish of woodcock from the lake in the dale, or of venison from the greenwood. The Seigneur of Nann seized his lance and, vaulting on his jet-black steed, sought the borders of the forest, where he halted to survey the ground for track of roe or slot of the red deer. Of a sudden a white doe rose in front of him, and was lost in the forest like a silver shadow.

At sight of this fair quarry the Seigneur followed into the greenwood. Ever his prey rustled among the leaves ahead, and in the hot chase he recked not of the forest depths into which he had plunged. But coming upon a narrow glade where the interlacing leaves above let in the sun to dapple the moss-ways below, he saw a strange lady sitting by the broken border of a well, braiding her fair hair and binding it with golden pins.

The Seigneur louted low, begged that he might drink, and bending down set his lips to the water; but she, turning strange eyes upon him—eyes not blue like those of his bride, nor grey, nor brown, nor black, like those of other women, but red in their depths as the heart’s blood of a dove—spoke to him discourteously.

“Who are you who dare to trouble the waters of my 58 fountain?” she asked. “Do you not know that your conduct merits death? This well is enchanted, and by drinking of it you are fated to die, unless you fulfil a certain condition.”

“And what is that?” asked the Seigneur.

“You must marry me within the hour,” replied the lady.

“Demoiselle,” replied the Seigneur, “it may not be as you desire, for I am already espoused to a fair bride who has borne me this very day a son and a daughter. Nor shall I die until it pleases the good God. Nevertheless, I wot well who you are. Rather would I die on the instant than wed with a Korrigan.”

Leaping upon his horse, he turned and rode from the woodland as a man possessed. As he drew homeward he was overshadowed by a sense of coming ill. At the gate of his château stood his mother, anxious to greet him with good news of his bride. But with averted eyes he addresses her in the refrain so familiar to the folk-poetry of all lands:

“My good mother, if you love me, make my bed. I am sick unto death. Say not a word to my bride. For within three days I shall be laid in the grave. A Korrigan has done me evil.”

Three days later the young spouse asks of her mother-in-law:

“Tell me, mother, why do the bells sound? Wherefore do the priests chant so low?”

“ ’Tis nothing, daughter,” replies the elder woman. “A poor stranger who lodged here died this night.”

“Ah, where is gone the Seigneur of Nann? Mother, oh, where is he?”

THE SEIGNEUR OF NANN AND THE KORRIGAN

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“He has gone to the town, my child. In a little he will come to see you.”

“Ah, mother, let us speak of happy things. Must I wear my red or my blue robe at my churching?”

“Neither, daughter. The mode is changed. You must wear black.”

Unconscious in its art, the stream of verse carries us to the church, whence the young wife has gone to offer up thanks for the gift of children. She sees that the ancestral tomb has been opened, and a great dread is at her heart. She asks her mother-in-law who has died, and the old woman at last confesses that the Seigneur of Nann has just been buried.

That same night the young mother was interred beside her husband-lover. And the peasant folk say that from that tomb arose two saplings, the branches of which intertwined more closely as they grew.