Breton Werewolves by Carlos A. González

Gary: Today’s special episode is by Carlos A. González. Carlos is a PhD candidate and scholar in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department at Harvard University. They specialize in 20th and 21st century Spanish and French Weird literature. They have chapters forthcoming in Casas Tomadas: Monsters and Metaphors on the Periphery of Latin American Literature, which they edited, and in No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes, both from Vernon Press. Carlos regularly presents on contemporary Spanish, French, and other global horror and Weird literature, but their real passion is their work as a Teaching Fellow where they accompany students through encounters with literary monsters from the Middle Ages to today. They also volunteer and teach with the Antrim Literature Project, a public facing initiative to make the study of literature accessible beyond the paywalls of the university, with a lecture series on the Gothic and a podcast centered on strange texts, both to be released soon. They are currently working on a dissertation entitled Facing the Monster: The Emptiness of Empathy in the Work of Mariana Enríquez and Antoine Volodine which explores the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas in Spanish and French Weird fiction, asking what monsters can teach us about literature, fear, and each other. They live in Cambridge, Massachusetts with their spouse, their shih tzu Klaus, and the creature that lives under their bed.

Today’s episode covers Bisclarvet, a poem about a werewolf in Brittany. Written in the 12th century by Marie de France, it is a fascinating and horrifying work of medieval monstrous fiction.

Carlos: Welcome, listeners, to another episode of the French History Podcast! I’m Carlos A. González, a PhD candidate in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department at Harvard University, where I do transhistorical scholarship on global Weird and horror fiction, exploring the monsters we make and how we make them, from the middle ages to today. I’m delighted to be giving this guest episode and am grateful to Dr. Gary Girod for the privilege. Today, we explore the strange and captivating legacy of Marie de France, a medieval poet whose works continue to enchant readers today.

Marie de France lived during the 12th century, a time of knights, chivalry, and courtly love. It was an era marked by a flourishing of literature in the vernacular and, in particular, a rich tapestry of cultural exchange between France and England. Hers was a society predicated on social ties which created and propped up the political order. All of courtly life looked back to one thing: the relationship between lord and vassal. Religion, the natural world, interpersonal relationships, economy, art, and any number of domains of life were lived within and as expressions of this basic dynamic of homage, where the language of love was borrowed from the jargon of fiefdoms and warfare. One thinks of fidelity, the framing of love as words—or rings—exchanged as promises and gifts. This “matrix of feudal values” in practice bears forth a tension in courtly romantic literature where the love triangle between a lord, his lady, and his vassal feature so often and which has survived today as the most fundamental characteristic of these kinds of stories (Kinoshita and McCracken 52ff). These narratives, such as King Arthur’s downfall due to the affair between Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot or of the magical, perhaps fated affair between Tristan and Iseult, remain as popular with readers in France today as they did in the High Middle Ages. These stories helped to educate young nobles in what it means to be faithful at a time when obedience and courage could establish or bring down whole kingdoms. It was in this context that a woman dared to put pen to paper and make of her lyrical narratives a gift to her lord the king, saying in her prologue that, “In my heart, lord, I thought and decided that I should present them to you… Do not consider me presumptuous if I make so bold as to offer you this gift” (Lais 41). Incredibly, she opens her first lay Guigemar not the anonymous poet so often encountered in courtly literature of romance and heroics, but quite explicitly saying, “Hear, my lords, the words of Marie, who, when she has the opportunity, does not squander her talents” (43). Born in the late 1100s, Marie de France’s identity remains a mystery, with scholars hotly debating over her origins and much of the details of her life to this day. It is even contested that her name is Marie at all, and if she was in fact from France (7). Some believe she was associated with the English court, while others propose a Breton connection given the Celtic origins of much of her poetry. In fact, we have almost no certain information at all about this enigmatic woman, except only scant references to her by contemporaries like Denis Piramus who around 1180 referenced the writings of one Dame Marie, and the biographical information she offers herself in her writings, or my accurately, those writings which the majority of scholarship accepts as hers. These are the Lais which I will introduce in this episode, the Ysopet or “Little Aesop” fables, and L'Espurgatoire seint patriz or The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick. Some, though not all, scholars also include La vie seinte audree, a hagiography or a narrative of the life of Saint Audrey of Ely. Regardless of the details of her life, however, her legacy linked to her poetic contributions is indisputable and undoubtedly worth our efforts.

In this spirit, let’s turn our attention to Marie’s most celebrated works, the ones through which I myself was introduced to Marie de France, her Lais. These narrative poems explore themes of love, adventure, and often the supernatural, offering a glimpse into the complexities of medieval society, in particular that of the upper-class which patronized, produced, and consumed them. In fact, the latter half of the twelfth century saw an unprecedented level of literary production. Readers (and listeners, since these works were for the most part meant to be read out loud) could choose from a wide range of literary genres, including the epic chansons de geste or songs of heroic deeds, retellings (often moralized) of Greco-Roman myths and legends, Arthurian romances, the love-lyrics of the Occitan troubadours and French trouvères, religious and secular drama, raunchy and comedic fabliaux, hagiographies of legendary saints, and a large corpus of theological or philosophical treatises, all in the vernacular, a significant departure from the more widely established tradition of Latin writing. What is most interesting to me as a reader and enjoyer of Marie’s Lais is the way the author herself saw the process of her writing. Her prologue opens with the following passage, “Anyone who has received from God the gift of knowledge and true eloquence has a duty not to remain silent: rather should one be happy to reveal such talents… For this reason I began to think of working on some good story and translating a Latin text into French, but this would scarcely have been worthwhile, for others have undertaken a similar task. So I thought of lays which I had heard and did not doubt, for I knew it full well, that they were composed, by those who first began them and put them into circulation, to perpetuate the memory of adventures they had heard. I myself have heard a number of them and do not wish to overlook or neglect them. I have put them into verse, made poems from them and worked on them late into the night” (41). She often repeats this origin story of borrowing from older Breton lays, for example in the opening line of her lay Equitan which says, “The Bretons, who lived in Brittany, were fine and noble people. In days gone by these valiant, courtly and noble men composed lays for posterity and thus preserved them from oblivion. These lays were based on adventures they had heard and which had befallen many a person. One of them, which I have heard recited, should not be forgotten” (56). We can glean then from these and similar passages the tension that Marie de France introduces into the text. On the one hand, these stories of giants and fairies and men of great renown cannot be doubted as they have many witnesses. On the other hand, these stories would be lost to time were it not for her clever and even salvific treatments, like Shakespeare transmuting the early 13th century Amleth of the Gesta Danorum into the unforgettable Hamlet. As Marie would have it, it seems, the proof is in the poem.

Among the Lais, to me Bisclavret stands out. This is the story of a nobleman cursed to transform into a werewolf every week for three whole days. As we dive into this narrative, I would like first to read the prologue of this lay in its original Old French, since Anglo-Norman French served as a lingua franca even in England. I do this to demonstrate something which is missed in translation either to English or modern French, namely its musicality and rhythm. It’s important to remember that just as Chaucer’s late 14th century Middle English in the Canterbury Tales or Shakespeare’s 16th century Elizabethan English can sound foreign to today’s anglophone audiences, Old French also continued to evolve and change through the centuries. If you don’t speak French, Old or otherwise, this isn’t a problem as I will read the translation following the original. All that’s important for now is that you consider the sound of the passage as I read aloud. “Quant des lais faire m’entremet,/ ne vueil ubliër Bisclavret./ Bisclavret a nun en Bretan,/ Garulf l’apelent li Norman./ Jadis le poeit hum oïr/ e sovent suleit avenir,/ hume plusur garulf devindrent/ e es boscages maisun tindrent./ Garulf, ceo est beste salvage ;/ tant cum il est en cele rage,/ humes devure, grant mal fait,/ es granz forez converse e vait./ Cest afaire les ore ester ;/ del Bisclavret vus vueil cunter.” [Bisclavret l. 1-14] Notice how the lines are structured in rhyming couplets of eight syllables per line of varying meter, or stress. Here’s the prose translation, “In my effort to compose lays I do not wish to omit Bisclavret—for such is its name in Breton, while the Normans call it Garwaf. In days gone by one could hear tell, and indeed it often used to happen, that many men turned into werewolves and went to live in the woods. A werewolf is a ferocious beast which, when possessed by this madness, devours men, causes great damage and dwells in vast forests. I leave such matters for the moment, for I wish to tell you about Bisclavret” (68). A couple important notes here. First, notice what Marie claims to be doing. She is distilling, interpreting, and transcribing a story she has heard, apparently many times and in many tongues. Second, she’s telling the story of a specific werewolf whose name is simply that, “Werewolf” in Breton. More than once, she refers to the creature by its Norman name, “Garulf” from which we get the modern French word for werewolf, loup-garou, when she wants to speak about the werewolf in general. In speaking about this individual werewolf, though, she maintains use if his proper name, so to speak. Scholars and readers have gone back and forth about what this could mean, and to me this ambiguity only serves to highlight the nature of our friend, the werewolf, who is not half man and half wolf, but rather always both if in different embodiments.

As we learn, this particular werewolf is a baron of upstanding character and deep reverence for his lord. The baroness loves him, but she cannot help but wonder why her husband must run off for nearly half of every week and is unable to divulge where or why. She suspects infidelity, another woman, and a secret violence. After incessant pestering she finally gets it out of him: “Lady, I become a werewolf: I enter the vast forest and live in the deepest part of the wood where I feed off the prey I can capture. When he had related everything to her, she asked him whether he undressed or remained clothed. Lady, he said, I go about completely naked” (69). As it turns out, the baron can only return to human form if after the course of days is up he clothes himself again. This is all too much for our Lady Bisclavret, and she conspires to free herself of her monstrous spouse. She forges an alliance behind her husband’s back with another knight of their court and, after finding and stealing the werewolf’s clothing, trap him in the forest away from his home, his lord, or any involvement in human civilization for an entire year, during which time the baroness married her coconspirator and committed adultery, being technically still married. Eventually, the werewolf is discovered by the king and his hunting party. Bisclavret avoids being slaughtered by demonstrating curiously human courtly behavior and fealty to the king, “As soon as he saw the king he ran up to him and begged for mercy. He took hold of his stirrup and kissed his foot and his leg. The king saw him and was filled with dread. He summoned all his companions. Lords, he said, come forward! See the marvelous way this beast humbles itself before me. It has the intelligence of a human and is pleading for mercy. Drive back all the dogs and see that no one strikes it! The beast possesses understanding and intelligence… The king then left with Bisclavret following him” (70). This encounter in the woods, and the werewolf’s continued noble manner while at court leads the king to suspect that not everything is what it seems, and that perhaps a great betrayal needs to be addressed. Later, when the king summons his barons to court, Lady Bisclavret’s new husband arrives not expecting to come face to face with the usurped lord. With as of yet uncharacteristic animality, he mauls the knight almost to death, stopping only at the admonishment of his king. This is leads eventually to a confrontation between the baroness and the werewolf before the king. In the hopes that you, dear listener, will encounter this lovely poem on your own after hearing my short introduction, I will refrain from spoiling too much more. Suffice it to say that by the end of the lay, in surprising and strange ways, order is restored: some curses are lifted, others are enacted, and ambiguity continues to have its day. In the span of just 318 short lines, about as long to read as it took to listen to this episode, “Bisclavret” tells a fantastical story that invites us to ponder themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the consequences of transgressing courtly expectations. Marie’s nuanced storytelling offers a window into the intricacies of human relationships of her time, but also belies a sense of monstrosity, stemming from misogyny and queerphobia that is depicted in the text.

As we wrap up this journey through the life and work of Marie de France, I encourage you to explore her Lais further. For those listeners who can read French, there’s an excellent parallel text edition with Old and modern French from the collection Lettres gothiques from the folks at Le Livre de Poche. My favorite lays, besides of course Bisclavret, include Laüstic, Breton for nightingale, with obvious influences from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Yonec, another tale about animal transformations and an illegitimate knight fated to avenge true love. These timeless tales not only entertain but also provide valuable insights into the medieval mindset. In all of her lays, Marie deftly portrays the mutability of the body and the soul in the presence of love, though this love is one very different from what we today might consider courtly.

Thank you for staying with me on this exploration of Marie de France’s legacy. Selections shared in today’s episode come from the 1986 translation in the Penguin Classic edition of The Lais of Marie de France by Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby, and much of my historical information comes from Sharon Kinoshita and Peggy McCracken’s 2012 Critical Companion to Marie de France from D. S. Brewer. I'm Carlos A. González and until next time, vive l'histoire, vive le monstre! Thank you for listening. [Howl effect]