# Sir Orfeo Poem "The poem includes several motives and plot elements known from Celtic literature and folklore (see 2.2.6), such as the journey to the other world and subsequent return, humans abducted or 'taken' by supernatural beings, a fairy hunt, entering the fairy kingdom through a rock and others (Bliss, 1966; Allen, 1964). [Bliss Sir Orfeo. Allen Orpheus and Orfeo: The Dead and the Taken, in MA 33]. The significance of the ympe-tre is not entirely clear: the word ympe and the corresponding verb were used as agricultural terms in both Old and Middle English, and ympe-tre appears to mean simply either a young, sprouting tree, or a grafted tree, the kind likely to be found in a cultivated orchard. The later meaning of imp - 'child of the devil, evil spirit' - does not seem to have developed until the sixteenth century (OED). The fact that such a meaning did eventually develop, however, offers parallels to sinister associations of ympe in Sir Orfeo. In the poem the trees appears to create a borderline space, because it is neither the stock nor the graft, and can therefore act as a point of contact between the world of humans and the world of fairi. Orfeo sees the tree again when he travels to the castle of the Fairy King, which implies that it exists in both worlds. Bliss also observed that it is a common place in the narrative lais that those who sleep under a tree place themselves in the power of fairies (see also Smithers, 1953). He commented that many visitors to the Celtic otherworld encountered an orchard of apple trees, and that a magic apple is often present in accounts of such travels (see also Patch, 1950). Brouland (1990) draws parallels to other trees, especially in Celtic myth, which open the connection between the two worlds. [Smithers, 1953, "Story patters in some breton lays, MA 22" Patch, 1950, "The Other World". Brouland, 1990, ~~it's in french...~~].........Tolkien distanced himself form the post-medieval literary tradition of representing fairies and elves as minute, playful, and child-like creatures (Tolkien, 2008c). The world of Elves which he created is closer to the tradition reflected in Sir Orfeo, where they are portrayed as a 'dreaded but picturesque race of immortal beings' (Allen, 1964). There is nothing playful or light about the fairy world of Sir Orfeo. there is a feeling that Orfeo and Heurodis have become victims of a merciless, unstoppable and irrational force.: their sufferings are undeserved ~~classical influence?~~, the reasons for the abduction of Heurodis are not explained, and the actions of the Fairy King are willful and cruel. At the same time the fairies are beautiful and Heurodis says that she has never seen 'such fair and exceptional beings' (1. 148). The king is not represented as simply evil. his kingdom is full of light, his queen is "fair and sweet", and at the end of the poem, charmed by Orfeo's music, he keeps his word to grant Orfeo's with and allows Heurodis to leave......The description [of the fairy world] that follows has parallels in other medieval descriptions of the other world or Paradise (see Patch, 1950 "The Other World"). The land is bright and green, the king's castle is 'rich, regal and wonderfully high'. It is decorated with gold and precious stones, and its walls 'shine as crystal'. The land is always full of light, because at night precious stones shine as brightly as the sun. The poet comments that no man can tell or even imagine the richness of this country. This...inadequacy of the human mind and language to comprehend and describe the other world is common in medieval texts...Orfeo thinks that what he sees is the 'court of Paradise', but when he goes inside the castle he sees abducted humans...dismembered, strangled, wounded, burned and drowned bodies and wives lying on their 'child-bed'. Some...are made and lie bound, others are asleep or dead, though at the beginning of the description these people 'taken into this world' are said to be 'thought dead, when they really were not'. This is paradoxical considering that some of them 'stood without head' or arms....The same ambiguity is found in the descriptions of the fairy hunt, the fairy army and the fairy dance. Sir Orfeo repeatedly sees 'fairi' in the wilderness. When the king comes to hunt, Orfeo can hear 'dim' shouts, the blowing of horns, the barking of hounds, and yet the hunt never takes any catch...Sometimes instead of the hunt he sees a 'great host' of armed knights passing him by, or knights and ladies dancing, accompanied by musicians. These apparitions also disappear without a trace." [The Keys of Middle Earth, 200-2]