"Le Fresne" is one of the Lais of

Marie de France Marie de France (floruit, fl. 1160–1215) was a poet, likely born in France, who lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an unknown court, but she and her work were almost certainly known at the royal court of Kin ...

. It was likely written in the late 12th century. Marie claims it to be a

Breton lai A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. Lais are short (typically 600–1000 lines), rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-wor ...

, an example of

Anglo-Norman literature Anglo-Norman literature is literature composed in the Anglo-Norman language and developed during the period of 1066–1204, as the Duchy of Normandy and the Kingdom of England were united in the Anglo-Norman realm. Introduction The Norman langu ...

Plot summary

Le Fresne opens with the wife of a knight giving birth to twins. The wife of another knight slanders her, saying that in order to have two children at one time, the woman must have slept with two men. Ironically, she then gives birth to twins herself, and plans to kill one of the children to hide her shame, but a handmaiden offers to hide it instead. After an ornate brocade is tied to the baby's arm signifying its noble birth, the handmaiden leaves it under an ash tree outside of an abbey. A porter finds the girl and names her Le Fresne (modern French ''frêne'', "ash tree"), and gives her to a gentle abbess to raise. Le Fresne grows into an exceedingly beautiful woman, and a respected lord named Gurun becomes enamored of her. Gurun becomes a benefactor of the abbey in order to have access to her, and they begin a love affair. Fearing the wrath of the abbess if Le Fresne became pregnant in her house, Gurun convinces her to run away with him, making her his concubine. Gurun's knights become concerned that if he does not marry a noblewoman for the sake of a legitimate heir, his lands and lineage will be lost upon his death. They find a noble and beautiful woman named La Coudre (modern French ''coudrier'', "hazel tree"). Gurun's knights convince him that he should marry La Coudre instead of Le Fresne, arguing for the fertile hazel tree over the barren ash. The marriage is planned. While La Coudre's mother originally plans to move Le Fresne, whom she only knows as Gurun's concubine, as far away from Gurun as possible, she discovers upon meeting her that Le Fresne is very kind and then wishes her no harm. The night of the wedding, Le Fresne helps to prepare the wedding bed, for she knows how Gurun likes things. Not finding it sufficiently beautiful, she adds her brocade to the wedding bed. This is discovered by the mother of La Coudre, who recognizes that the brocade is her own, and that Le Fresne is the twin sister of La Coudre whom they had abandoned at birth. The family welcomes Le Fresne. Though the marriage of La Coudre and Gurun is finished, it was annulled the next day. Le Fresne and Gurun marry, a husband is found for La Coudre, and all characters end up happy.

Motifs

The idea equating twins with infidelity was a common folkloric belief at the time. It also appears in other

chivalric romance As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of high medieval and early modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalri ...

s, such as the Swan-Children of the Knight of the Swan, in the variant Beatrix. But as in those romances, it is treated as the result of envy and slander and so denounced.

Child abandonment A child () is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking countries, the legal definition of ''chi ...

is likewise shared with other medieval works, such as the fourteenth century

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

romance '' Sir Degaré''. This may reflect pre-Christian practices, both Scandinavian and Roman, that the newborn would not be raised without the father's decision to do so. The ring which identifies Le Fresne as a particular person of high birth is a motif that, according to Michelle Freeman, may have come from the '' Roman d'Enéas''. This is the twelfth-century version of the

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas ( , ; from ) was a Troy, Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus (mythology), Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy ...

legend that Marie would have been familiar with. ''Le Fresne'' shows no influence of

courtly love Courtly love ( ; ) was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies b ...

. Rather than regarding love as important, Gurun shows no remorse about abandoning it for a lawful marriage. For her part, Le Fresne shows no signs of conflict, gently yielding her place and even serving her successor. This motif of a man encouraged to abandon a faithful partner for a new wife appears in popular ballads, both in English and Scandinavian form, such as '' Fair Annie''. These later popular tales more often feature a heroine who was kidnapped by pirates when young and ransomed by the hero, thus ending as ignorant of her birth as this heroine. The hazel tree (la coudre) also makes an appearance in both Laüstic and Chevrefoil, two of Marie's other Lais.

Variants

The thirteenth-century

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...

romance, ''Galeran de Bretagne'', is a significant expansion of ''Le Fresne''. The origin story of Le Fresne (and her twin sister Fleurie) is strongly reminiscent of Marie's lai, as is the pressure placed on Galeran (Gurun in the lai) to marry and Le Fresne's ultimate recognition by her mother. However, some of the details are significantly different, such as the chastity of the relationship between Galeran and Le Fresne, which is clearly sexual in ''Le Fresne''. The vast majority of ''Galeran de Bretagne'' is additional material that develops the character of Galeran and the relationship between Galeran and Le Fresne, absent from Marie's original. The fourteenth-century

romance, ''Lay le Freine'', is a faithful translation of ''Le Fresne''.Laura A. Hibbard, ''Medieval Romance in England'' p294 New York Burt Franklin,1963

Translations

Online translation to english verse
by Judith P. Shoaf, 1996.
Eugene Mason's translation
of the Lays of Marie de France includes Le Fresne, labelled as IX, "The Lay of the Ash Tree"

Notes

References

* Marie de France. ''The Lais of Marie de France''. (Burgess and Busby translation) 1986, Penguin * Marie de France. ''Lais de Marie de France''. (traduits, présentés et annotés par Laurence Harf-Lancner) 1990, Livre de Poche, Lettres gothiques