Tolkien, Lord of the Rings (LotR), etc.

1246 readers

1 users here now

For all things Tolkien, Lord of The Rings (LotR), and The Hobbit across all media. Speak friend and enter.

Rules:

No abusive language
No buying, selling or advertising
Be civil
No politics
No discussions about race
No bots
No memes or AI-generated content
Don't criticize others for their opinions
If you found the image on the web, it is encouraged to put the direct link to the image in the ‘Link’ field when creating a post, instead of uploading the image to Lemmy. Direct links usually end in .jpg, .png, etc.
No unrelated posts
No spoilers in title, mark spoilers
Let people like what they like
Follow all Lemmy.world rules

Please report any rule violations.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (readerslibrary.org)

submitted 1 year ago by boydster to c/tolkien

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is a poem that Tolkien wrote about a noble couple that wanted to start a family, and the corrigan that meddled with their dreams.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Historical_General -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So what exactly is a corrigan? All I'm getting from google is that it's Irish lol.

[–] boydster 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a great question, and one I should have probably anticipated, so apologies! In the book, the editor (Verlyn Flieger) gives the context there. I don't have the book in front of me right now, so I'll have to paraphrase, but if I'm appealing to brevity of words: it's a witch.

More specifically, it's a fey creature that usually lives in a magical part of the woods and lures men to her. Her intent varies, it's usually one of either a) trying to get the man to leave a recently-wedded wife in order to marry the corrigan, or b) trying to get a recently-married man to promise a future child or children. She can shape-change from an ugly form into a more beautiful one to help trick her victim.

[–] Historical_General -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I read the first example as the corrigan attempting to get the wife to leave the husband for her, but I probably shouldn't have expected lesbianism in any Tolkien text.

[–] boydster 2 points 1 year ago

Just had a chance to open the book back up, and from the note on the text by Christopher Tolkien, corrigan is a Breton word for fairy. From the introduction by Verlyn Flieger, she expands a bit more to say:

In the Lay she represents a particular subset of this type [of Celtic seductive otherworldly female figures] called a corrigan, malevolent, sometimes seductive, whose dangerous attraction embodies both the lure and terror, the 'fear of the beautiful fay'...