The Lady of the Lake (poem)

The Lady of the Lake is a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, set in the Trossachs, first published in 1810. It is comprised of six cantos, each of which concerns the action of a single day. The poem has three main plots: the contest among three men, Roderick Dhu, James Fitz-James, and Malcolm Graeme, to win the love of Ellen Douglas; the feud and reconciliation of King James V of Scotland and James Douglas; and a war between the lowland Scots (led by James V) and the highland clans (led by Roderick Dhu of Clan Alpine). The poem was tremendously influential in the nineteenth century, and did much to inspire the Highland Revival. By the late twentieth century, however, the poem was virtually forgotten. Its influence is thus indirect: Schubert's Ave Maria; the last name of Frederick Douglass; and the song Hail to the Chief.

Characters of the Poem

• James Fitz-James, the Knight of Snowdoun, actually King James V of Scotland in disguise
• Ellen Douglas, daughter of James Douglas
• James Douglas, the mentor of the youthful King James, now exiled as an enemy
• Allan Bane, a bard
• Roderick Dhu, the chief of Clan Alpine
• Lady Margaret, the mother of Roderick Dhu

Narrative of the Poem

First Canto (the Chase)

The poem begins with a rapid-moving hunt, chasing a stag in the forests of the Trossachs. The stag outruns the hunt, exhausting all its members until only one huntsman - who, we later learn, is James Fitz-James - follows it until his horse falls down dead of exhaustion. The huntsman blows his horn to try to contact someone, wanders to the shore of a lake, where a young woman - Ellen Douglas - rows across and picks him up in a skiff. He is then taken to a house, which he suspects is a concealed hide-out of a highland chief. There he is given dinner by Ellen, the bard Allan Bane, and Lady Margaret, and a bed for the night. That night he dreams of Ellen, only to suddenly see her face suddenly change to that of his exiled enemy, James Douglas - leading him to suspect that Ellen and James Douglas are related.

Sources

The poem is not definitely fixed in specific historic events, but has certain elements that recurred in Scottish history

• King James V is said to have liked to find out what the common people were thinking by traveling incognito among them
• Many kings of Scotland quarreled with the chiefs of the Douglas clan, and then were reconciled with them
• Clan Alpine is an imaginary clan, but its name resembles that of Siol Alpin. Its history resembles the revolt of Clan Gregor against the central Scottish monarchy.

Influences

Rossini Schubert

Frederick Douglass got his last name from the poem. When Douglass escaped from slavery, he changed his last name to hide from the slaveowner. A friend of his proposed a new one: I gave Mr. Johnson the privilege of choosing me a name, but told him he must not take from me the name of "Frederick." I must hold on to that, to preserve a sense of my identity. Mr. Johnson had just been reading the Lady of the Lake, and at once suggested that my name be "Douglass."