Val sans return

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Map of the Val sans return in the Forêt de Paimpont, Brittany
Morgan le Fay, Edward Burne-Jones , 1862, Leighton House Museum

The Val sans retour (valley of no return, also known as Val périlleux - dangerous valley - and Val des faux amants - valley of false lovers) is on the one hand a legendary place from the Arthurian saga in the forest of Brocéliande , on the other hand a well-known place in in central Brittany , in the forest that is officially called Forêt de Paimpont . The associated legend, told in the Lancelot Grail cycle (beginning of the 13th century), spread orally before the end of the 12th century. Morgan le Fay experienced the disappointment of her love for the knight Guyomard (Guiomar or Guyamor), who rejects her at the instigation of Queen Guienevre . She learns magic from Merlin and in retaliation creates the Val sans back in the forest of Brocéliande to hold the faux amants , unfaithful knights in love. After seventeen years, Morgan's spell is overturned by Lancelot , loyal to Guinevere, freeing 253 knights. This tale is Morgan's most powerful action against the Round Table and a reversal of male and female roles as developed in medieval literature.

The Val sans retour was first located in Brittany in 1812 by Auguste Creuzé de Lesser (1771-1839). He is also the first to place it in the Brocéliande forest, even if that forest for him was near Quintin (Côtes-d'Armor) . The place was soon identified, around 1820, by François-Gabriel-Ursin Blanchard de La Musse (1752-1837) with the valley of the Marette near Paimpont. The location was changed again in 1850, this time by Félix Bellamy (1828-1907) in favor of the Rauco Valley. During the following century, the valley became one of the most important places to visit related to the Arthurian legends. Access is near Tréhorenteuc in the Morbihan , the forest itself in Ille-et-Vilaine . Devastated by fire and then reforested, the Val sans return is made known by Abbé Henri Gillard († 1979), priest in Tréhorenteuc. It marked several interesting places, the Arbre d'Or and the Miroir aux fées in the valley, the Hotié de Viviane ( House of Viviane ) and the Siège de Merlin on the heights. The valley attracts many visitors every year, tourists, modern druids and followers of the Arthurian legend.

In Arthurian literature

The Val sans retour is an enchanted place, which was created by Morgan le Fay and which the medieval novels of the Arthurian legend speak of. He is one of the "wonders" of these novels. The Arthurian accounts were orally circulated and it is very likely that the episode of the Valley of No Return was known before the end of the 12th century. Most elements come from the Lancelot-Grail, but there are signs on the novel Erec and Enide out of Chrétien de Troyes is attributed.

In the Lancelot Grail

According to the Lancelot-Grail, an anonymous compilation of Arthurian texts from the 13th century, the reasons for the creation of the valley of no return come from the brief love affair between Morgue (Morgan le Fay) and the knight Guyamor (or Guiomar, Guiamor, Guyomard ). Nephew of Queen Guinevere. The Queen urges the young man to fend off Morgue, which she considers too chaude and loxorisous (hot and luxurious). He accepts, convinced that his feelings for Morgue are not as strong as the ones she feels for him. She leaves the Arthurian court and joins the wizard Merlin to learn magic. She drives a violent jealousy towards Guinevere and the knights of the round table.

Rich in knowledge, the fairy Morgan, thanks to her magic, creates the valley of no return in the Brocéliande forest in order to take revenge by locking unfaithful lovers (whom she calls the "false lovers") between invisible walls of air:

"Chieus vaus, ce dist li contes tout avant, estoit apielés li Vaus sans Retour et li Vaus as Faus Amans. Li Vaus sans Retor avoit il non pour chou ke nus cevaliers n'en retournoit, et si avoit non li Vaus as Faus Amans pour chou ke tout li chevalier i remanoient ki avoient faussé four leur amies de quel mesfait ke che fust, neïs de penssé. " - Anonymous
"This valley, it is said in the legends, was called both the valley of no return and the valley of false lovers: the valley of no return because no knight came back, and also the valley of false lovers because all knights who made their friends had been unfaithful, were held there, and that this mistake was only made in thought. "

The Livre d'Artus specifies that the valley was specially created for her former lover, Guyomard: she surprises him in the arms of someone else and condemns him never to leave the valley, like all those who will come after him. The young woman who accompanies him is cursed by Morgan and condemned to feel the coldness of the ice from foot to belt and the fire of a brazier from belt to head. The fairy reserves the right to withdraw her spell if an impeccable knight appears. At the entrance to the valley, she places a notice that makes it clear that only a knight who is able to pass the test of the valley can free Gawain , the prisoner of the Carados in the Douloureuse Tour . Numerous knights dare to try.

Nobody can break the spell and these men wander through the valley, lost forever in the eyes of the outside world. They are free to see each other, talk to one another, play or dance as Morgan caters for all of their needs. The knight Galescalain finds out during one night from an aftervassal. He goes there, but cannot go out either. Yvain, another Arthurian knight, is imprisoned by Morgan in turn. Finally, Lancelot hears about it and goes there to rescue a young woman whose lover never returned. He follows the Chemin du Diable (Devil's Path), defeats a dragon, crosses a river guarded by two knights, and meets Morgan. Vaguely in love with him, Morgan traps him and captures him by putting a ring on his finger to put him to sleep. Absolute loyalty to Guinevere enables him to break the spell and lift the curse of the valley. 17 years after Morgan's curse, he frees the 253 unbelieving knights who were imprisoned there. Everyone gathers with great joy in the house of Keu d'Estraus.

In Erec et Enide

This novel by Chrétien de Troyes, written around 1160/64, contains elements that may have inspired the story of the Valley of No Return. Towards the end, in the passage entitled La Joie de la Cort (The Joy of the Court), in order to fulfill the promise to his wife , the knight Maboagrain has to stay locked in an enchanted garden and fight against all opponents who show up until he is defeated . The walls of this garden are studded with lace. The woman's intention is to keep the knight to herself forever. Erec manages to defeat him. The fate of Maboagrain is a case in which a woman restricts a knight's freedom of movement, as in the story of the Valley of No Return.

A later manuscript of the same novel mentions a "dangerous valley" and a knight named "Guigomar" who is a friend of the fairy Morgain and the brother of Graislemier de Fine Posterne, lord of the island of Avalon . This is probably an addition by the copyist, who also knows the story of Lancelot-Grail, and not an original version by Chrétien de Troyes. According to Frappier, the name Val perileux is probably a creation that is reminiscent of the names Val sans retour and Val des faux amants . The path that leads into the Val des faux amants is also called "dangerous" in the Lancelot Grail.

literature

  • François de Beaulieu: La Bretagne est une terre de legends. In: Le grand livre des idées reçues: Insolite et grandes énigmes , Le Cavalier Bleu éditions, April 2010, ISBN 2-84670-484-8 and ISBN 978-2-84670-484-7
  • Marcel Calvez: Druides, fées et chevaliers dans la forêt de Brocéliande: de l'invention de la topographie légendaire de la forêt de Paimpont à ses recompositions contemporaines , Festival international de geographie. Scientifique program, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, 2010
  • Jacky Ealet: Val sans retour , in: Dictionnaire de la Table ronde , Jean-Paul Gisserot, 2007, ISBN 2-87747-909-9 and ISBN 978-2-87747-909-7 , BnF no. FRBNF41052486
  • Jacky Ealet (Ill.Samuel Bertrand): Morgane, la fée , in: Les personnages de Brocéliande , Jean-Paul Gisserot, 2001, ISBN 2-87747-569-7 and ISBN 978-2-87747-569-3 , BnF no FRBNF37658206
  • Laurence Harf-Lancner: Le val sans retour ou la price du pouvoir par les femmes , in: Amour, mariage et transgressions au moyen âge , Göppingen, Kümmerle Verlag, 1984, pp. 185–193
  • Richard Trachsler: Clôtures du cycle arthurien: étude et textes , Volume 215, Geneva, Droz, Collection Publications romanes et françaises , 1996, ISBN 2-600-00154-9 and ISBN 978-2-600-00154-0 , BnF No. FRBNF35851746
  • Institut culturel de Bretagne: L'invention du Val sans retour. In: Du folklore à l'ethnologie en Bretagne: 1er Colloque d'ethnologie bretonne, Riec-sur-Bélon, 27-29 octobre 1988 , Beltan, 1989, ISBN 2-905939-14-1 and 978-2-905939-14 -2, BnF No. FRBNF36638938
  • Carolyne Larrington: King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition. IB Tauris, 2006, ISBN 1-84511-113-3 and ISBN 978-1-84511-113-7 , BnF no. FRBNF40213583
  • Alexandre Micha: Essais sur le cycle du Lancelot-Graal. Publications romanes et françaises, Volume 179, Geneva, Droz, 1987, ISBN 2-60002869-2 and ISBN 978-2-60002869-1
  • Goulven Peron: Les lieux arthuriens. Keltia, July – September 2017
  • Michel Zink (Eds.) (Translated by Yvan G. Lepage and Marie-Louise Ollier): Le Val des Amants infidèles. Volume 4: Lancelot du Lac , Le Livre de Poche, Lettres gothiques collection , April 2002, ISBN 978-2253066675

Remarks

  1. ↑ Peron
  2. ↑ Micha, p. 21
  3. ↑ Larrington, p. 52
  4. ↑ Trachsler, p. 103
  5. ↑ Trachsler, p. 103
  6. ↑ Frappier, p. 252
  7. ↑ This tower is a place where the giant Carados holds several knights prisoner and tortures them, especially in his chartre pleine des reptiles (cell full of reptiles).
  8. ↑ Larrington, p. 54
  9. ↑ Zink, pp. 246-247
  10. ↑ Micha, pp. 41-42
  11. ↑ The river generally symbolizes the boundary between this world and the hereafter, that of the fairies and the enchantment; see. CUER-MA (February 1984) L'eau au Moyen âge , Collogue due CUER-MA
  12. ↑ Trachsler, p. 103; Larrington, p. 68
  13. ↑ Zink, pp. 306-307
  14. ↑ Trachsler, p. 103
  15. ↑ Frappier, p. 252; Larrington, p. 53
  16. ↑ Micha, p. 132
  17. ↑ Larrington, p. 52
  18. ↑ Larrington, p. 53
  19. ↑ Frappier, p. 252

Coordinates: 48 ° 0 ′ 3 ″  N , 2 ° 17 ′ 9 ″  W.