Page:Of Six Mediaeval Women (1913).djvu/89

 The lay of "Eliduc," the last in the manuscript, is also the longest and most elaborate. Marie unfolds her story with so certain yet so subtle a hand, that the reading of it is like the unwinding of some finely illuminated parchment-roll where miniature follows miniature, each perfect in itself, yet all needful to the whole. To the charm of its pictures of mediæval life, with the fine scene between the two women, and their final reunion in the same convent, there is added an incident which gives special interest and importance to the story, since it brings us into touch with one of the oldest and most widespread of traditions—the restoration to life, from apparent death, by means of a flower. There are few pursuits more fascinating than the tracing of traditions, except, it may be, that of symbols, with which they have so much in common. We find the same traditions, just as we find the same symbolic figures, common to the most widely separated peoples, and the real interest in the case of each lies in trying to discover how and why in the course of their migrations their form and their significance have been varied or modified. But before considering the tradition, let us first hear the story.

Eliduc, a knight of Brittany, whose wife, Guildeluëc, was very dear to him, had for overlord one of the kings of Brittany, with whom, owing to faithful service, he had gained high favour. Being defamed on this account by