Page:Sir Orfeo, adapted from the Middle English (IA sirorfeoadaptedf00hunt).pdf/9



ROFESSOR SCHOFIELD, in his “English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer,” writes as follows:

“In Celtic tradition there were kings as well as queens of the Otherworld, and they too were known to cast loving eyes on mortals. In ‘Sir Orfeo’ we have an unusually happy embodiment of this conception in a story where it had originally no place. In the hands of a clever poet the ancient tale of Orpheus and Eurydice became a genuine lay of Britain, not simply because it was fashioned by him in the same metre and style as the lays on native themes, but because he transformed it in spirit