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.

  • Historical_General@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    2·
    11 months ago

    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@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      11 months 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’…