Limbă, Literatură, Folclor

Abstract: This article analyses the image of the fay (korrigan) in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, as opposed to how it originally appears in Breton folklore. The texts under scrutiny (The Corrigan I, The Corrigan II, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun) represent three poems adapted from stories collected by Hersart de la Villemarqué’s in the French region of Brittany. Our study will focus on the way these poems combine Tolkien’s pagan and Christian sensibilities, as well as on how the conflict between these two religious systems is constructed through the figure of the korrigan. In the end, we will investigate how the image of the fay manifests itself in Galadriel, a hybrid Christiano-pagan character from The Lord of the Rings, and how this example highlights the importance of folklore as a main source of inspiration for fantasy literature, which always recovers it through a Christian filter.

Keywords: fantasy, Breton folklore, Celtic mythology, paganism, Christianity, korrigan, fay, Virgin Mary