"The Demoiselle d'Ys" by Robert W. Chambers

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3 years ago
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"Mais je croy que je
Suis descendu on puiz
Ténébreux onquel disoit
Heraclytus estre Vereté cachée."

"There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:
"The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid."

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The French verse there is from Rabelais's "Third Book of Pantagruel" (1546): "But I believe that I am descended into the well of shadows, in which Heraclitus said truth was hidden."

The English verse after it is from Proverbs 30:18-19

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0:00:00 Chapter 1
0:15:59 Chapter 2

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The poem towards the end of the first chapter is from an old French hunting song, "La Chasse" by P.J. de Béranger (first published in 1828). It is addressed to the hunter, urging him to hunt again, leaving Rosette and Jeanneton, perhaps to return to Love at the down.

Rather unfortunately, this story uses quite a bit of French in it, and I have zero capability with the French language. I tried my best. Sorry.

Loup-garou is a werewolf.

Jeanne la Flamme was a Duchess of Brittany in the 14th century.

Apparently there is an archaic usage of the word "brake" meaning thicket. Or it can also be an abbreviated form of "bracken", a type of fern. It seems possible that either meaning could be in use in this story. The context surrounding the usage of these words is completely unhelpful, it still permits either definition depending on how you choose to understand the context. With the author being long dead, it will forever remain a mystery as to which meaning was intended with each usage.

The pictures used are:

Chapter 1: "Le Ménez-Hom, Bretagne" by Arnaud Abélard, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/).

Chapter 2: "Le Fauconnier" by Paul K, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).

To follow along: https://gutenberg.org/files/8492/8492-h/8492-h.htm#THE_DEMOISELLE_DYS

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