The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various CountriesKeightley, Thomas
General
The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
Keightley, Thomas
Fairies; Fairy tales; Folk literature; Folklore
Oberon, on bringing Huon to speech, informed him that he was the son of
Julius Cæsar, and the lady of the Hidden Island, afterwards called
Cephalonia. This lady's first love had been Florimont of Albania, a
charming young prince, but being obliged to part from him, she married,
and had a son named Neptanebus, afterwards King of Egypt, who begot
Alexander the Great, who afterwards put him to death. Seven hundred
years later, Cæsar, on his way to Thessaly, was entertained in
Cephalonia by the lady of the isle, and he loved her, for she told him
he would defeat Pompey, and he became the father of Oberon. Many a noble
prince and noble fairy were at the birth, but one Fairy was unhappily
not invited, and the gift she gave was that he should not grow after his
third year, but repenting, she gave him to be the most beautiful of
nature's works. Other Fairies gave him the gift of penetrating the
thoughts of men, and of transporting himself and others from place to
place by a wish; and the faculty, by like easy means, of raising and
removing castles, palaces, gardens, banquets, and such like. He further
informed the knight, that he was king and lord of Mommur; and that when
he should leave this world his seat was prepared in Paradise--for
Oberon, like his prototype Elberich, was a veritable Christian.
When after a variety of adventures Oberon comes to Bordeaux to the aid
of Huon, and effects a reconciliation between him and Charlemagne, he
tells Huon that the time is at hand that he should leave this world
and take the seat prepared for him in Paradise, "en faerie ne veux
plus demeurer." He directs him to appear before him within four years
in his city of Mommur, where he will crown him as his successor.
Here the story properly ends, but an addition of considerable magnitude
has been made by a later hand, in which the story is carried on.
Many are the perils which Huon encounters before the period appointed
by Oberon arrives. At length, however, he and the fair Esclairmonde
(the Rezia of Wieland) come to Mommur. Here, in despite of Arthur
(who, with his sister Morgue la faée and a large train, arrives at
court, and sets himself in opposition to the will of the monarch, but
is reduced to order by Oberon's threat of turning him into a _Luyton
de Mer_[72]), Huon is crowned king of all Faerie "tant du pais des
Luytons comme des autres choses secretes reservées dire aux hommes."
Arthur gets the kingdom of Bouquant, and that which Sybilla held of
Oberon, and all the Faeries that were in the plains of Tartary. The
good king Oberon then gave Huon his last instructions, recommending
his officers and servants to him, and charging him to build an abbey
before the city, in the mead which the dwarf had loved, and there to
bury him. Then, falling asleep in death, a glorious troop of angels,
scattering odours as they flew, conveyed his soul to Paradise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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