The Power of Patient Kingship: Supernatural Abduction in <i>Sir Orfeo</i> and the Third Branch of the <i>Mabinogi</i>

Sir Orfeo’s tale of the abduction of a queen by a supernatural lord and her subsequent rescue by her husband is widely acknowledged to be analogous to similar narratives found in Celtic lore and literature. Most analogues proposed are Irish, yet another text mentioned less often in connection with Sir Orfeo is the classic work of medieval Welsh myth, The Four Branches of the Mabinogi. The Third Branch contains an interesting parallel to the Middle English poem. The Third Branch tells the story of Manawydan, a chieftain who is exiled from his land, and whose wife, Rhiannon, is abducted by an other-world lord. Manawydan waits seven years until he is able to bring about his wife’s release through a trick that allows him to bind the other-world chieftain with an oath, just as Orfeo is able to force the Fairy King to release Heurodis using the Fairy King’s oath. Furthermore, both texts highlight the heroes’ avoidance of violence. In the Third Branch, this includes explicit mention of sexual self-restraint; in Sir Orfeo, Orfeo’s patience is contrasted to the brutal force used by the other-world king in his abduction of Heurodis. In each text, the human hero’s patience and superior power with words, rather than the strength in his arms, is what frees the queen. Both texts use the trope of fairy abduction to imagine lordship in terms of self-control rather than royal authority and might, ultimately revealing that patience and humility are forms of power in themselves.