SOURCE: “Orpheus and Orfeo: The Dead and the Taken,” Mediem Aevum, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2, 1964, pp. 102-11.

In the following essay, Allen argues that fairy tradition is central to Sir Orfeo and that, because the tale originated from the substitution of fairy elements in place of Greek myths, the search for its “elusive Celtic source” should be abandoned.

The genius of the poet of Sir Orfeo lies not in creation but in adaptation, in refashioning for his own purposes material which he shares with countless generations of popular story-tellers. In its chivalric splendour and in its concern with love, honour and loyalty, the poem mirrors his tastes and preoccupations and those of his age, but for its rich and curious detail and for its very subject it draws upon beliefs which were to live on almost unchanged for centuries in the more distant parts of the British Isles.¹ All...