''Desiré'' (also ''Désiré'', ''Lai del Desire'') is an
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
Breton lai
A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. Lais are short (typically 600–1000 lines), rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-w ...
, named after its protagonist. It is one of the so-called
Anonymous Lais
Anonymous may refer to:
* Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown
** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author
* Anon ...
. It is 'a fairy-mistress story set in Scotland'. Translated into
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
, the poem also became part of the ''
Strengleikar'', and the translation is relevant to establishing the archetype of the French text.
Manuscripts
*P. Cologny-Gevève, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, Phillips 3713, f. 7v, col. 2--12v. col. 1. Anglo-Norman, thirteenth-century.
*S. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, f. 10v, col. 1--15v, col. 1. Francien, c. 1300.
*N. Uppsala,
De la Gardie, 4-7, pp. 37–48.
[Glyn S. Burgess, ''The Old French Narrative Lay: An Analytical Bibliography'' (Cambridge: Brewer, 1995), p. 44.]
Editions
* Margaret E. Grimes, ''The Lays of Desiré, Graelent and Melion: Edition of the Texts with an Introduction'' (New York: Institute of French Studies, 1928).
* Alexandre Micha, ''Lais féeriques des XIIe et XIIIe siècles'' (Paris: GF-Flammarion, 1992)
References
Lais (poetic form)
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