The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun is a poem of 508 lines, written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1930 and published in Welsh Review in December, 1945 (vol. IV, No, 4).
Aotrou and Itroun are Breton words for "lord" and "lady". The poem is modelled on the genre of the "Breton lay" popular in Middle English literature of the 12th century, and it explores the conflict of heroic or chivalric values and Christianity, and their relation to the institution of marriage.
A major source for the poem has been identified as the Breton song 'Le Seigneur Nann et la Fee', which Tolkien probably knew through Wimberly's Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads (1928).
Description:
The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun is a poem of 508 lines, written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1930 and published in Welsh Review in December, 1945 (vol. IV, No, 4). Aotrou and Itroun are Breton words for "lord" and "lady". The poem is modelled on the genre of the "Breton lay" popular in Middle English literature of the 12th century, and it explores the conflict of heroic or chivalric values and Christianity, and their relation to the institution of marriage. A major source for the poem has been identified as the Breton song 'Le Seigneur Nann et la Fee', which Tolkien probably knew through Wimberly's Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads (1928).