𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔄𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔮𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔱
An ANTHOLOGY of
FANTASTIC PROSE and VERSE
with COMMENTARY
---
Compiled by Mr. Jack M. O'Donnell
24/4/25 --- ON SHAPE-SHIFTING CONTESTS
INTRODUCTION
As an addendum to yesterday’s discussion of Jack Rowland, today’s entry be a brief examination of a particular trope in folklore, namely contests wherein one or both contenders use magic to adopt various forms. This is a widespread and long-enduring mytheme, with precedent reaching back as far as Greek mythology, and it would be neither practical nor productive to try and catalogue every every attested instance, so I shall restrict myself to those narrative traditions with which I am most familiar; Old Irish literature and Anglo-Scottish ballads.
TÁIN BÓ CÚAILNGE
TBA
Cú Chulainn i í e é a á o óTHE TWA MAGICIANS
In this ballad (Roud 1350, Child 44), a hideous blacksmith attempts to court a fair maiden. She rebuffs him, but he persists, so:
The lady, she turnt into a dove,
And flew into the air,
The smith became an old cock pigeon,
And they flew pair-and-pair.
What follows is perhaps the longest and most elaborate shape-shifting contest in all of songdom. She cannot escape him as a dove, so she becomes a mare "dark as the night is black", but he turns into a golden saddle and thereby takes hold of her. Shifting into a hare she slips through his clutches, only for him to become a greyhound. The wizardry only proves cleverer from there:
And she’s become a mulberry tree,
A mulberry tree in the wood,
But he’s become the morning dew,
And sprinkled her where she stood.
Then she became a hot griddle,
But he became a cake,
And every move the poor girl made,
The blacksmith was her mate.
She’s turnt into a full-dress ship,
A-sailing ‘pon the sea,
But the smith’s become a bold captain,
And aboard of her went he.
So the lady she turnt into a cloud,
A-floating away in the air,
Ah, but he became a lightning dart,
And struck right into her!
Freud or Frazer might found themselves preoccupied with the sexual imagery of the ballad (e.g. the lightning dart is implicitly phallic), but we are primarily concerned with the literal events of the narrative. As mentioned in my commentary for Jack Rowland, the shape-shifting contest, so pervasive in these old stories, presents a far more interesting and mystical approach to a combat between sorcerers than shooting beams of energy at one another. There is much opportunity for creativity in such narratives, and it allows one to showcase not merely the power of one’s wizards but their intelligence.
LA BELLE EULALIE
JACK ROWLAND
As the reader should remember from yesterday, when Jack Rowland the black mare descended into the barrow and were confronted by its elven king, a contest of shifting shape arose between the Elf King and the mare. On the heretofore discussed thwarting sequence of fire => water => fish => net => boat, no more need be said.