Melion and Biclarel - University of Liverpool

Two Old French Werwolf Lays
of Marie’s hero and the magically transformed Melion, who, at his lowest ebb,
regains his optimism and watches keenly as Arthur’s ship approaches the coast,
recognising the travellers by their shields, hung over the side of the ship. This
scene itself is justification, and perhaps indeed the reason, for the substitution of
Arthur for the unidentified king of Marie’s text, since the use of the familiar
names of the Arthurian world serves to exemplify and accent Melion’s human
reactions here, allowing the audience a far greater appreciation of the situation
than would an unnamed king and knights. The passage emphasises Melion’s
fundamental humanity in describing, in effective, simply-constructed terms, his
understanding of these man-made objects and the meaning of their devices, and
in his response to the sight, his resurging hope that he will regain human shape.
The wolf-Melion’s subsequent actions are considered. He waits until the
company has made camp, then calmly walks into the tent and straight up to
Arthur. Here is no suggestion of supplication, rather a sense of the hero taking his
rightful place in the court as he approaches Arthur and settles himself at his feet.
Arthur feeds Melion meat and gives him wine, and the wolf accompanies him
everywhere, refusing to be parted from him. This last point is, of course, also
found in Bisclavret, but where Marie’s narrative continues to present a
relationship of suppliant and protector, Melion seems to be trying to perform his
rightful human role as escort and entourage, seen especially in the description of
man and wolf entering the Irish king’s castle: ‘Qant li rois monta el doignon, / Li
leus li tint par le giron’ (vv. 475-76).
This visit to the Irish king’s court is, of course, another difference from
Marie’s lay. In Bisclavret, the wolf appears only in the king’s own court; and he
has spent some time there before his attack on his wife’s new husband, and later
on his wife, forces the court to realise that the wolf’s strange tameness and
unusual ferocity must have some reason. Here, the setting for the wolf’s attack on
the faithless squire has political ramifications, since it takes place in the Irish
court and on a member of the Irish king’s household; furthermore, Arthur has had
little time to judge the degree of his wolf’s domestication. Yet Arthur continues
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