Ys - Development of The Legend

Development of The Legend

While legends and literature about Gradlon are much older, such as the Lai de Graelent by Marie de France probably written in the late 12th century, the story of Ys appears to have developed between the end of the fifteenth century and the seventeenth century. An early mention of Ys appears in Pierre Le Baud's Cronicques et ystoires des Bretons in which Gradlon is the king of the city, but Dahut is not mentioned. Bernard d'Argentre's La histoire de Bretagne and mystery plays on the life of St. Winwaloe, in the sixteenth century, also provide early references to the city. The version of the story of Ys which appears in Albert Le Grand's Vie des Saincts de la Bretagne Armorique published in the seventeenth century already contains all the basic elements of the later story and has been said to be the first.

The legend of Ys was confined to the folk of Brittany until 1839, when T. Hersart de la Villemarqué published a collection of popular songs collected from oral tradition, the Barzaz Breizh. The collection achieved a wide distribution and brought Breton folk culture into European awareness. In the second edition, the poem 'Livaden Geris' ('The Submersion of Ker-Is') appeared. The same basic story elements are present, but in this version the holy man is instead St. Corentin. It appears that elements of the text of this version were adapted from the medieval Welsh poem 'Seithennin' about the legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod, a very similar Welsh legend about a land that disappeared beneath the ocean as a result of human error. In this version, Dahut steals the key at the incitement of a lover. Also, here the element of Dahut as a mermaid or morgen has appeared as the last verses of the song refer to a fisherman seeing a mermaid combing her hair and singing a sad song.

Emile Souvestre's Le Foyer Breton also played a great part in making the legend widely known, and many 19th century English tellings of the story are closely derived from the Foyer Breton's tale "Keris". In Souvestre's telling, the character of the Devil disguised as a man with a red beard has appeared.