Part 9 (1/2)

[Footnote 191: Wolf, _Mythologie des fees et des elfes_, 1828, in 8vo.

A. Maury, _Les fees au moyen age_, 1843, in 18mo, and _Croyances et legendes du moyen age_, Paris, 1896, in 8vo.]

Near by, on the border of the wood, was an ancient beech, overhanging the highroad to Neufchateau and casting a grateful shade.[192] The beech was venerated almost as piously as had been those trees which were held sacred in the days before apostolic missionaries evangelised Gaul.[193] No hand dared touch its branches, which swept the ground. ”Even the lilies are not more beautiful,”[194] said a rustic. Like the spring the tree had many names. It was called _l'Arbre-des-Dames_, _l'Arbre-aux-Loges-les-Dames_, _l'Arbre-des-Fees_, _l'Arbre-Charmine-Fee-de-Bourlemont_, _le Beau-Mai_.[195]

[Footnote 192: Richer, _Histoire ma.n.u.scrite de Jeanne d'Arc_, ms. fr.

10,448, fols. 14, 15.]

[Footnote 193: For tree wors.h.i.+p, see an article by M. Henry Carnoy in _La tradition_, 15 March, 1889.]

[Footnote 194: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 422.]

[Footnote 195: _Ibid._, index, under the words _Arbre des Fees_.]

Every one at Domremy knew that fairies existed and that they had been seen under _l'Arbre-aux-Loges-les-Dames_. In the old days, when Berthe was spinning, a lord of Bourlemont, called Pierre Granier,[196] became a fairy's knight, and kept his tryst with her at eve under the beech-tree. A romance told of their loves. One of Jeanne's G.o.dmothers, who was a scholar at Neufchateau, had heard this story, which closely resembled that tale of Melusina so well known in Lorraine.[197] But a doubt remained as to whether fairies still frequented the beech-tree.

Some believed they did, others thought they did not. Beatrix, another of Jeanne's G.o.dmothers, used to say: ”I have heard tell that fairies came to the tree in the old days. But for their sins they come there no longer.”[198]

[Footnote 196: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 404.]

[Footnote 197: _Ibid._, p. 404, _pa.s.sim_. _Simple Crayon de la n.o.blesse des ducs de Lorraine et de Bar_, in Le Brun des Charmettes'

_Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc_, vol. i, p. 266. Jules Baudot, _Les princesses Yolande et les ducs de Bar de la famille des Valois_, first part. _Melusine_, Paris, 1901, in 8vo, p. 121.]

[Footnote 198: _Propter eorum peccata_, in the _Trial_, vol. ii, p.

396. There is no doubt as to the meaning of these words.]

This simple-minded woman meant that the fairies were the enemies of G.o.d and that the priest had driven them away. Jean Morel, Jeanne's G.o.dfather, believed the same.[199]

[Footnote 199: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 390.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOUSE OF JOAN OF ARC AT DOMREMY IN 1419]

Indeed on Ascension Eve, on Rogation days and Ember days, crosses were carried through the fields and the priest went to _l'Arbre-des-Fees_ and chanted the Gospel of St. John. He chanted it also at the Gooseberry Spring and at the other springs in the parish.[200] For the exorcising of evil spirits there was nothing like the Gospel of St.

John.[201]

[Footnote 200: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 397.]

[Footnote 201: _Ibid._, p. 390. Bergier, _Dictionnaire de theologie_, under the word _Conjuration_.]

My Lord Aubert d'Ourches held that there had been no fairies at Domremy for twenty or thirty years.[202] On the other hand there were those in the village who believed that Christians still held converse with them and that Thursday was the trysting day.

[Footnote 202: _Trial_, vol. i, p. 187.]

Yet another of Jeanne's G.o.dmothers, the wife of the mayor Aubrit, had with her own eyes seen fairies under the tree. She had told her G.o.ddaughter. And Aubrit's wife was known to be no witch or soothsayer but a good woman and a circ.u.mspect.[203]

[Footnote 203: _Ibid._, pp. 67, 209.]

In all this Jeanne suspected witchcraft. For her own part she had never met the fairies under the tree. But she would not have said that she had not seen fairies elsewhere.[204] Fairies are not like angels; they do not always appear what they really are.[205]

[Footnote 204: _Ibid._, pp. 178, 209 _et seq._]

[Footnote 205: For the traditions of fairies at Domremy and for Jeanne's opinion of them, see _Trial_, index, under the word _Fees_.]