{"id":9000,"date":"2023-02-22T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/?p=9000"},"modified":"2023-06-01T21:15:46","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T01:15:46","slug":"longfellows-tales-of-the-wayside-inn-early-american-medievalism-and-ethnonationalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/2023\/02\/22\/longfellows-tales-of-the-wayside-inn-early-american-medievalism-and-ethnonationalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Longfellow’s Tales of the Wayside Inn<\/em>: Early American Medievalism and Ethnonationalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

American mythology is filled with larger-than-life figures, like the axe-wielding Paul Bunyan and the rattlesnake-handling Buffalo Bill. Some of them are historical or pseudo-historical, such as Davy Crocket and Daniel Boone (who both famously die in the Alamo siege during the Texas revolution). Of course, there is little ground more fertile for American mythology than the colonial and revolutionary historical periods, with George Washington\u2019s cherry tree and Paul Revere\u2019s famous midnight ride to alert colonists in Lexington and Concord of the British army’s approach. Both of my latter examples demonstrate how historical figures are imagined and reimagined by subsequent generations of Americans, considering that Washington probably never actually chopped his cherry tree, nor did Paul Revere quite make it to Lexington or Concord to warn that the redcoats were coming toward the rebel munitions stored there. Indeed, all of the aforementioned mythic American figures and stories are somewhat less invested in historical fact and more in the self-fashioning of a European ethnonationalist identity in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early America as elsewhere, storytellers and mythographers, such as Washington Irving (who famously wrote “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”<\/a> about a little haunted town in New York), begin not only looking to the colonial period but also across the pond to European ethnonationalist antiquarianism in the construction of distinctly American mythology following a successful revolutionary war overthrowing the British government. This is observable in another of Irving\u2019s works, \u201cRip Van Winkle\u201d<\/a> which tells the tale of a man who meets with a dwarvish fairy in the Catskill Mountains and falls magically asleep for the bulk of his life, only to awaken as an old man and find his children grown. This fantastic story brings early medieval fairy lore\u2014elves, dwarves and the like\u2014into the American frontier and invites these supernatural beings from the \u201cold world\u201d into the newly formed United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Illustration from Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.<\/span> prior to the start of the short story, “Rip Van Winkle” (1848).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story begins with an explicit epitaph from the tomb of one Diedrich Knickerbocker that invokes the pre-Christian Germanic mythic figure “Woden, God of Saxons” (1):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

By Woden, God of Saxons,
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday,
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre <\/p>\n(Irving , “Rip Van Winkle” 1-5).<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In order to grow, myths need both substance and storyteller\u2014in other words both the story itself and persons to pass the tale along to others. The art of storytelling and oral narratives are seemingly as old as humankind, but storytelling as a pastime is regularly associated with the medieval period, made famous by late medieval works of literature such as Giovanni Boccaccio\u2019s Decameron<\/a><\/em> and Geoffrey Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales<\/a><\/em>. Indeed, in the tradition of English literature, Chaucer\u2019s work looms large, and has inspired numerous imitators and allusions even in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret Atwood\u2019s book, The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a><\/em> (1985), follows in this tradition, and her novel\u2019s name serves both as a pejorative toward the historical period\u2014suggesting the future could go backwards in time in terms of social progress with respect to religiosity, intellectual freedom and gender equality\u2014and as a simultaneous homage to the literary influence of Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales<\/em>. Atwood, whose novel is understood by the reader to be an academic transcription of a personal diary, logged on a voice recorder and being discussed centuries later after the log is transcribed and analyzed by a scholar who gives the book its editorial title included in the back \u201cHistorical Notes” section of the book:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe superscription \u2018The Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u2019 was appended to it by Professor Wade, partly in homage to the great Geoffrey Chaucer\u2026I am sure all puns were intentional, particularly that having to do with the archaic vulgar signification of the word tail\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n(Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale<\/em> 300-301).<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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“America’s Oldest Inn, Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury Massachusetts<\/em>,” photograph by Constantine Gregory (April 29th, 2014).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Harvard professor and early American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, follows Chaucer\u2019s model in his collection of poems, Tales of the Wayside Inn<\/em>, where a group of fictitious European colonialists meet for some storytelling at what is now a famous inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts. As fate would have it, my maternal grandparents happened to live right down the road from the Wayside Inn in Marlborough and as a child they would take me and my siblings to play in the nearby woods and explore the nearby grist mill where I would search for dinosaurs and dragons with my twin brother and younger sister. So, you can imagine, I\u2019ve had my share of meals and heard my own share of tales at the Wayside Inn\u2014in fact my father\u2019s second marriage held its reception there\u2014so the place has special meaning to me, a sort of gravitas<\/em>. Having grown up a few towns over in Massachusetts, I always found the inn and surrounding area charming, but the historical and literary influence of the space in which I have lived most my life continues to find new ways of inspiring me, especially as I have recently returned to work and teach in Marlborough and have begun to reconnect once again with the area. This brought my mind back to Longfellow\u2019s tales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Longfellow writing on the eve of the American Civil War is none other than the author credited with reimagining the story of Paul Revere\u2019s midnight ride, in his \u201cThe Landlord\u2019s Tale\u201d<\/a> also known as “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” in which American revolutionary figure, Paul Revere, is the dashing hero who delivers the all-important message, undercutting Samuel Prescott\u2019s successful journey out of the story entirely, and erasing Revere\u2019s capture and partial failure by replacing it with a version of events in which Revere is victorious in his epic quest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,\u2014
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere!<\/p>\n(Longfellow, “The Landlord’s Tale: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” 199-130).<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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“Paul Revere’s Ride, April 19, 1775” by Thomas Addis Emmet, 1828-1919, New York Public Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other tales told by European colonials at the Wayside include: \u201cThe Student’s Tale\u201d \u201cThe Spanish Jew’s Tale\u201d \u201cThe Sicilian’s Tale\u201d \u201cThe Musician’s Tale\u201d \u201cThe Theologian’s Tale\u201d and \u201cThe Poet’s Tale\u201d. These titles chime with Chaucer\u2019s titles named for each distinct pilgrim on the road to Canterbury, some of which include \u201cThe Knight\u2019s Tale,\u201d \u201cThe Miller\u2019s Tale,\u201d \u201cThe Wife of Bath\u2019s Tale,\u201d \u201cThe Nun\u2019s Priest\u2019s Tale,\u201d and \u201cThe Pardoner\u2019s Tale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My blog today will end with a brief introduction to Longfellow’s \u201cThe Musician’s Tales\u201d<\/a> which is also called \u201cThe Saga of King Olaf\u201d in reference to Old Norse-Icelandic Saga Olafs konungs Tryggvasunar<\/a><\/em>. Structurally, the tale is the longest tale\u2014a sort of epic poem\u2014with subtitled chapters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

i. The Challenge of Thor
ii. King Olaf’s Return
iii. Thora of Rimol
iv. Queen Sigrid the Haughty
v. The Skerry of Shrieks
vi. The Wraith of Odin
vii. Iron-Beard
viii. Gudrun
ix. Thangbrand the Priest
x. Raud the Strong
xi. Bishop Sigurd at Salten Fiord
xii. King Olaf’s Christmas
xiii. The Building of the Long Serpent
xiv. The Crew of the Long Serpent
xv. A Little Bird in the Air
xvi. Queen Thyri and the Angelica Stalks
xvii. King Svend of the Forked Beard
xviii. King Olaf and Earl Sigvald
xix. King Olaf’s War-Horns
xx. Einar Tamberskelver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Illustration for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Saga of King Olaf” from Tales of a Wayside Inn<\/em>. Titled “And his ships went sailing, sailing,” from section II: “King Olaf’s Return.” From The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<\/em> (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1899).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This heavily alludes to Old Norse-Icelandic Heimskringla<\/a><\/em> which Longfellow had access to via Samuel Laings\u2019 modern English translation published in 1844. In doing so, this tale draws directly from Old-Norse Icelandic saga literature and serves to connect early American literature and mythography with early medieval Europe and antiquarian notions of \u201cThe Germanic\u201d and \u201cAnglo-Saxon\u201d ethnonationalist identities. The first poem, \u201cThe Challenge of Thor\u201d<\/a> demonstrates how Viking warrior ethics and mythology are interwoven directly into early American literature and mythography. The challenge reads almost as an invocation to the pagan god of Northern medieval Europe in a romantic display of American eurocentrism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I am the God Thor,
I am the War God,
I am the Thunderer!
Here in my Northland,
My fastness and fortress,
Reign I forever!

Here amid icebergs
Rule I the nations;
This is my hammer,
Mi\u00f6lner the mighty;
Giants and sorcerers
Cannot withstand it!

These are the gauntlets
Wherewith I wield it,
And hurl it afar off;
This is my girdle;
Whenever I brace it,
Strength is redoubled!

The light thou beholdest
Stream through the heavens,
In flashes of crimson,
Is but my red beard
Blown by the night-wind,
Affrighting the nations!

Jove is my brother;
Mine eyes are the lightning;
The wheels of my chariot
Roll in the thunder,
The blows of my hammer
Ring in the earthquake!

Force rules the world still,
Has ruled it, shall rule it;
Meekness is weakness,
Strength is triumphant,
Over the whole earth
Still is it Thor’s-Day!

Thou art a God too,
O Galilean!
And thus single-handed
Unto the combat,
Gauntlet or Gospel,
Here I defy thee!<\/p>\n(Longfellow, “The Musician’s Tale: The Challenge of Thor” 1-42).<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The references to hazardous weather and natural disasters, such as earthquakes, lightning and thunder, and allusions to Mj\u00f6lnir (10) and Thor’s girdle (16), are enveloped in the themes of \u201cForce rules the world still\u201d (31) and \u201cMeekness is weakness\u201d (33) in the poem. Additional references to Thor\u2019s \u201cred beard\u201d (22), his goat-drawn \u201cchariot\u201d (27) and his syncretism with Thor and Zeus is dramatized in the line \u201cJove is my brother\u201d (25). As Irving does with Wednesday as \u201cWodensday\u201d (2) in \u201cRip Van Winkle,\u201d Longfellow too emphasizes how Thursday derives from \u201cThor\u2019s-Day\u201d (36) and thus highlights the pervasive cultural resonance rooted in the medieval lore sung by the musician in their tale. The challenge ends with a direct conflict between Thor and Christ, the \u201cGalilean\u201d (38). Thor names Christ a \u201cGod too\u201d (37) but stresses his own continued cultural influence which Thor frames as an affront to Christianity, juxtaposing \u201cGauntlet or Gospel\u201d (42) and adamantly opposing Christian virtues by challenging Christ\u2019s ethical superiority. This rhetorical move reminds the reader, and perhaps also many early Americans living in the antebellum United States, that United States’ cultural inheritance was repeatedly upheld as distinctly European, and that eurocentric ethnonationalism would remain a shared legacy in both the \u201cold\u201d and \u201cnew\u201d worlds thereby helping to erase and ignore indigenous and non-white perspectives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Colorized photograph of American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882), late 1800s (photo by Stock Montage\/Getty Images).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Further discussion of Henry Longfellow\u2019s medievalism in \u201cThe Saga of King Olaf\u201d centered on some of the subsequent sections will be featured in a blog later this spring, so check back soon!

Richard Fahey, Ph.D.
Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited:<\/strong><\/em>

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale<\/a>.<\/em> McClelland and Stewart Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1985.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron<\/a><\/em>, trans. by John Payne. The Villon Society, London, 1886.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales<\/a>.<\/em> Harvard University, 2023.

Heimskringla<\/a>,<\/em> ed. by Finnur J\u00f3nsson. Copenhagen, 1911.

Helgisaga \u00d3l\u00e1fs konungs Haraldssonar<\/a><\/em>, ed. Gu\u00f0ni J\u00f3nsson. Reykjav\u00edk, 1957.

Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle”<\/a> in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent<\/em>., 1819.

\u2014. “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”<\/a> in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent<\/em>., 1819.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Tales of the Wayside Inn.<\/a><\/em> Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Further Reading:<\/strong><\/em>

Calin, William. “What Tales of a Wayside Inn Tells Us about Longfellow and about Chaucer”<\/a> in Studies in Medievalism XII<\/em> – Film and Fiction: Reviewing the Middle Ages<\/em>, ed. by Tom Shippey and Martin Arnold, 197-214. Boydell & Brewer; D. S. Brewer, 2003.

Lowrie, Robyn. “My American Poetry Review of Henry W. Longfellow\u2019s ‘The Belfry of Bruges.'”<\/a> My French Quest: Adventures in Literature, French Culture and Language Acquisition<\/em>, 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

O’Donnell, Kerry. “The Handmaid’s Canterbury Knight’s Tale.”<\/a> Utopian, Dystopian, Fantasy Fiction<\/em>, 2016.

Sheko, Tania. “What\u2019s in a Tale? The Canterbury Tales and The Handmaid\u2019s Tale.”<\/a> Red or Dead<\/em>, 2017.

Trzcinski, Matthew.“The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> Author Changed the Original Name of the Book.” <\/a>Showbiz Cheat Sheet<\/em>, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American mythology is filled with larger-than-life figures, like the axe-wielding Paul Bunyan and the rattlesnake-handling Buffalo Bill. Some of them are historical or pseudo-historical, such as Davy Crocket and Daniel Boone (who both famously die in the Alamo siege during the Texas revolution). Of course, there is little ground more fertile for American mythology than … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Longfellow’s Tales of the Wayside Inn<\/em>: Early American Medievalism and Ethnonationalism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1886,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[264206,73957],"tags":[75960,518537,518536,518515,518531,518541,518538,518530,518539,518546,518542,518543,518544,518545,518533,518535,518532,518540],"class_list":["post-9000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-disciplines","category-north-seas","tag-canterbury-tales","tag-early-american-literature","tag-enthnonationalism","tag-geoffrey-chaucer","tag-henry-longfellow","tag-margaret-atwood","tag-mythography","tag-paul-revere","tag-rip-van-winkle","tag-the-challenge-of-thor","tag-the-handmaids-tale","tag-the-landlords-tale","tag-the-musicians-tale","tag-the-saga-of-saint-olaf","tag-thor","tag-thursday","tag-washington-irving","tag-wayside-inn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1886"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9000"}],"version-history":[{"count":68,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9234,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9000\/revisions\/9234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/manuscript-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}