Ash

The Lay of Ash (or La Fresne) is an Anglo-Norman story recorded by Marie De France and attested in British Library MS Harley 978. It is suitable for shows set after 1155.

## Summary

Ash, a girl raised as a foundling, is rejected by her lover Gurun for a political marriage to a girl called Hazel. On the wedding night, Hazel's mother discovers that Ash is Hazel's long lost twin.

## Story

It happened that the wife of a knight gave birth to twins. The wife of another knight slandered her, saying that in order to have two children at one time, the woman must must certainly have lain with two different fathers. Imagine the slanderer's horror, then, to find that not so long afterwards, she herself becomes the mother of twins. At first, she plans to kill one of the children to hide her shame, but a handmaiden offers to hide the child instead. An ornate brocade is wrapped around the baby girl, who is left under an ash tree outside of an abbey. A porter finds the girl and names her Ash after the tree under which she was found. Ash is given to the abbess to raise.

Ash flourishes in the care of the gentle abbess and grows into an exceedingly beautiful woman with a great generosity of spirit. One day a wealthy lord named Gurun is passing the abbey when his horse throws a shoe. Unable to continue his journey, he dines at the abbey where Ash serves him at the table and the two fall in love. Seeking an excuse to see Ash more often, Gurun becomes a benefactor of the abbey and the two begin an affair. Fearing the wrath of the abbess if Ash became pregnant while living at the abbey, Gurun convinces her to run away with him.

Gurun's knights become concerned about his obsession with Ash. If he does not marry a noblewoman for the sake of a legitimate heir, his lands and lineage will be lost upon his death. The knights find a noble and beautiful woman named Hazel and convince Gurun to marry her in order to produce an heir. While the marriage is being planned, Hazel's mother moves in and learns of Ash's existence. At first she is determined to remove Ash from the household and send her away, but changes her mind after meeting Ash and discovering that she is kind and generous and only wants what's best for Gudrun.

On the wedding day, lacking any other gift, Ash spreads upon Gurun and Hazel's marriage bed the only item she has of value: the brocade in which she was wrapped as a baby. When Hazel's mother sees this, she is stunned. For the brocade is the same one in which she had wrapped Hazel's twin sister whom she had abandoned at birth: an act she had regretted ever since.

Hazel and her mother welcome Ash into the family. Gurun's marriage is annulled and a new suitor is found for Hazel, leaving Ash and Gurun free to wed and live happily ever after.

## Notes

This story is an excellent example of how the culture was slowly shifting from marriage being seen in practical businesslike terms towards a mindset idealising romantic love. Gurun and even Ash's willingness to pursue a pragmatic marriage between Gurun and Hazel is an example of the former, while in a later version of this story - Galeran - he is not willing to marry another until he becomes wrongly convinced that Ash is dead.

The accusation of Hazel's mother that twins must be a result of adultery shows up in multiple stories from the period indicating that it may have been a common accusation. On the other hand, all of the accusations in these stories are unfounded, so it's possibly a belief that was already seen as outdated or incorrect during our period.

The story has motifs common to both modern fairytales and other medieval tales, in particular that of the foundling child whose noble birth is only discovered later by an item she has kept with her. There are also divergences: in modern fairytales the person who tries to abandon the child is typically a step-parent or guardian. Having a birth parent do so makes a story seem much darker to modern audiences.

## Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le\_Fresne\_(lai)

https://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/romances/freine.html

https://reflection.eleusinianm.co.uk/portals/0/pdf/lai-le-freine.pdf