Trilby, or the Fairy of Argyll
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Trilby, or the Fairy of Argyll (Trilby, ou le lutin d’Argail) is an 1822 literary fairy tale novella by French author Charles Nodier (1780–1844). In it, a Scottish household spirit falls in love with the married woman of the house, who at first has him banished, then misses him, and eventually returns his love, both of them dying at the end. It was a popular work of the Romantic movement, published in multiple editions and translations. It also gave birth to adaptations as multiple ballets, including La Sylphide, and Trilby, and the opera The Mountain Sylph, some of which only retained the basic idea of love between a fairy and a Scottish peasant, but otherwise greatly diverged from the original plot.
Plot
Trilby is a Scottish household spirit living in the hearth of Dougal the fisherman and his boatwoman wife Jeanie. Trilby alternates between taking care of the cottage and boats and playing tricks. He is in love with Jeanie, but only appears when she is half dreaming. When she tells Dougal about him, Dougal calls Ronald, a monk of Balva monastery, who pronounces an exorcism: if Trilby does not leave the cottage, Ronald will bind him in a birch tree in the burial ground for a thousand years. Trilby is not seen again. Jeanie misses him, and dreams of him not as a mischievous child-like being, but as a handsome youthful chief of Clan MacFarlane, who was exiled for disobeying the monks of Balva. Without Trilby, Dougal has bad luck in fishing.
A year after the exorcism, Dougal and Jeanie join a pilgrimage to pray to Saint Columba at Balva monastery, where Dougal means to pray for treasure in a precious casket, and Jeanie to forget Trilby. There, Ronald tells the pilgrims that most of the MacFarlane family is cursed for refusing to pay tribute to the monks, that charity or mercy towards evil is a sin, and asks them to join him in pronouncing a curse on all the spirits of Scotland. Jeanie unveils a painting of John Trilby MacFarlane in the monastery which she recognizes as Trilby, and instead prays to Saint Columba for support for her charity, her decision not to curse Trilby.
A little old man hires Jeanie to boat him to Dougal's cottage, and during the trip says that he is Trilby's father. When Jeanie admits that Trilby has been banished, due to her, but that she loves him, the man reveals himself as Trilby, and says that Columba was his brother, so her prayers drew him back; he is not afraid of a thousand years of captivity. Trilby jumps overboard when Dougal appears with a jeweled ivory casket that his nets found in the lake. Jeanie brings the casket home, and hears Trilby's voice from within it, asking her to admit she loves him, which will release him from the box, but she refuses, to be faithful to her marriage vows. Ronald comes to visit Dougal, and Jeanie sees them praying at the burial ground by a great birch tree dedicated to the Saint, from which she hears Trilby's voice dying away. She throws herself into an open grave and dies. Her gravestone is marked with her last words, "A thousand years are but a moment to those who are never meant to be separated."
Analysis
Trilby is a fantasy of the Romantic movement, popular in 1800–1850, which supported emotion over modern society. The monk Ronald represents society's authority, in banishing the imp Trilby, and ordering the community to join him in a malediction against the spirits. Jeanie, however, favors emotion, at first charity, mercy towards Trilby (which Ronald says is a sin, a contradiction as charity is a traditional Christian virtue), then feels love towards him, despite her marital vows. The revelation that the MacFarlanes were economic rivals of the monks points out Ronald's hypocrisy. Dougal is representative of a different facet of society, greed, as he is so interested in the jeweled casket that he does not notice that he is losing his wife's love. In dying, Jeanie both loses and wins, as she escapes from society and believes she will outlast it and eventually be reunited with Trilby.
