Mador of the Moor

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Mador of the Moor is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in 1816. Consisting of an Introduction, five cantos, and a Conclusion, it runs to more than two thousand lines, mostly in the Spenserian stanza. Set in late medieval Scotland, it tells of the seduction of a young maiden by a charismatic minstrel and her journey to Stirling in search of him, leading to the revelation that he is the king and finally to their marriage and the christening of their son.

Contents

Background

In the autumn of 1813 Hogg spent two or three weeks at Kinnaird House near Dunkeld in Perthshire, where his hostess Eliza Izett urged him to write something about the River Tay. He decided to produce a narrative rather than a purely descriptive poem. [1] He seems to have completed composition in February 1814, [2] but decided to hold publication back to allow The Pilgrims of the Sun (written shortly after the completion of Mador) [3] to appear first, in December 1814 (dated 1815). Hogg corrected proofs of Mador in the spring of 1816, and it finally achieved publication in April of that year.

Editions

Mador of the Moor; A Poem. By James Hogg, Author of the Queen's Wake &c. was first published in Edinburgh by William Blackwood on 22 April 1816, [4] and in London by John Murray. It was reprinted in the fourth and final volume of Hogg's Poetical Works published by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh in 1822. This edition omitted 'The Harper's Song' from Canto First, including it as a separate item in the second (Midsummer Night Dreams) volume with the title 'The Gyre Caryl'. It was to appear again, reworked in a modernised and more reader-friendly form, as 'Superstition and Grace', in the annual The Bijou for 1829, and finally in Hogg's A Queer Book in 1832. [5]

A critical edition, by James E. Barcus, appeared in 2005 as Volume 16 in the Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of the Complete Works of James Hogg published by Edinburgh University Press.

Summary

Introduction: The poet addresses the River Tay.

Canto First (The Hunting): During a hunting expedition the King of Scots (a combination of the 14th-century Robert II and the 16th-century James V) [6] and his followers hear 'The Harper's Song' sung by the minstrel Gilbert of Shiel, telling of an old man caring for a baby girl serenaded by fairies. Just such an old man arrives and beckons the king away: when the monarch returns, he finds that his hunters have been mysteriously slain.

Canto Second (The Minstrel): Ila Moore, betrothed to her father's liege lord Albert of the Glen, is wooed by a charismatic and capricious figure, the visiting minstrel Mador of the Moor, who flees when attacked by Albert.

Canto Third (The Cottage): Albert expels Ila and her parents before she gives birth to Mador's son.

Canto Fourth (The Palmer): Ila sets out to find Mador. On the way she is joined by a protective palmer, who confesses that in the past his sexual misconduct led to infanticide.

Canto Fifth (The Christening): Arriving at Stirling, Ila is informed that the name of Mador is unknown there, but through the intervention of the Abbot of Dunfermline it is revealed that Mador is the king. The couple are married and their son christened with his father's name.

Conclusion: The poet addresses his harp, urging it to return from its Highland excursion to its native Border region.

Reception

There were ten reviews of Mador of the Moor, evidencing a wide variety of responses. There was considerable appreciation of Hogg's powers of natural description, but a widespread view that he was less happy with the Spenserian stanza than he had been with the ballad form. The supernatural elements were a cause of discontent. [7]

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The Queen's Wake is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in 1813. It consists of an Introduction, three Nights, and a Conclusion, totalling over five thousand lines, and there are also authorial notes. The poem presents the contributions, in various metres, of a series of Scottish bards to a competition organised by Mary, Queen of Scots on her arrival in Scotland from France in 1561.

The Mountain Bard (1807), containing 21 poems, was James Hogg's first substantial poetical publication.

The Spy was a periodical directed at the Edinburgh market, edited by James Hogg, with himself as principal contributor, which appeared from 1 September 1810 to 24 August 1811. It combined features of two types of periodical established in the 18th century, the essay periodical and the miscellany. As an outsider, Hogg used his periodical to give a critical view of the dominant upper-class culture of Edinburgh, with Walter Scott and Francis Jeffrey as its leading lights, and to launch his career as a writer of fiction as well as poetry.

The Pilgrims of the Sun is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in December 1814, dated 1815. It consists of four cantos, totalling somewhat less than 2000 lines. In similar vein to 'Kilmeny' in The Queen's Wake (1813), it tells of a young woman's journey to an ideal world and her return to earth.

Winter Evening Tales is a collection by James Hogg of four novellas, a number of short stories and sketches, and three poems, published in two volumes in 1820. Eleven of the items are reprinted, with varying degrees of revision, from Hogg's periodical The Spy (1810‒11).

Queen Hynde (1825) is an epic poem in six cantos by James Hogg. Set in western Scotland in the sixth century, it tells the story of the defeat of an invading Norwegian army by forces loyal to Queen Hynde, advised by Columba, and of the winning of her hand by the legitimate claimant of the throne Eiden. It is mostly in octosyllabic couplets.

Songs, By the Ettrick Shepherd is a collection of 113 songs by James Hogg published in 1831. All except one of the songs had previously appeared in print, mostly either in Hogg's earlier publications or in a range of periodicals.

A Queer Book (1832) is a collections of 26 poems, mostly short narratives, by James Hogg, all but two of which had been previously published, more than half of them in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Altrive Tales (1832) by James Hogg is the only volume to have been published of a projected twelve-volume set with that title bringing together his collected prose fiction. It consists of an updated autobiographical memoir, a new novella, and two reprinted short stories.

Tales of the Wars of Montrose is a set of six fictional narratives by James Hogg published in 1835. Each of them centres on the fortunes of an individual during the civil conflict of the 1640s in Scotland.

A Series of Lay Sermons is a set of eleven moral and religious discourses by James Hogg published in 1834.

Scottish Pastorals (1801), containing five poems and two songs, was the first book published by James Hogg.

References

  1. ↑ Gillian Hughes, James Hogg: A Life (Edinburgh, 2007), 119‒20.
  2. ↑ The Collected Letters of James Hogg: Volume 1 1800‒1819, ed. Gillian Hughes (Edinburgh, 2004), 176: Hogg to Eliza Izett, 11 February 1814.
  3. ↑ James Hogg, Midsummer Night Dreams and Related Poems, ed. Jill Rubenstein, Gillian Hughes, and Meiko O'Halloran (Edinburgh, 2008), xiv.
  4. ↑ James Hogg, Mador of the Moor, ed. James E. Barcus (Edinburgh, 2005), xiv.
  5. ↑ Ibid., Appendix I (87‒95).
  6. ↑ Ibid., xxi.
  7. ↑ For a full list and survey of the reviews see ibid., xl‒xli (note 9) and xv‒xviii.
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