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The nineteenth–twentieth centuries’ frontier, and onto the nineteen-thirties, is the period when the literature and the folklore of the Celtic and Scandinavian counties were brought into Russia. In this way Nikolaj Goumilev, the author of the drama “Gondla”, translates “Countess Kathleen” by W. B. Yeats and writes his own drama “Morny’s beauty” influenced by some recurring themes of the Irish sagas. The drama-poem “Gondla” is also based on the Irish comparanda, namely on the history and the sagas of the echtrae-cycle of tales. The story takes place in Iceland in the eleventh century; Gondla, the Christian, the son of the Irish king, converts the Icelanders into Christianity. Goumilev himself mentions the sagas about “the hump-backed prince Condla” abducted by a fairy as the source of his drama. The saga of Connla the Fair, or Echtrae Chonnlai, is known to him from the work by H. d’Arboi de Jubainville Cours de Littérature Celtique, as well as, possibly, from the private conversations with A. Smirnov, the first Russian translator of the Irish sagas. The story of Connla contains some widespread folk motifs (cf. S. Thompson’s Motif-index), such as F 302 Fairy mistress, or rather F 302.3.1 Fairy entices man into fairyland. The motifs in question are closely related to those of the Swan-maiden (F 302.4.1 – Fairy comes into man’s power when he stills her wings, and D 361.1 – A swan transforms herself at will into a maiden). The swan-plots are of great importance for Goumilev’s “Gondla”, since the main characters of the drama, Gondla and Lera his fiancée (both Irish) are compared there to the swans persecuted by the wolves (the pagan Icelanders). The motifs are particularly prominent in the case of the Irish folktales and legends. The swan-plots from the Celtic and Slavonic folktales and legends are closely related in “Gondla” to the fairy-tales by Andersen, such as The Marsh King’s Daughter, The Ugly Duckling, The Swan’s Nest and The Wild Swans. The plot of the last fairytale is close to that of the Irish legend about the king Lir’s children transformed into swans (Oidheadh Chloinne Lir). In the same time, this plot is close to the fairy-tale type AT 451 – The maiden who seeks for her brothers and AT 451* – Sister as mysterious housekeeper. The story of this type, with the brothers transformed into swans and a swan maiden as the mother of the swan-children, is literary fixed in the twelfth century in the novel Dolopathos sive de Rege et Septem Sapientibus. The main character of Goumilev’s drama is the poet, the ruler and the priest who baptises Iceland at the same time. As such, he illustrates one of Goumilev’s favourite ideas: the poets must govern the world, as the druids used to do in the distant past.

Folk-Motifs and Plots of the Irish Sagas in Goumiliev’s “Gondla”