Table Of ContentCREATIVITY, THE TRICKSTER, AND THE CUNNING HARPER KING:
A STUDY OF THE MINSTREL DISGUISE ENTRANCE TRICK
IN KING HORN AND SIR ORFEO
by
Jerrianne D. Schultz
B.A. English, Literature, St. Cloud State University, 1992
M.A. English, Rhetoric and Composition, Southern Illinois University, 1995
A Dissertation
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Doctor of Philosophy Degree.
Department of English
in the Graduate School
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
December 2007
UMI Number: 3291674
Copyright 2007 by
Schultz, Jerrianne D.
All rights reserved.
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DISSERTATION APPROVAL
CREATIVITY, THE TRICKSTER, AND THE CUNNING HARPER KING:
A STUDY OF THE MINSTREL DISGUISE ENTRANCE TRICK
IN KING HORN AND SIR ORFEO
By
Jerrianne D. Schultz
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the field of English
Approved by:
Mark Addison Amos, Chair
Ryan Netzley
Dan M. Wiley
Rachel L. Stocking
Anne Winston-Allen
Graduate School
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1 November 2007
AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF
JERRIANNE D. SCHULTZ, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in ENGLISH,
presented on 28 September 2007, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
TITLE: CREATIVITY, THE TRICKSTER, AND THE CUNNING HARPER KING:
A STUDY OF THE MINSTREL DISGUISE ENTRANCE TRICK IN KING HORN
AND SIR ORFEO.
MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Mark Addison Amos
This study focuses on Stith Thompson's minstrel disguise motif K2357.1
"Disguise as musician to enter enemy's camp," or the minstrel disguise entrance trick, and
its use in King Horn and Sir Orfeo. Heroes in this motif use unexpected cunning trickery,
posing as minstrels to enter an enemy stronghold peacefully, overcoming a formidable
problem.
This study compiles a comprehensive catalogue of twenty-three twelfth through
fourteenth century Northern European minstrel disguise entrance trick episodes,
undertaking a comparative analysis defining the motif's basic features and typical
patterns. Along with providing the necessary contextual framework for a study of Horn
and Orfeo's disguise episodes, this analysis suggests amending the motif's currently
indexed title, increasing the number of episodes catalogued from three to twenty-three,
and adding a previously uncatalogued motif, "noble fosterling excels in music."
Additionally, this study examines the motif's archetypal associations, revealing
two main informing traditions in Hermes the mythological trickster and David the
Biblical cunning harper king, resulting in three classifying categories for these episodes:
Chronicle Tales, Tales of Enchantment and the Trickster, and Noble Fosterling Tales.
i
From the harper king tradition, these episodes generally contain a cunning,
higher-ranking/ noble hero who is a soldier and a talented performer in the northern
minstrelsy tradition, with a substantial problem. The trick also represents five distinctive
Hermean characteristics: border-crossing, disguise, trickery, music/ the bard, and
paradox. Each of these disguise-heroes also uses what appears to be a form of human
magic combining trickery, technical skill, and music or spoken words, all of which
traditionally have magical connotations. The trick also illustrates two creative thinking
processes in its intersection of contradictory concepts—minstrel and warrior—as well as
evidencing a boundary-crossing form of identity-play with the hero's simultaneous
possession of two incompatible sets of societal expectations as he assumes the identity of
minstrel without relinquishing his identity as knight. Although cunning can be a
dangerous trait, these heroes or their tricks are generally portrayed positively, as the
welcome resolution to a seemingly insurmountable problem, most often performing a
positive function in these episodes and highlighting the value in medieval society of
leaders with creative ingenuity.
ii
DEDICATION
Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary:
praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts:
praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet:
praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance:
praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals.
praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.
Psalm 150 (KJV)
"What has appeared to me to be an impossible situation is fast becoming a possibility."
Robert H. Schuller
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................i
DEDICATION..................................................................................................................iii
CHAPTERS
CHAPTER 1 – Introduction: The Minstrel Disguise Entrance Trick.....................1
CHAPTER 2 – A Review of Minstrel Disguise Criticism Focusing on
King Horn and Sir Orfeo.......................................................................................26
CHAPTER 3 – "Wiþ None Ginne":
Horn's Cunning and the Tides of Fikenhild's Tower............................................72
CHAPTER 4 – The Minstrel Disguise Entrance Trick In Northern European
Literature
Part I Archetype and Motif: Analysis Explanation and Chronicle Tales...........119
CHAPTER 5 – Part II The Mythological Trickster Tradition of Hermes:
Sir Orfeo Among The Tales of Enchantment and the Trickster.........................152
CHAPTER 6 – Part III The Cunning Harper King:
King Horn, King David, and The Noble Fosterling Tales..................................201
CHAPTER 7 – Surprising Approaches to Impossible Problems:
Horn, Orfeo, and Divergent Thinking.................................................................248
CHAPTER 8 – General Conclusions and Recommendations............................265
WORKS CITED.............................................................................................................276
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A – King Horn and Sir Orfeo Within the Comparative Analysis
Findings and Notable Features of the Horn and Orfeo Episodes........................289
VITA...............................................................................................................................304
CHAPTER 1
THE MINSTREL DISGUISE ENTRANCE TRICK
What does a hero do when he finds himself in an impossible situation where
customary tactics are useless; magic is not in the cards, and divine intervention unlikely?
He could give up. Or he could use cunning. In both King Horn and Sir Orfeo, the hero
wiggles out of just such a squeeze by using a minstrel disguise entrance trick—a sort of
musical Trojan horse for which the enemy's closely guarded gates swing open in
welcome.
In King Horn's second disguise episode, Horn encounters Fikenhild’s stone tower
while attempting to rescue Rimenhild from a second undesired wedding. Disguised as
minstrels, he and his men are invited in, gaining unhindered access to their enemies.
Orfeo, too, encounters a seemingly hopeless situation after his adored wife, Heurodis, is
abducted by the Fairy King while under the protection of “ten hundred” of Orfeo’s armed
knights and whisked away to an Otherworld castle (A183).1 By posing as a minstrel,
Orfeo is admitted to the Fairy King's castle and proceeds to win Heurodis back. Each of
these disguise moments is made up of two important elements: 1) disguise as a minstrel
in an attempt 2) to enter enemy territory peacefully. Together, these elements combine to
create what I will call the minstrel disguise entrance trick. It is this moment of minstrel
disguise, most particularly in the two Middle English texts of King Horn and Sir Orfeo,
that this study will investigate.
2
This trick is used to cross boundaries, pass through unsafe territory safely or enter
a hostile compound, such as an enemy camp, castle, or fortress, by appearing harmless.
The focus of these disguise episodes is on the hero's positive use of cunning or clever
strategy to succeed in the face of what would normally be certain failure. Once inside,
the hero can undertake a number of different actions, for example espionage, attack,
rescue, or theft.
This disguise moment is a recurring motif indexed in Stith Thompson's Motif-
Index of Folk Literature as K2357.1 “Disguise as musician to enter enemy’s camp,”
though neither Horn nor Orfeo is among the three entries listed here. The entrance trick
itself, using disguise to enter an off-limits area, exists in many forms. As sub-categories
to K2357 "Disguise to enter enemy's camp <castle>," following musician, Thompson
lists pilgrim, beggar <pauper>, merchant, leper, carpenter <tradesman>, juggler, churl
<bachlach>, and woman. Additionally, the opposite situation is also acknowledged:
entry K521.4.2.1 designates “Musician in danger puts on his musician’s attire as if about
to play; escapes.”
One example of a non-musical entrance trick recorded in the fourteenth century is
the Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen in which Cei, known in later Arthurian literature as
Kay, poses as a tradesman. In this story, Arthur’s men are required to get the sword of
Wrnach the giant as one task in a complicated quest. They are told that the giant “will
not give it to any one, neither for price nor for favour, nor canst thou compel him” (Jones
120). The men appear at Wrnach's castle gate and ask the gatekeeper to open up. He
replies: “Knife has gone into meat, and drink into horn, and a thronging in Wrnach's hall.
