‘Heterochronia’ in Thomas of Erceldoune, Guingamor, ‘The Tale of King Herla’, and The Story of Meriadoc, King of Cambria

Abstract

This article is a study of the motif of the mysterious shift of time that is found in a number of medieval romances. This shift occurs when, for example, a hero is confronted with the discovery that he has spent years in an unfamiliar place, when in his own experience the lapse of time seems incomparably smaller. This peculiar motif suggests that there is not one ‘universal’ currency of time but different temporalities, often linked to different places, which are termed ‘heterochronias’. The motif is widespread in Celtic legends, and critics have argued that the motif originated here, with the result that the occurrence of the motif in other types of texts has been neglected. We also find it in a group of romances: the fifteenth-century Middle English The Romance of Thomas of Erceldoune, and the twelfth-century Old French lay Guingamor and Latin romances Historia Meriadoci and the story of King Herla in Walter Map’s De Nugis Curialium. It is argued that these medieval texts feature ‘heterochronic’ worlds that run parallel with the normal worlds, with inhabitants who exist ‘beyond time’, which creates the possibility of a different perspective (aesthetic and didactic) from which to regard the normal world.