Ys

This article is about the mythical city. For the video game series, see Ys (series). For the album recorded by Joanna Newsom, see Ys (album). For other uses, see Ys (disambiguation).

Flight of King Gradlon, by E. V. Luminais, 1884 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Quimper)

Ys (pronounced /ˈiːs/, EES), also spelled Is or Ker-Is in Breton, and Ker-Ys in French (ker means city in Breton), is a mythical city that was built on the coast of Brittany and later swallowed by the ocean. Most versions of the legend place the city in the Douarnenez Bay.

The legend

Origins

According to some versions of the legend, Ys was built below sea level by Gradlon (Gralon in Breton), King of Cornouaille (Kerne in Breton), upon the request of his daughter Dahut (also called Ahes), who loved the sea.

In others, Ys was founded more than 2000 years before Gradlon's reign in a then-dry location off the current coast of the Bay of Douarnenez, but the Breton coast had slowly given way to the sea so that Ys was under it at each high tide when Gradlon's reign began.

To protect Ys from inundation, a dike was built with a gate that was opened for ships during low tide. The one key that opened the gate was held by the king.

Fall

Ys was the most beautiful and impressive city in the world, but quickly became a city of sin under the influence of Dahut. She organized orgies and had the habit of killing her lovers when morning broke. Saint Winwaloe decried the corruption of Ys and warned of God's wrath and punishment, but was ignored by Dahut and the populace.

One day, a knight dressed in red came to Ys. Dahut asked him to come with her, and one night, he agreed. A storm broke out in the middle of the night and the waves could be heard smashing against the gate and the bronze walls. Dahut said to the knight: "Let the storm rage. The gates of the city are strong, and it is King Gradlon, my father, who owns the only key, attached to his neck." The knight replied: "Your father the king sleeps. You can now easily take his key." Dahut stole the key from her father and gave it to the knight, who was none other than the devil. The devil, or, in another version of the story, a wine-besotted Dahut herself, then opened the gate.

Because the gate was open during storm and at high tide, a wave as high as a mountain collapsed on Ys. King Gradlon and his daughter climbed on Morvarc'h, his magical horse. Saint Winwaloe approached them and told Gradlon: "Push back the demon sitting behind you!" Gradlon initially refused, but he finally gave in and pushed his daughter into the sea. The sea swallowed Dahut, who became a mermaid or morgen.

Gradlon took refuge in Quimper, which became his new capital. An equestrian statue of Gradlon still stands between the spires of the Cathedral of Saint Corentin in Quimper. It is said that the bells of the churches of Ys can still be heard in the sea calm. A legend says that when Paris will be swallowed, the city of Ys will rise up from under the waves: Pa vo beuzet Paris, Ec'h adsavo Ker Is (Par-Is meaning "similar to Ys" in Breton).

This history is also sometimes viewed as the victory of Christianity—as Gradlon was converted by Saint Winwaloe—over druidism. Dahut and most inhabitants of Ys were worshippers of Celtic gods. However, another Breton folktale asserts that Gradlon met, spoke with and consoled the last Druid in Brittany, and oversaw his pagan burial, before building a chapel in his sacred grove.

Development of the legend

The earliest known version of the story of Ys appears in 1637, in Albert Le Grand's Vie des Saincts de la Bretagne Armorique. This version already contains the basic elements: Dahut, King Gradlon's wicked daughter, steals the key to the gates and opens the city to the sea; only Gradlon, being warned by a holy man (in this version St. Gwenole), escapes. The legend of Ys was confined to the folk of Brittany until 1839, when T. Hersart de la Villemarqué published a collection of popular songs collected from oral tradition, the Barzaz Breizh. The collection achieved a wide distribution and brought Breton folk culture into European awareness. In the second edition, the poem 'Livaden Geris' ('The Submersion of Ker-Is') appeared. The same basic story elements are present, but in this version the holy man is instead St. Corentin. It appears that elements of the text of this version were adapted from the medieval Welsh poem 'Seithennin' about the legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod. . Emile Souvestre's Le Foyer Breton also played a great part in making the legend widely known, and many 19th century English tellings of the story are closely derived from the Foyer Breton's tale "Keris". The legend is very similar to the Welsh myth of the city of Cantre'r Gwaelod, which disappeared beneath the ocean as a result of human error.

Adaptations in the arts

Le roi d'Ys, an opera by the French composer Édouard Lalo transforms the story significantly, replacing the figure of Dahut with Margared, whose motive for opening the gates (with the aid of her own betrothed Karnac) is her jealousy at Rozenn's marriage to Mylio (characters who are also inventions of Lalo).

Also based upon the story of Ys is Claude Debussy's La cathédrale engloutie, found in his first book of Preludes (published 1910). This is a prelude intended to evoke the atmosphere of the legend by its sound.

Ys in popular culture

• Alain Deschamps and Claude Auclair are the authors of a comic based on the legend of Ys, called Bran Ruz (red crow).

• Author Robert W. Chambers set the short story "The Demoiselle d'Ys" (from his fantasy collection The King in Yellow, 1895) in medieval/contemporary Brittany.

• Poul Anderson and his wife Karen wrote a tetralogy of novels in the 1980s called The King of Ys. There a Roman centurion becomes king of Ys, which was founded centuries before by Carthaginians. Prior to that series, fantasy writer A. Merritt in his novel Creep, Shadow! drew from the Ys legend.

• Dutch-born writer Iman Wilkens claims, in his book Where Troy Once Stood, that the Trojan War and other events in Homer's epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey took place in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea; he claims the city of Ismarus, sacked by Odysseus' men after leaving Troy, was in fact Ys. Wilkens' suggestions have not attracted the attention of mainstream scholars.

• A. S. Byatt's novel Possession: A Romance, which won the Booker Prize in 1990, makes frequent reference to Breton myth and legend, including the story of Ys.

• Michael Scott Rohan's fantasy trilogy 'The Winter of the World' Features Kerys as an initially semi legendary city which is later visited and does indeed sink beneath the sea.

• French author Gabriel Jan's 2007 novel Ys, le Monde Englouti reworks and retells the legend of Ys.

• Meredith Ann Pierce's collection "Waters Luminous and Deep" contains the short story "The Fall of Ys". In her version, it was the fault of the king that Ys sank, and the king's daughter is portrayed with sympathy.

• Andrzej Sapkowski Polish fantasy writer references to the city of Ys in his books about Witcher Geralt.

• John Brunner set much of his short story "Break The Door of Hell" in Ys. In Brunner's tale, Ys disappeared out of time after its people sought magical means to restore the city to its former glory.

Painting

• E. V. Luminais' painting scored a success at the Salon of 1884.

Music

• Yolyanko Arguelles animation cathedrals submerged won 2 awards at Art Basel Miami in 2010.

• Breton harpist Alan Stivell recorded an instrumental track called "Ys" on his 1972 album Renaissance de la Harpe Celtique.

• Harpist/singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom released an album in 2006 called Ys.

• Progressive rock band Il Balletto di Bronzo also has a concept album called Ys.

• The heavy metal band Bal-Sagoth has included Ys in many of its stories/songs.

Games

• The French board game company Ystari has published a board game based on the legend titled Ys in 2004.

Further reading

• Guyot, Charles. The Legend of the City of Ys, Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1979.

• MacKillop, James. Myths and Legends of the Celts, London ; New York : Penguin Global, 2005, pp. 299–302. ISBN 978-0-14-101794-5.

Externals links

• Gralon.net
• Timeless Myths - City of Ys