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Our new translation of the anonymous Middle English text 'Sir Orfeo' is now available for browsing and download on the site here.

Dating from the late 13th or early 14th century, Sir Orfeo, an anonymous Breton ‘lay’, written in Middle English, and based on the lost ‘Lai d’Orphey’, relates a tale derived from that of the Orpheus of Greek myth, here a royal hero who rescues his wife from the King of the Faeries. Celtic myth and folklore were also a source for the work, which was influenced by the Old French Breton ‘lais’ retold in Anglo-French by Marie de France and others. Three manuscripts survive, of which the oldest, the Auchinleck, dates from c1330. The folk song Orfeo (Roud 136, Child 19) is based on the poem.