Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Christabel 25

6 July 2026

(10 July 2015) Today we return to Coleridge’s unfinished, supernatural tale, “Christabel,” and take up where we left off two weeks ago, as Bracy the Bard receives more instructions on how to bring news of his daughter to Sir Roland:

‘And when he has crossed the Irthing flood,
My merry bard! he hastes, he hastes
Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood,
And reaches soon that castle good
Which stands and threatens Scotland’s wastes.

In five lines we learn of some of the places between Christabel’s place and Sir Roland’s, the supposed father of Geraldine, and we learn it is far to the north, on the English border with Scotland. Since Bracy’s journey takes only a little time, we guess that Christabel’s home is also somewhere in the north. The poet goes on as Leoline continues exhorting the bard to ride swiftly, enter the hall, and declare the glad tidings to Sir Roland:

‘Bard Bracy! bard Bracy! your horses are fleet,
Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet,
More loud than your horses’ echoing feet!
And loud and loud to Lord Roland call,
Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall!
Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free—
Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me!
He bids thee come without delay
With all thy numerous array
And take thy lovely daughter home:
And he will meet thee on the way
With all his numerous array
White with their panting palfreys’ foam:
And, by mine honour! I will say,
That I repent me of the day
When I spake words of fierce disdain
To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine!—
—For since that evil hour hath flown,
Many a summer’s sun hath shone;
Yet ne’er found I a friend again
Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine.

We learn the name of Sir Leoline’s hall–Langdale–and that Leoline proposes to meet Roland somewhere in between–we would call it neutral ground–on which Leoline’s ‘repentance’ of his evil words, reaffirming that Roland was always his best friend. All seems straightforward: deliver my message, my apology, and where we will meet, which is, of course, the point where things in this strange poem move out of the everyday and back into the supernatural! More Wednesday in the next edition of the Poet’s Corner; in the meantime, good reading!