symbolic of wealth and power, is prominently displayed in the opening scene.

The servant women have a sense of foreboding because all the men of the manor have been sent by Gunnar, rather unwisely it is feared, to a late harvest on the islands nearby. The abnormality of the harvest season is emphasized, and the audience learns that the seemingly capricious decision is in keeping with Gunnar’s irregular hours and habits. He is an outcast from local law, and it is believed that his house is haunted by ghostly victims of his past misdeeds. Despite the foreboding occasioned by the unseasonal harvest, it is noted that Gunnar’s “singing bill” (or sword) is silent, so that imminent danger seems unlikely. (The convention of the enchanted singing sword is prominent in early Northern European sagas and tales, most notably in Excalibur of Arthurian legend.) Once the concept of magic or unnatural power is introduced, there is a reference to a minor clairvoyant character who has foretold Gunnar’s death. So strong is the power of this prophecy that Gunnar’s brother, previously his stalwart lieutenant, has left Iceland as a result, and also to fulfill an injunction imposed on Gunnar to exile himself for three years to atone for political and other misdeeds. All of this is related by the four serving women, who conclude that Gunnar, to defy such a prophecy, must be “fey”—that is, in the power of supernatural forces.

Rannveig enters and, as mother to two sons, one in exile, wishes Gunnar would fulfill the “atonement” and thus avoid being murdered by enraged noblemen. Hallgerd, the source of the trouble, enters preoccupied and angry about her fading beauty. Gunnar and Hallgerd argue over their predicament, and as a defiant gesture she looses her hair from its covering—signifying widowhood. It is then revealed that she was a widow when Gunnar first met, wooed, and won her. Theirs has been a turbulent marriage, and in the past, when Hallgerd stole food so as not to shame her husband in time of famine and in the presence of guests, he publicly humiliated her by slapping her face. By law, he could have killed or maimed her for such an offense. In this and others of Bottomley’s plays, thievery, in keeping with the era and the culture he is representing, is a crime of great import and beneath the dignity of gentlefolk. This instance of thievery was the beginning of the blood feud that has resulted in Gunnar’s being under injunction of exile.

Three witchlike figures from Icelandic myth enter, posing as beggar-women. They admit to traveling by flying through the night sky in a westerly direction (which signifies death), but Gunnar nevertheless agrees to house them for the night. These crones tell of Gunnar’s heroic reputation, which remains solid throughout the country, and explain that there is still one ship by which he can escape. Here it is related that he did try once to leave the country, but his horse threw him and he experienced a vision of his homeland that made him vow to stay.

The crones also engage in traditional witch behavior, taking over the spinning (which they destroy), speaking of curses, and reciting the aristocratic lineage of Hallgerd, who in many respects is a worthy wife for the heroic Gunnar. The witches incense Hallgerd, who eventually drives them out. Their true nature becomes apparent when entering characters cannot see them; they become invisible after they leave the manor.

The noblemen who have awaited Gunnar’s compliance with the law arrive at his home, and a battle ensues. Gunnar fights single-handedly, while Rannveig urges prudence and Hallgerd thirsts for blood. Gunnar’s bowstring is broken, and he asks Hallgerd for some of her hair to repair it. She refuses—choosing this moment to avenge the public humiliation of her that he inflicted years earlier. Gunnar dies in battle with Hallgerd laughing. Rannveig, the grieving mother, keeps Hallgerd from her son’s corpse, pulling her by the hair she denied to her husband. Rannveig then tries to murder Hallgerd to avenge her son’s death, and hers is the play’s final soliloquy—including a lullaby that uses images of sleep and death to good effect. In a final tableau, she raises the “singing bill” aloft over the corpse of her son. It is still singing, signifying Gunnar’s victory even in death.

The Riding to Lithend makes significant use of Irish references, indicating the playwright’s knowledge of the early links of custom and commerce between Iceland and Ireland and thus allowing for the Celtic Twilight influence seen elsewhere in his work. Also prominent is bird imagery, especially sinister imagery of birds of prey. The witch figures resemble in appearance and powers the Morrigan, a bird-woman of Celtic mythology who is usually a figure of death or misfortune, and Gunnar is identified with a bird-god that appears on his family crest.

The play delivers a primitive message in a primitive setting, and its characters retain the necessary two-dimensional qualities of figures in saga literature, who are more important as types than as individuals. The law is irrevocable, and although Gunnar is viewed as the best of the warrior mold of his homeland, he is not above the law. Appropriately, he dies in battle.

The blank verse, in this and in nearly all of Bottomley’s plays, is at times merely neo-Elizabethan, deriving from the Shakespearean model used so much in the nineteenth century theater, but it can rise to eloquence when the playwright molds an honored verse form to modern language and expression. Bottomley’s servant characters often have lines of a cleaner, more precise language; unlike Shakespearean servants, they too speak in blank verse, like their masters and mistresses.

King Lear’s Wife

King Lear’s Wife begins with a lengthy dedicatory poem to Thomas Sturge Moore, another multifaceted artist who wrote verse plays of Bottomley’s type and who also achieved distinction as an illustrator and designer of books, costumes and stage sets. The poem, written in iambic quadrameter, is composed in three stanzas of irregular length, each of which opens and closes with a triplet, while the remainder is formed in couplets. Bottomley praises The Dial, a literary magazine of the day, in which he had first encountered Moore’s poetry from his seclusion in Lancashire. He hails Moore as “prince of poets in our time” and reminisces about conversations they enjoyed at a meeting in Surrey. Bottomley closes by offering King Lear’s Wife as a “token . . . of admiration and loyalty.”

The dramatis personae include Lear, king of Britain; Hygd, his queen; Goneril and Cordeil, his daughters; Gormflaith and Merryn, servants to the queen; a Physician and two Elderly Women. The setting is a primitive English castle, fitted with harsh fabrics that deny a hospitable atmosphere. Highlighted is an elaborate robe and crown that belong to the “emaciated” Queen Hygd, whose large four-poster bed dominates the stage. She is being attended by Merryn, a Cornish servant of many years’ service, and it is very early in the morning—a bleak time for a bleak setting.

The immediate subject is death. Hygd wants to die, feeling unneeded in middle age, but lingers mournfully in her illness. Merryn, quite old, is characterized as superstitious and alien because of her Cornish heritage; she dreads the idea of her own death. Enter a very vital middle-aged Lear, not the old and crazed figure of Bottomley’s Shakespearean model. He is accompanied by the court Physician, and he has arranged for Gormflaith, a young Scotswoman, to tend the queen.

The Physician, seeking a psychological explanation for the queen’s failing health, asks what long-term bitterness nursed in secret is the cause. The king responds vituperatively, and then the Physician suggests a cure, of juniper berries, marrow of adder, and emerald dust. Only Lear has a valuable emerald, a gift from an Irish king whose daughter mothered many British kings. He refuses to destroy it to save his wife’s life.

Hygd awakens alone and is joined by Goneril, who is on the edge of womanhood. Dressed in hunting garb, Goneril is described in terms associated with Diana, the Greek virgin goddess and hunter. Both Goneril and Gormflaith are representative of “life.” It is Lear’s belief that his wife will benefit from their presence, but Hygd is repelled by their vitality. Goneril describes a visionary encounter at a Druidic site (a holy place of the priest class that had earlier controlled Britain). In contrast, Hygd describes and dismisses the new Christian religion of Merryn. Hygd then asks about Regan (the third daughter of Lear, who appears as an important character in William Shakespeare’s play but not at all in Bottomley’s).

Hygd warns Goneril to enjoy her freedom now because soon she will be obliged to marry. The aging queen offers a philosophy frequent in Bottomley’s work—that the domestication of fine, brave young women in marriage yields bitter results. At best, claims Hygd, women can only be venerated in age, whereas men fare better and have wider choices later in life.

They are interrupted by the child Cordeil (Cordelia in Shakespeare), who is at the door seeking her father. She is called “my little curse” and “an evil child” by her mother, who denies her access to the sickroom. Hygd claims that she conceived Cordeil to keep Lear faithful, adding that Cordeil’s birth has left her an invalid. After Goneril lulls her mother to sleep, Gormflaith enters, an attractive woman, too eager to please. She reads a letter arranging an assignation with Lear, who arrives and destroys the letter for the sake of security. He then softens the blow by allowing Gormflaith to wear his emerald.

The king intends to make Gormflaith his queen after Hygd’s death, despite Gormflaith’s cunning observations concerning the negative effect this will have in his court and within his family. In his desire for a male heir, Lear will not hear reason. Gormflaith, in a climactic moment, asks to wear Hygd’s crown, and Lear chastises her: “You cannot have the nature of a queen/ If you believe that there are things above you.” Lear softens again, however, and while Gormflaith is sitting on his knee, wearing Hygd’s crown, the queen awakens and sees all. Hygd tries to follow the lovers to the garden, falls, has a dying vision of Lear’s mother, and dies shouting to Goneril “Pay Gormflaith.”

The play rapidly becomes less poetic as Merryn discusses the need to tend the dead queen before rigor mortis sets in. The irony and bitterness increase as Goneril mockingly pays homage when Gormflaith reenters, still wearing Hygd’s crown. Because Gormflaith was meant to be tending the queen, the enraged Goneril demands of her father the penalty given for servants leaving their posts, knowing fully that Lear is the cause of Gormflaith’s absence. Goneril snatches the crown and places it on the dead queen.

The momentum of the play, its imagery and tone, alter greatly with the entrance of two women to minister to the queen’s body. Like the gravediggers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, they are irreverent in the presence of death, haggling over Hygd’s personal effects—traditional payment for such work. They sing a grisly work song to the tune of “Froggie’s Gone a Courtin,’” preparing the reader for the equally grisly entrance of Goneril with a bloody knife. In a somewhat surprising about-face, Lear, when confronted by his murderess-daughter, disowns the dead Gormflaith and calls Goneril his “true daughter.” The play ends with Lear hoping to marry off and “break” Goneril, thus bearing out Hygd’s earlier fear, and the corpse washers finish by enjoying the irony of Lear’s having traded one predicament—a sick wife—for another—a fearless and cruel daughter.

King Lear’s Wife observes the traditional dramatic unities scrupulously. It showcases Lear against a predominantly female cast to great effect, and it develops ideas seen often in Bottomley’s corpus. Beauty is power, but it is transient; death and physical violence are always near. The play rings a gender change on the classic revenge drama, because here a daughter avenges the disgrace and death of her mother. Ultimately, it affirms the sense of hierarchy and order codified in the law: Evildoers receive their just deserts.

The language of King Lear’s Wife is not as garrulous as it is in many of Bottomley’s works, and the speeches of supporting characters, such as Merryn and the two corpse washers, are effective in reinforcing the thematic message of the play. Animal imagery prevails and is well integrated. The corpse washers wear black, batlike or birdlike costumes, appropriate to their task, and the reader is prepared for Goneril’s murderous role because as a huntress she has killed in cold blood and become exhilarated by the act.

Hygd, the title character, was first performed by Katherine Drinkwater, the producer’s wife, and later by Lady Viola Tree, of the famous acting family. King Lear’s Wife was the only play Bottomley wrote that provoked a significant critical response. Although that response was largely negative, it drew attention to Bottomley’s work, and as a result, his plays were produced more readily in subsequent years.