The story is told by Gelin and is very popular in Poitou. The heroine is a girl by day and a white hind by night. The pack of hounds belonging to her brother Renaud chase her in the forest. She complains of this to her mother who begs Renaud to call back the pack. But it is too late. The white hind is captured and killed. Her palpitating flesh is stripped from the carcase and prepared as a dish of venison, and next day when the guests sit down to the feast, they are terrified to hear a woman's voice which they recognise as that of their absent sister, murmuring, "Alas! my breasts are lying on platters of gold." Then, raising her tone, she announces that Renaud's soul is forfeit and that his name is written up on the gates of hell. At the sound of her words Renaud falls down dead and his mother goes off in a swoon.
"La Blanche Biche," as the story is called in the original, is told in verse which may be rendered roughly as follows:—
Afar in the fields dwell a mother and daughter,
The mother sings on, but the fair maid sighs.
"For what do you sigh, my dear Angèlique?"
"I sigh in great need, for my heart is sad.
In the day I'm a maid, but at night a white hind,
The hounds are upon me and hunters as well,
And the worst pack of all is my brother's pack.
Go forth, mother dear, to his castle and say,
He must call back the hounds and the hunters too."
Then the mother puts her distaff aside
And runs to the castle of Renaud, her son,
To tell him to stay his hounds and his men.
"But my hounds, mother, are after the white hind now."
"Call them back, Renaud, for sweet Angèlique
Dwells in the shape of that same white hind."
Then Renaud seizes his hunter's horn,
But before he can blow two blasts loud and clear,
The white hind is taken and brought by the hounds
To the castle kitchen, where, seized by the cook,
Its joints are severed, its flesh is sliced;
And a shout comes from the castle hall,
"Set a fine feast for us all to-night,
For a number of guests will honour our house,
All but our sister, the fair Angèlique."
Then the smoking dishes appear on the board,
And the guests turn longing eyes on the feast,
When a plaintive sigh is heard through the hall,
And a woman's sad voice rings out in a shriek,
That curdles the blood of the waiting guests.
"My breasts are lying on platters of gold,
My heart's on the spit, and it groans and it moans,
My bright eyes, embedded in pastry, grow dim;
But my soul dwells with angels in paradise,
And that of my brother is destined for hell!"
At these terrible words, from invisible source,
Renaud starts up! Then falls back—stone dead.
While his mother slips under the board in a swoon.
This is a far more harrowing story than the Yorkshire legend of a woman who turns into a white doe, which is found in Wordsworth's "The White Doe of Rylstone."
When Lady Aăliza mourned
Her son, and felt in her despair,
The pang of unavailing prayer;
Her son in Wharf's abysses drowned,
The noble boy of Egremound,
From which affliction, when God's grace
At length had in her heart found place,
A pious structure fair to see,
Rose up this stately priory!
The lady's work,—but now laid low;
To the grief of her soul that doth come and go,
In the beautiful form of this innocent doe:
Which though seemingly doomed in its breast to sustain
A softened remembrance of sorrow and pain,
Is spotless, and holy, and gentle and bright—
And glides o'er the earth like an angel of light.
Burke has a very different version of the famous and spotless White Doe of Rylstone,[72] the animal being gifted with human faculties rather than appearing in human form, and the story having some affinity with those of the fairy-godmother class. This beautiful white doe belonged to Emily, the only daughter of Richard Norton of Rylstone, who had nine warrior sons. The youngest of them, Edward by name, had made a present of the doe to his sister and the animal was called Blanche on account of her spotless white skin. She followed her young mistress everywhere and was like a human companion. So great was her intelligence that she was thought to be a benevolent witch or fairy, perhaps rather a sprite bewitched in animal form.
One day she leads her mistress a long way from home, to a spot beside a brooklet which is held by the people of the neighbourhood to be haunted. Having reached the desired destination, the doe lies down to rest and Emily does likewise. Presently she falls into a kind of dream, in which it seems to her that the brook boils and bubbles up and a wraith of mist rises on the surface which gradually takes the shape and outlines of a beautiful woman.
This spirit warns Emily in a vision of coming disaster to her beloved father and eight of her brothers. She sees them done to death by the axe. Meanwhile the doe lies immovable in a kind of trance and it may well be thought that her real womanly self is seen by Emily in its natural shape.
Soon afterwards Emily is informed by Edward that her father and eight of her brothers are on the point of breaking out into open rebellion against the Sovereign of England and that it is necessary for him to join them, although doing so goes against his convictions, as he is loyal to Queen Elizabeth. Nothing that Emily can do or say dissuades him from his decision, and she parts from him in great grief.
At first the rebels succeed in their projects, but presently their attacks fail and they are forced to retreat. A rumour reaches Emily that all the Nortons have been captured and condemned to death and that the rebellion is over.