by Nathaniel Harrington

At first glance, G. Willow Wilson’s The Bird King (2019) seems like an odd place to look for “Celts” in fantasy. The novel begins in the Alhambra in 1492, as representatives of the crowns of Castile and Aragon arrive to negotiate the final surrender of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. Its protagonists are Fatima, an enslaved “concubine” of the sultan, and her best friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker, whose supernatural abilities make him a target of the Inquisition. Guided by a temperamental jinn, Fatima and Hassan flee the palace, pursued by the Castilian inquisitor Luz, setting out in search of the mythical island of Qaf from the 12th-century Persian poet ‘Attar of Nishapur’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr, The Conference of the Birds.

            And yet, improbably, “Celts” are here: Hassan is the grandson of an enslaved Breton woman, and he and Fatima are later joined by a Breton fisherman-turned-monk, Gwennec, whose first words as Fatima and Hassan board the ship he is on are, in fact, in (modern) Breton: “Penaos oc’h deuet?” — “How did you come [here]?” Later, on Qaf, they are also joined by a Cornish woman named Mary, apparently a Cornish-speaker.

            This is a testament, first, to the extent to which genre fantasy is steeped in Celticism, although to Wilson’s credit she seems to be taking this up intentionally. The Bird King is first and foremost an attempt to write against fantasy’s strong Orientalism by centering on explicitly Muslim characters, marginalized not only in the fantasy genre but also — on the basis of their gender and, in Hassan’s case, sexuality — in their own culture within the text. The novel’s portrayal of Gwennec and Hassan as Bretons also suggests an engagement with the modern histories of the “Celtic fringe,” with Bretonness taken up as another marker of marginality. In light of the French state’s language politics, Wilson’s choice to include Breton explicitly in the text not — as Orla Ní Dhúill and others have observed — as a generic “fantasy” language but precisely as itself is a refreshing change of pace. Wilson also avoids fantasy’s tendency to project ideas about “primitive” religion and culture — druids, pagan survivals, goddess-worship, ancient matriarchy — onto her medieval/early modern Bretons.

            The portrayal of Hassan in particular — a redhead (Gwennec addresses him regularly in Breton as blev’ruz), emotional, fond of alcohol, feminized by virtue of his sexuality, and deeply religious — does recall 19th-century stereotypes about the emotionally volatile, effeminate, spiritual “Celt.” Gwennec stands as a partial counterpoint to this: while also deeply religious — he is a Franciscan novice — he is even-keeled, rational, and practical, though I suspect Bretons might find the fact that he was a fisherman before entering the monastery a bit hackneyed.

            Wilson’s interest in Bretonness or Celticity as a marker of marginality also leads to an ahistorical retrojection of 18th- and 19th-century stereotypes and terminology into the late 15th century, pairing anti-Breton sentiments with homophobia from two Castilian dockworkers:

“Put them against the hull with the others,” instructed Hassan, waggling one figure in the appropriate direction.

“Put them against the hull with the others,” repeated one of the men, his voice high and mincing. The other man snickered and elbowed him.

“Hush up, he may hear you.”

“He doesn’t hear, he’s a Breton. Look at him, dumb as a post. Fish and beer and cow manure are all they know. Not proper Frenchmen, nor proper Celts—they barely understand each other, let alone—“

“Quiet, you idiot.”

The linking of anti-Breton sentiment with homophobia drives home the association of the “Celts” with effeminacy, and here Wilson seems to criticize this move, but this passage is perplexing for a number of reasons. To begin with, no 15th-century dockworker would be referring to anyone — Bretons or otherwise — as “Celts,” as the term “Celtic” was only applied to the six modern Celtic languages two hundred years later, by Edward Lhuyd at the beginning of the 18th century. It is also unclear who Bretons are being contrasted with: if Bretons are not “proper Celts,” who are the “proper Celts”? Meanwhile, given that Brittany was not legally fully integrated into the Kingdom of France until 1532, it also seems strange to expect Bretons to be “proper Frenchmen” — in 1492 Gwennec simply was not, legally, a Frenchman, even if the Duke of Brittany was also the King of France.

           To some extent this is an unfair critique: Bretonness is not the point of the novel. While the portrayal of Gwennec and Hassan as Breton — or part-Breton, in Hassan’s case — is relevant to the novel’s thematic interest in marginality (whether racial, religious, gendered, sexual, or literally geographic), Fatima is clearly the protagonist; among other things, she is the sole character through whom the narration is focalized. Nonetheless, these gaps in Wilson’s engagement with Bretons even as she draws on and draws attention to Bretons’ experiences of political and cultural marginalization highlight the extent to which fantasy often remains caught up in the 19th-century construction of “the Celts” as a cohesive group, even when it consciously attempts to move beyond this legacy.