#by this point he’d already done ‘bingen on the rhine’ and dedicated ‘there’s another – not a sister’ to anne

[gogandmagog]

Ophelia by Gaston Bussière, circa 1900

Gilbert Blythe, Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery

Was thinking today of Gilbert’s propensity for calling Anne “wife’o’mine” or else, as above, the way he reverently publicly refers to her as such in the company of friends.

And reflecting on this drew me immediately back to Anne playing at the Lily Maid (and herself nearly accidentally meeting the same fate as Tennyson’s Elaine), and the first time Gilbert saves her life (and the beginning of her softening on her grudge against him)… only to remember/realise;

Lancelot and Elaine (or the Lily Maid) by Lord Alfred Tennyson

So basically, I would bet my whole entire life that “wife of mine” is actually an in-joke, meant and originating as a private call back to Avonlea’s own Lily Maid of Barry’s Pond. 🥹🥹🥹 It’s even extra layered with meaning when we consider that the Lily Maid is essentially the story of a girl dying at the ‘hand’ of unrequited love. (Elaine professes she loves Lancelot [whose life she had a saved], but alas – he only wishes to be her friend. And then, of course, Elaine, weaken, later dies from her broken heart. If we reverse these roles, exactly who does that all sound like btw?)