Graelent

He repays his debt to the burgess's hostel where he stayed, and begins entertaining many knights, regaling them with food and harpers' music.

The enraged queen dares him to produce this woman on pain of punishment (on count of calumny), and the king orders him thrown in prison.

[2][3][1] Graelent is closely resembles the plotline to Lanval by Marie de France, and the texts are considered interrelated.

The protagonist robbing the bathing lady's garment is a common swan maiden folklore motif, and William Henry Schofield felt this was borrowed specifically from the story of Wayland the Smith, which survive in the Middle High German Friedrich von Schwaben and the Eddic poem Völundarkviða.

[12] Graelent was translated into Old Norse as Grelent, one of the Strengleikar; this text has value for tracing the textual history of the French lai.

[13] In its turn, this translation seems to have influenced the Icelandic romance-saga Samsonar saga fagra and the rímur Skíðaríma, both of which include characters called Grelent.

[14] The Middle English Sir Launfal by Thomas Chestre is considered a composite, based on Lanval with elements added from Graelent.

Graelent and the Fairy-Woman , Otway McCannell illustration for Lewis Spence 's Legends & Romances of Brittany (1917)