Sir Kay

But in the later Arthurian legends Cei has degenerated into a buffoon and Chief of Cooks"[4]—an aspect of the folklore process whereby old heroes must be downgraded (but not forgotten) in order to make room for new.

[5] One of the earliest direct reference to Cai can be found in the 10th-century poem Pa Gur, in which Arthur recounts the feats and achievements of his warriors so as to gain entrance to a fortress guarded by Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr, the titular porter.

The poem concerns itself largely with Cai's exploits: Prince of the plunder, / The unrelenting warrior to his enemy; / Heavy was he in his vengeance; / Terrible was his fighting.

Eventually, Ysbaddaden relents, and agrees to give Culhwch his daughter on the condition that he completes a number of impossible tasks (anoethau), including hunting the Twrch Trwyth and recovering the exalted prisoner Mabon ap Modron.

Cai is a prominent character throughout the tale and is responsible for completing a number of the tasks; he kills Wrnach the Giant, rescues Mabon ap Modron from his watery prison and retrieves the hairs of Dillus the Bearded.

In the Life of St. Cadoc (c. 1100) Bedwyr is alongside Arthur and Cai in dealing with King Gwynllyw of Gwynllwg's abduction of St. Gwladys from her father's court in Brycheiniog.

Kay and Bedivere both appear in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, and support Arthur in his defeat of the Giant of Mont Saint-Michel.

In the works of Chrétien, Kay assumes the characteristics with which he is most associated today: hot-headedness and fiery temper (retained from the Welsh literature), supplemented by his role as an incompetent braggart.

Wolfram von Eschenbach, who tells a similar story in his Parzival, asks his audience not to judge Kay too harshly, as his sharp words actually serve to maintain courtly order: "Though few may agree with me—Keie was a brave and loyal man ...

In the Vulgate Cycle, the Post-Vulgate and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Kay's father Ector adopts the infant Arthur after Merlin takes him away from his birth parents, Uther and Igraine.

Ector raises the future king and Kay as brothers, but Arthur's parentage is revealed when he draws the Sword in the Stone at a tournament in London.

Scholars have pointed out that Kay's scornful, overly boastful character never makes him a clown, a coward or a traitor, except in the Grail romance Perlesvaus, in which he murders Arthur's son Loholt and joins up with the king's enemies.

This strange work is an anomaly, however, and Kay's portrayal tends to range from merely cruel and malicious, as in the Roman de Yder or Hartmann von Aue's Iwein to humorously derisive and even endearing, as in Durmart le Gallois and Escanor.

According to Malory's Book 5, Kay does not die in the war against Rome, but rather survives and later is part of a party sent to try and retrieve Excalibur's sacred scabbard, prior to the Battle of Camlann.