Tristan and Iseult
[1] Of disputed source, usually assumed to be primarily Celtic, the tale is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult in the days of King Arthur.
The earliest instances take two primary forms: the so-called courtly and common branches, respectively associated with the 12th-century poems of Thomas of Britain and Béroul, the latter believed to reflect a now-lost original tale.
After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, the young prince Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult (often known as Isolde, Isolt, or Yseult) for his uncle King Mark of Cornwall to marry.
The mid-6th century "Drustanus Stone" in southeast Cornwall close to Castle Dore has an inscription referring to Drustan, son of Cunomorus (Mark).
The inscription is heavily eroded, but the earliest records of the stone, dating to the 16th century, all agree on some variation of CIRVIVS / CIRUSIUS as the name inscribed.
A 2014 study using 3D scanning supported the initial "CI" reading rather than the backward-facing "D."[6] There are references to March ap Meichion (Mark) and Trystan in the Welsh Triads, some gnomic poetry, the Mabinogion stories, and the 11th-century hagiography of Illtud.
A character called Drystan appears as one of King Arthur's advisers at the end of The Dream of Rhonabwy, a 13th-century tale in the Middle Welsh prose collection known as the Mabinogion.
An ill-fated love triangle is featured in several Irish works, most notably in Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne).
The death of Naoise and his kin leads many Ulstermen to defect to Connacht, including Conchobar's stepfather and trusted ally, Fergus mac Róich.
Moreover, this theory ignores the lost oral traditions of pre-literate societies, relying only on written records that were damaged during the development of modern nation-states such as England and France, especially during the dissolution of the monasteries.
This information sheds light on the development of an unrelated legend concerning the death of a prominent troubadour and the composition of lais by noblewomen of the 12th century.
The essential text for knowledge of the courtly branch of the Tristan legend is the abridged translation of Thomas made by Brother Robert at the request of King Haakon Haakonson of Norway in 1227.
It concerns another of Tristan's clandestine returns to Cornwall, with the banished hero signalling his presence to Iseult with an inscribed hazelnut tree branch placed on a road she was to travel.
This episode is similar to a version of the courtly branch when Tristan places wood shavings in a stream as a signal for Iseult to meet in the garden of Mark's palace.
[21] Besides their importance as episodic additions to the Tristan story and masterpieces of narrative structure, these relatively short poems significantly restored Béroul's and Thomas' incomplete texts.
Malory provided a shortened translation of the French Prose Tristan and included it in his Arthurian romance compilation Le Morte d'Arthur.
Since the Winchester Manuscript surfaced in 1934, there has been much scholarly debate on whether the Tristan narrative, like all the episodes in Le Morte d'Arthur, was intended to be an independent piece or part of a more extensive work.
In the first third of the 14th century, Arcipreste de Hita wrote his version of the Tristan story, Carta Enviada por Hiseo la Brunda a Tristán.
Two poems with Arthurian content have been preserved in the collection of Old Norse prose translations of Marie de France's lais Strengleikar (Stringed Instruments).
At that time, the Republic of Venice controlled large parts of the Croatian language area, encouraging a more active literary and cultural life than most of the Balkans.
In two popular Danish chapbooks of the late 18th century, Tristans Saga ok Inionu and En Tragoedisk Historie om den ædle og Tappre Tistrand, Iseult is a princess of India.
[35] Cornish writer Arthur Quiller-Couch started writing Castle Dor, a retelling of the Tristan and Iseult myth in modern circumstances.
Joseph Bédier's Romance of Tristan and Iseult is quoted as a source by John Updike in the afterword to his 1994 novel Brazil about the lovers Tristão and Isabel.
Bernard Cornwell included a historical interpretation of the legend as a side story in Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur, a 1996 entry in The Warlord Chronicles series.
Rosalind Miles wrote a trilogy about Tristan and Isolde: The Queen of the Western Isle (2002), The Maid of the White Hands (2003), and The Lady of the Sea (2004).
Tristan 1946 (1967), is a novel by Maria Kuncewiczowa (in Polish), and according to the publisher it tells the story inspired by the fate of the unhappy marriage between the writer's son and an English actress, presented as the Celtic legend taking place in modern times.
In Harry Turtledove's alternate history Ruled Britannia, Christopher Marlowe writes a play called Yseult and Tristan to compete with his friend William Shakespeare's immensely popular Hamlet.
[40] German power metal band Blind Guardian have a song inspired by Tristan and Iseult's story, "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight", in their 2002 album A Night at the Opera.
[43] Another French film of the same name was released two years later and offered a unique addition to the story: Tristan's jealous slave Rosen tricks the lovers into drinking the love potion, then denounces them to Mark.
[43] French director François Truffaut adapted the subject to modern times for his 1981 film La Femme d'à côté (The Woman Next Door), while 1988's In the Shadow of the Raven transported the characters to medieval Iceland.
