Brangaine (variously spelled Brangaene, Brangwane, Brangien, Brangwin, etc.) is the handmaid and confidante of Iseult of Ireland in the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Iseult. She appears in most versions of the story.
Brangaine plays essentially the same role in the early poetic versions of Béroul and Thomas of Britain, and their respective German successors Eilhart von Oberge and Gottfried von Strassburg. She is the inadvertent catalyst in the development of the story's central romance: before Tristan takes Iseult back to Cornwall to be the wife of his uncle King Mark, Iseult's mother (also named Iseult) entrusts Brangaine with a love potion meant for Iseult and her new husband to drink on their wedding night. However, Tristan and Iseult find the potion on the boat ride to Cornwall, and mistaking it for regular wine, they drink it. So begins their unstoppable passion.
Upon arrival in Cornwall, the virgin Brangaine plays a second important role: she secretly substitutes for Iseult on her wedding night to King Mark, protecting Iseult's honor. In Thomas's version, Brangaine is more than "a mere compliant servant, there is a certain amount of strife between her and Iseult." [1] Afterwards, however, Iseult grows worried that Brangaine might reveal their secret, or develop feelings for Mark. She orders servants to take her out in the woods and kill her. The servants cannot bring themselves to do it, and instead tie the handmaid to a tree. Iseult comes to her senses, and overjoyed that Brangaine is not dead, frees her and apologizes for her actions.
In some versions Brangaine later serves as a courtly love lady for Tristan's brother and friend Kahedin. Mark has finally discovered his wife and nephew's adultery and banishes Tristan to Brittany, where the saddened knight tries to forget his love by marrying another girl named Iseult, this one the daughter of King Hoel and sister of Kahedin. However, Tristan cannot bring himself to consummate the marriage, which his wife eventually reveals to her brother. When questioned, Tristan reveals his secret love and attempts to prove how beautiful his original Iseult was by showing Kahedin a statue he had made of her. However, Kahedin is more impressed by a second statue of Brangaine, and journeys with Tristan back to Mark's lands in hopes of meeting her. In disguise they are able to tryst with the ladies, but Brangaine uses a magic pillow to put Kahedin to sleep before he can touch her. Eventually Iseult demands Brangaine sleep with him to end his dishonor. The short poem Kaherdin and Camille records a similar story; in this case the name of Iseult's servant is Camille.
Brangaine's role in the Prose Tristan is sometimes different from in the verse works. For example, the scene in which the handmaid substitutes for Iseult on her wedding night is excluded, and while the tree-tying episode is still present, it is not Iseult but jealous rival servants who order the deed. Additionally she is rescued by the Saracen knight Palamedes, rather than her mistress as in the older works.
According to Rachel Bromwich, several parallels can be drawn between the character of Brangaine in French Arthurian romance and that of Branwen in medieval Welsh legend, lending credence to the theory that the former is ultimately based on the latter. [2]
Tristan, also known as Tristram, Tristyn or Tristain and similar names, is the folk hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, his objective is escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed Tristan's uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion during the journey and fall in love, beginning an adulterous relationship that eventually leads to Tristan's banishment and death. The character's first recorded appearance is in retellings of British mythology from the 12th century by Thomas of Britain and Gottfried von Strassburg, and later in the Prose Tristan. He is featured in Arthurian legends, including the seminal text Le Morte d'Arthur, as a skilled knight and a friend of Lancelot. He is also a Knight of the Round Table.
Gottfried von Strassburg is the author of the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, an adaptation of the 12th-century Tristan and Iseult legend. Gottfried's work is regarded, alongside the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, as one of the great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages. He is probably also the composer of a small number of surviving lyrics. His work became a source of inspiration for Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde (1865).
Iseult, alternatively Isolde and other spellings, is the name of several characters in the legend of Tristan and Iseult. The most prominent is Iseult of Ireland, the wife of Mark of Cornwall and the lover of Tristan. Her mother, the queen of Ireland, is also named Iseult. The third is Iseult of the White Hands, the daughter of Hoel of Brittany and the sister of Kahedin.
Mark of Cornwall was a sixth-century King of Kernow (Cornwall), possibly identical with King Conomor. He is best known for his appearance in Arthurian legend as the uncle of Tristan and the husband of Iseult who engages with Tristan in a secret liaison, giving Mark the epithet "Cuckold King".
Palamedes is a Knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is a Middle Eastern pagan who converts to Christianity later in his life, and his unrequited love for Iseult brings him into frequent conflict with Tristan. Palamedes' father King Esclabor and brothers Safir and Segwarides also join the Round Table. The romance Palamedes was named after him.
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. 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. It depicts Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. On the journey, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, instigating a forbidden love affair between them.
King Hoel, also known as Sir Howel, Saint Hywel and Hywel the Great, was a late 5th- and early 6th-century member of the ruling dynasty of Cornouaille. He may have ruled Cornouaille jointly after the restoration of his father, Budic II of Brittany, but he seems to have predeceased his father and left his young son, Tewdwr, as Budic's heir.
Tristan & Isolde is a 2006 epic romantic drama film directed by Kevin Reynolds and written by Dean Georgaris based on the medieval romantic legend of Tristan and Isolde. Produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott, the film stars James Franco and Sophia Myles, alongside a supporting cast featuring Rufus Sewell, Mark Strong, and Henry Cavill. This was Franchise Pictures' last film after the 2004 bankruptcy.
Fire and Sword is a 1981 romantic drama film directed by Veith von Fürstenberg. It is based on the legend of Tristan and Isolde, played by Christoph Waltz and Antonia Preser. Leigh Lawson and Peter Firth also star. Set during a raging war between Cornwall and Ireland, the film explores themes on conflict between magic and religion, violence, and destruction.
Dinadan is a Cornish knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition of the Prose Tristan and its adaptations, including a part of Le Morte d'Arthur. Best known for his humor and pragmatism, he is a close friend of the protagonist Tristan. Dinadan is the subject of several often comedic episodes until his murder by Mordred and Agravain.
The Prose Tristan is an adaptation of the Tristan and Iseult story into a long prose romance, and the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend. It was also the first major Arthurian prose cycle commenced after the widely popular Lancelot-Grail, which influenced especially the later portions of the Prose Tristan.
Sir Kahedin is brother to Iseult of Brittany and the son of King Hoel of Brittany in Arthurian legend. The story of his affair with Brangaine, the handmaiden of Iseult of Ireland is significantly mentioned in the Tristan and Iseult legend.
Eilhart von Oberge was a German poet of the late 12th century. He is known exclusively through his Middle High German romance Tristrant, the oldest surviving complete version of the Tristan and Iseult story in any language. Tristrant is part of the "common" or "primitive" branch of the legend, best known through Béroul's fragmentary Norman language Tristan. It is German literature's first rendition of the story, though Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan, part of the "courtly" branch, is more famous and respected.
The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne is an Irish prose narrative surviving in many variants. A tale from the Fianna Cycle of Irish mythology, it concerns a love triangle between the great warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill, the beautiful princess Gráinne, and her paramour Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. Surviving texts are all in Modern Irish and the earliest dates to the 16th century, but some elements of the material date as far back as the 10th century.
"Chevrefoil" is a Breton lai by the medieval poet Marie de France. The eleventh poem in the collection is called The Lais of Marie de France and its subject is an episode from the romance of Tristan and Iseult. The title means "honeysuckle," a symbol of love in the poem. "Chevrefoil" consists of 118 lines and survives in two manuscripts, Harley 978 or MS H, which contains all the Lais, and in Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, or MS S.
King Arthur and King Cornwall is an English ballad surviving in fragmentary form in the 17th-century Percy Folio manuscript. An Arthurian story, it was collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad 30. Unlike other Child Ballads, but like the Arthurian "The Boy and the Mantle" and "The Marriage of Sir Gawain", it is not a folk ballad but a professional minstrel's song. It is notable for containing the Green Knight, a character known from the medieval poems The Greene Knight and the more famous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; he appears as "Bredbeddle", the character's name in The Greene Knight.
Tristram of Lyonesse is a long epic poem written by the British poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, that recounts in grand fashion the famous medieval story of the ill-fated lovers Tristan and Isolde. It was first published in 1882 by Chatto and Windus, in a volume entitled Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems. Swinburne himself considered Tristram of Lyonesse to be the crowning achievement of his poetic career. William Morris commented that Swinburne's work 'always seemed to me to be founded on literature, not on nature'.
Tristram and Iseult, published in 1852 by Matthew Arnold, is a narrative poem containing strong romantic and tragic themes. This poem draws upon the Tristan and Iseult legends which were popular with contemporary readers.
Tristan and Iseult is a children's novel by Rosemary Sutcliff and was first published in 1971. A re-telling of the ancient legend, it received the Boston-Globe Horn Book Award in 1972, and was runner-up for the 1972 Carnegie Medal.
The Old French Tristan Poems: A Bibliographic Guide is a 1980 bibliography by David J. Shirt, a scholar of French literature who specialised in Arthurian and Tristan studies. It presents an overview of the literature on the medieval Tristan and Iseult poems, including the 12th-century poems by Béroul and Thomas of Britain. The book was published by Grant & Cutler as volume 28 of the Research Bibliographies and Checklists series. Critics generally praised its layout and use of cross-references, though some pointed out studies that the bibliography omitted. Reviewers also applauded Shirt's inclusion of a verse-by-verse index of Béroul's text.