Introduction

Graelent is preserved in two manuscripts: (i) S and (ii) Paris, BNF, fr. 2168 (Tobin's MS A). Our translation is based on S.

Graelent is a knight in the service of the King of Brittany. His reputation for generous entertaining and the distribution of largesse inspires the queen to fall in love with him. But when she summons him he rebuffs her advances, and eventually her love turns to hatred. She poisons the king's mind against him so that his pay is withheld and he gradually sinks into poverty. One day, he goes hunting with borrowed equipment and follows a white hind that leads him to a naked maiden bathing in a fountain. She is clearly a supernatural figure. Graelent forms a liaison with her and she bestows on him money and garments, enabling him to regain his status at court. Then one day the king has the queen stand on a table so that everyone can pay tribute to her unique beauty. Graelent, however, declares that he knows a more beautiful woman. This public announcement strips him of all the wealth given by the fairy, and it results in the threat of imprisonment if, within a year, he cannot produce the latter in order to substantiate his boast. When his trial begins, the fairy eventually turns up to vindicate him, and as she leaves he follows her. He comes upon a river, but undeterred plunges into it and has to be rescued from drowning by her handmaidens. He then disappears to her land, leaving his distressed horse behind.

Graelent has clear affinities with Marie de France's Lanval and shares themes with Guingamor. The queen's propositioning has links to the tale of Potiphar's wife from Genesis, but it is expanded here to include a lecture from the hero on the nature of love. Although the queen does not subsequently denounce Graelent to her husband, she ensures that he suffers. The episode with the fairy has echoes in Lanval and Guingamor, although in Lanval the fairy offers her love from the outset while in Graelent he forces himself upon her before obtaining her love.