Iseult, Isolde, La Beale Isoud, Yseult... Today I will spell her name Iseult. The lady appears in quite a few mediaeval poems and prose pieces, with variations on her name.
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| Iseult, William Morris. Public Domain. |
Iseult is the daughter of Irish king Anguish. Unlike other heroines of these stories, she is a surprisingly tough cookie. No sitting around doing embroidery, kidnapping and waiting to be rescued by her knight for her.
For starters, she is known as a “noble surgeon”(Malory), possibly the world’s top doctor. When her future lover Tristram comes to Ireland to be healed of a serious wound he got killing her uncle, she is the one assigned to look after “Tramtrist”.
They fall in love during this time, no matter what Wagner tells you - the love potion only seals their romance - and after he is healed he hangs around, recuperating and romancing his doctor.
Soon after, her father offers her hand to the winner of a tournament. As this seems likely to be Saracen knight Sir Palomides, whom she doesn’t want, she goes to Tristram to ask him to compete.
“I’m not fully recovered!” he protests, but Iseult is a tough girl, and she does not want to end up married to Palomides. She persists and he agrees, probably just as well because at the tournament Palomides knocks out ten of Arthur’s most famous knights. Tristram defeats him and makes him promise to stay out of armour for a year and give up his wooing of Iseult. We never do find out about the armour, but he certainly doesn’t give up his love of Iseult. More about this in a later post.
Later, after getting caught out by Iseult’s mother, who finds his chipped sword and realises the missing piece is what killed her brother, Tristram flees Ireland and then returns to win Iseult, not for himself but for his uncle, Mark of Cornwall.
You’d think at this stage our tough Iseult would let Tristram know what she thinks of this, but she keeps quiet and it’s on the ship to Cornwall that the lovers drink what they think is a good quality wine, but is the love potion Wagner makes such a fuss about in his opera. Iseult’s mother handed it to Brangaine, Iseult’s lady in waiting, to be opened on the wedding day, so that Mark and Iseult would fall in love. Oops!
When they get to Cornwall after several adventures, the wedding happens but the consummation doesn’t; our dear, sweet Iseult, in some versions, sends Brangaine to do the job in her place and then, fearing her handmaiden will blab, tries to have her killed. As I have said - tough! I can’t imagine Guinevere doing this.
The poor girl is found, tied up in the woods, by Palomides, who takes her to a nearby convent and leaves her to recover from the shock. By this time, Iseult is feeling guilty and trying to find Brangaine. Palomides says he will bring her back on condition of a “boon”. You can guess what that is, but Iseult doesn’t, and agrees.
I won’t go into too many details now, as I’m planning a post for Tristram, but needless to say, Iseult has a number of adventures, gets out of some predicaments with her wit and, at one stage, locks a castle gate against a would-be kidnapper.
There have been a couple of films on this subject in recent years, though I haven’t seen them, and of course, there is the opera, which I have seen, though I have made a vow never again to go see anything by loud, vulgar, antisemitic Wagner.
In The Once And Future King, she does get a mention. Guinevere sort of envies her, as being elegant and witty, something Guinevere doesn’t think she herself is.
Rosemary Sutcliff wrote a children’s novel, Tristan and Iseult. Diana Paxson’s White Raven is another Tristram/Iseult book.
For more, here is a list on Goodreads.
I’ll go into more detail in my T post. See you tomorrow!
16 comments:
I read some version of Tristram and Isolde in college, but it's pretty much slipped my mind, so thanks for the summary!
I’m not surprised, Liam. The Book of Tristram in Malory, anyway, is full of knights knocking each other off their horses, as is the Book of Lancelot. You have to filter it all out to find the basic story.
My kind of heroine. I am familiar with "Isolde" spelling, but didn't realise her name was spelt so differently. I wonder if I have read about her in other stories and not realised it was the same character?
The various Arthurian names are spelt differently, depending on which country the story comes from. I have no idea what Arthurian fiction you have read - do any of those spellings sound familiar?
Isolde definitely. Although Yseult seems familiar...
Isolde is the operatic name. Which doesn’t mean you got it from the opera. You might have read Yseult in one of the many fantasy novels around. In The Once And Future King she is called Isoud, her name in Malory. If you ever do remember, pop back here and tell us. With the moderation on I will find it.
I never really liked her much either. Trying off her handmaiden is a bad move.
The Multicolored Diary
Ah, Zalka, what a pity that one of the stronger, more intelligent women in the canon is such an awful person!
Fascinating post. I read a translation of Joseph Bédier's Tristan and Iseult a few years ago. It is interesting that the tale has really stayed with me. Iseult is such a remarkable character.
She is indeed remarkable, Brian! Not very kind or nice, but the same goes for many brilliant people in the real world.
I've always preferred Iseult/Isolde to Tristram in all the stories about them. I used the name 'Iseult' for one of my romantic characters in a short story - or rather 'Esyllt' the Welsh version. However, a beta reader felt the name sounded weird, so she became 'Nerys'. Less memorable.
You do realise there was a character called Nerys - Kira Nerys(Kira was her surname) in Deep Space 9, don’t you? 😂
I'm learning so much on this series and I love this story. The problem with these sorts of canons and mythologies is these wonderful women only get on story a piece, it seems. I'd love to find out more about Iseult!
Bajoran Major Kira Nerys was one of my favourite characters in DS9.
Melanie, so glad you are enjoying! If you click through to that Goodreads page, you’ll find about 43 books with Iseult in them. You should be able to find the mediaeval stories easily enough on Gutenberg.
Roland, yes, Kira Nerys is a great character, and the actress who played her was especially good in that mirror universe episode, where the alternative Kira Nerys was a lot like Servalan in Blake’s 7 and she had to play good gal and villain in the same episode!
One of my favourite characters :-)
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