Iseult of Ireland

Iseult, or Isolde, is a figure of Irish legend. There are three characters in the legend with this name, Princess Iseult of Ireland, her mother, Iseult the Queen of Ireland, and Iseult of Brittany (also known as Iseult of the White Hands).

 

Iseult, Princess of Ireland, along with the other two Iseults, featured in the Tristan poems of Béroul (12th century Briton or Normandy), Thomas of Briton (12th century Britain) and Gottfried von Strassburg (12th century Germany). Iseult was known as Iseult the Fair and also as one of the most skilled physicians.

When Iseult was young, Tristan, nephew of the King of Cornwall, fought her uncle and was wounded, but Iseult found him and, not knowing who he was at the time, helped to heal his wounds. Upon his identity being revealed, Tristan fled.

 

Originally, Iseult was due to marry a cruel steward, who had secured her hand through lies that he had slain a dragon. When Tristan, later on, revealed that it was he who had slain the beast, proving his words by producing the dragon’s tongue, Iseult’s parents agreed to Tristan taking her back to Cornwall, to wed King Mark, Tristan’s uncle.

 

Unfortunately, while on route to Cornwall, Iseult and Tristan accidentally drank a love potion and fell helplessly in love with one another. The potion was prepared by Iseult’s lady-in-waiting and was originally intended for Iseult and King Mark. Their union was quickly ended when Mark banished Tristan from Cornwall. Tristan was banished to Brittany, where he met and married Iseult of Brittany, as she shared the same name as his love. The marriage was never consummated because of Tristan’s deep love for his Princess Iseult of Ireland.

 

In the original poems, the pair of lovers did not meet again until Tristan was on his death bed. Tristan sustained a fatal wound in Brittany, that only Iseult of Ireland could cure. He sent a ship to get her, asking that they showed white flags if she were aboard upon their return, or black flags if she were not.

 

Iseult agreed to go and sailed to Brittany, however Tristan was too weak to look out of the window and when the ships were seen on the horizon he asked his wife, Iseult of Brittany, to tell him the colour of the sails. In a moment of jealousy, Iseult of Brittany told her husband that the sails were black. Tristan died in that moment, in despair. When Iseult of Ireland found her lover dead, she also died of grief, at his side.

 

In prose versions of the tale, this is not how the story ends. Tristan went to Brittany but he later returned to Cornwall and Iseult and Tristan resumed their affair. When Iseult’s husband, King Mark, found out, he was enraged and the pair had to flee. Prose versions of the story are mixed in with Arthurian legend and the couple actually take shelter, and have adventures with, Lancelot of the round table.

 

In this prose version, the couple met their end together beneath a tree. Tristan played the harp for his love, but King Mark had found them and stabbed his nephew in the back. Iseult begged Tristan to kill her, so she could be with her beloved. Tristan, as his final act, held Iseult in an embrace so tight he crushed her, killing her.

 

Iseult’s story has always reminded me a bit of the classic Romeo and Juliet star-crossed lovers story. She and Tristan were lovers who were never meant to be and were never able to be free together. Though their love started out with a potion, I still think there is a beauty in their tragic tale.