
The plot of Thomas's poem can be reconstructed, however, because of the works which were based on it. The earliest example of the courtly tradition is found in the Tristan of the Anglo-Norman poet Thomas, which survives only in fragments estimated to comprise about one-sixth of the poem. The former tradition is represented by Eilhart von Oberge's Tristrant and Béroul's Roman de Tristran, both written in the latter half of the twelfth century. The two branches have been referred to as the common and the courtly because of the manner in which they treat the story. Later literary versions of the legend have traditionally been divided by scholars into two branches, each deriving ultimately from an earlier " Ur-Tristan," an original or parent version of the story. Nevertheless, it seems that "the Continental poets, and Béroul in particular, evidently derived their principal knowledge of the Tristan story from a Cornish source" (Bromwich, "The Tristan of the Welsh," p. The stone contains "the earliest inscribed evidence for the name" though "whether or not the man so named can really have been the prototype of the romance hero is an open question" (Rachel Bromwich, "The Tristan of the Welsh," in The Arthur of the Welsh: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Welsh Literature, ed. There is also early evidence of localization of the Tristan story in Cornwall, where the Tristan Stone was found near Castle Dore in Cornwall, a place associated with King Mark. The name Tristan (Drystan or Trystan, as it appears in the Celtic sources) is apparently Pictish in origin but was "borrowed fairly early by the Welsh and perhaps by the Irish" (see the note on the name in Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads, ed.


The story of Tristan and Isolt, one of the most popular tales of the Middle Ages, has its roots in early Celtic literature and legend.
