Tristan
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or TRISTRAM, the center figure of a circle of old Celtic myths, which with countless modifications and additions afterward appeared in all the chief European literatures. According to the story, Tristan, son of Rouland Rise, Lord of Ermonie, and Blanche Fleur, sister of Mark, King of Cornwall, was sent by his uncle to woo vicariously and bring home as bride to the British king the fair Isolt, Yseult, or Ysonde, princ princess of Ireland. Tristan does so, but they unfortunately partake of a love charm which is not intended for them. They fall passionately but hopelessly in love with each other. The intrigue was carried on for years, and the story narrates the adventures-grave and gaywhich resulted from the somewhat difficult position of the actors. They died simultaneously, and the king generously allowed them to be buried side by side. But "even in our ashes live their wonted fires," a vine and a rose-bush grew from the graves, and, meeting, twined amorously their branches ches together. The most important romance extant on the subject is that composed about 1170 by the Norman-English chevalier, Luce de Gast. The legend got abroad to France, and from thence mixed with the Arthurian myths to Germany, where Gottfried of Strassburg renarrated part of the story in a lively poem (1210), which had great popularity in the Middle Ages. Hans Sachs is one among a host of old writers who have treated the subject. The Auchinleck MS. of "Sir Tristan" was published by Walter Scott in 1806. TRISTAN DA CUNHA (dä-kön' yä), the largest of three islands in the South Atlantic (the others being Nightingale and Inaccessible Island), about 1,500 miles S. W. of St. Helena. It is mountainous, and one peak rises to the height of 7,640 feet. The island was taken possession of by Great Britain in 1817.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The story Collier's told in 1921 is still told the same way, down to the vine and the rose twining over the graves. What has moved is the scholarship: the prose romance Collier's called "the most important romance extant on the subject," composed "about 1170" by "the Norman-English chevalier, Luce de Gast," is now dated to the 1230s or later, and the name is generally treated as a pseudonym; pride of place has passed to the twelfth-century verse versions of Beroul and of Thomas of Britain, the latter Gottfried of Strassburg's source. A fresh fragment of Thomas's poem, some 150 lines, turned up in 1995 in a binding in the Carlisle Cathedral library. The entry's second subject has had a harder century: the volcano on Tristan da Cunha erupted in 1961 and the entire population was evacuated to England, most returning in 1963 to what is still called the world's remotest inhabited island.
Written for this edition, 2026.