![]() ![]() ![]() I am sure in my own mind that the medieval storytellers added it to make an excuse for Tristan and Iseult for being in love with each other when Iseult was married to somebody else. Now the story of Tristan and Iseult is Diarmid and Grania, and Deirdre and the sons of Usna, and in neither of them is there any suggestion of a love potion. "In all the versions that we know, Tristan and Iseult fall in love because they accidentally drink together a love potion which was meant for Iseult and her husband King Marc on their wedding night. In this retelling I have tried to get back to the Celtic original as much as possible, and in doing this I have made one big change in the story. ![]() The medieval troubadours took it and enriched it, and dressed it in medieval clothes, but if you look, you can still see the Celtic story, fiercer and darker, and (despite the changes) more real, underneath. "In its far-back beginnings, Tristan is a Celtic legend, a tale woven by harpers round the peat fire in the timber halls of Irish or Welsh or Cornish chieftains, long before the time of chivalrous knights and fair ladies and turreted castles in which it is generally set. ![]() Sutcliff's foreword explains her decision to make one major alteration to the traditional Arthurian story: ![]()
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