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''Graelent'' is an Old French Breton lai, named after its protagonist. It is one of the so-called and draws on Marie de France's ''Lanval''. ==Plot summary== In the words of Tom Peete Cross, ::Graelent, a noble knight ... is loved by the queen of Bretaigne, but he refuses her offer of affection. Angered at the rebuff, the queen speaks ill of him to the king, who withholds the pay due Graelent for service in time of war. Sad at heart because of poverty, Graelent wanders into the forest, where he starts a white hind. On pursuing the animal, he comes to a beautiful fountain in which a maiden, with two attendant damsels, is bathing. Graelent steals up quietly and takes the lady's clothes. The latter at first becomes terrified and begs him to return her property, even going so far as to offer him gold. When, however, Graelent asks her love, she treats him scornfully. The knight now threatens to keep her garments. He finally induces her to leave the fountain and dress, whereupon he carries her into the dark forest and makes her his mistress. The lady now suddenly changes her manner entirely. She tells him that she has visited the fountain for the purpose of meeting him and that she has long known of his coming. She also grants him her love and promises him great riches, assuring him that she will visit him whenever he desires, provided he does not reveal her existence. At the end of the king's annual Pentecost feast, all present are expected to praise the beauty of the queen as being greater than any other that they know. ::Graelent, who happens to be present at one of these strange ceremonies, keeps silent. On being asked by the king why he withholds his praise, he announces that he knows a woman thirty times as fair as the queen. The king thereupon threatens him with life imprisonment if at the expiration of a year he cannot produce the woman whom he praises so extravagantly. Graelent later finds that his mistress does not appear at his desire, and is overcome with the most bitter remorse. Finally, however, the lady of the fountain returns, arriving at court just in time to save her lover from the threatened punishment. When she departs, Graelent mounts a wonderful horse (one of his mistress's gifts), and, in spite of her warning, follows her. He rides after her into a river. Here he is on the point of being drowned when he is saved by the lady and carried off. He has never returned. The horse, escaping from the water, mourns for the loss of his master. He may still be heard at this season of the year.〔Tom Peete Cross, 'The Celtic Elements in the Lays of "Lanval" and "Graelent"', ''Modern Philology'', 12 (1915), 585-644, http://www.jstor.org/stable/432976.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Graelent」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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