Arthurian literature

Arthurian literature, as redefined by Geoffrey of Monmouth (fl. 1140) and developed in the romances of Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1180), found its way back to Britain and eventually to Ireland, where a group of adaptations into Irish form an identifiable subgroup within early modern prose literature. Lorgaireacht an tSoidhigh Naomhtha, a 15th cent. translation of the Queste del Sant Graal, is the best-known of these. An Arthurian element surfaces in later genres of literature such as stories or apologues in bardic verse, ballads and oral tales, and even genealogies. Early texts of the Fionn cycle make reference to an Artúr who led a British war-band, while the 11th-cent. Irish translation of Nennius' Historia Brittonum supplies glimpses of a supposedly historical Arthur. The early Irish saga Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin has been suggested as a source for the Tristan and Isolde theme.