He has also brought in the allegory of Death, which, when faced,
proves to be "a blooming boy" behind the mask. The courtesy and
prowess of Lancelot lead up to the later development of his
character.

In The Marriage of Geraint, a rumour has already risen about Lancelot
and the Queen, darkening the Court, and presaging


"The world's loud whisper breaking into storm."


For this reason Geraint removes Enid from Camelot to his own land--
the poet thus early leading up to the sin and the doom of Lancelot.
But this motive does not occur in the Welsh story of Enid and
Geraint, which Tennyson has otherwise followed with unwonted
closeness. The tale occurs in French romances in various forms, but
it appears to have returned, by way of France and coloured with
French influences, to Wales, where it is one of the later Mabinogion.
The characters are Celtic, and Nud, father of Edyrn, Geraint's
defeated antagonist, appears to be recognised by Mr Rhys as "the
Celtic Zeus." The manners and the tournaments are French. In the
Welsh tale Geraint and Enid are bedded in Arthur's own chamber, which
seems to be a symbolic commutation of the jus primae noctis a custom
of which the very existence is disputed. This unseemly antiquarian
detail, of course, is omitted in the Idyll.

An abstract of the Welsh tale will show how closely Tennyson here
follows his original. News is brought into Arthur's Court of the