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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE











KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC
MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE:
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
Ronald L. Boyer
Sonoma State University
Rohnert Park, CA




In these pages many mysteries are hinted at.
What if you came to understand one of them?
--Jalal al-Din Rumi


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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

Abstract
This paper provides a brief introductory interpretation of some key archetypal motifs in the
Celtic mythology of Tristan and Isolde. The interpretation is based on elements taken from
numerous interpreters of the myth, from Thomas of Brittany and Gottfried von Strassburg to the
contemporary retelling by the French scholar, Joseph Bedier, from which the current authors
narrative is largely derived. An archetypal tale of forbidden love, the story of Tristan and Isolde
is one of the most profound and thoroughly developed archetypal stories of the hero journey,
utilizing more than 60 archetypal symbols and motifs, rich with metaphorical imagery closely
corresponding to the images found abundantly in the worlds myths, rites, shamanic initiations
and Jungs individuation process. The narrative is augmented with amplification by archetypal
images appearing in the Celtic tale that are also found in mythopoeic narratives of the ancient
Greeks, Hebrews and other cultures. Possible psychological meanings of the images are
indicated, and a bibliography is provided for further research.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

Introduction
The story of Tristan of Lyonesse (or Parmenie) and Isolde the Fair of Ireland is one of the
most beloved mythic narratives of the Celtic people. It is arguably the greatest love story of
European mythology, a timeless tale of forbidden love between a heroic and noble warrior and
the golden-haired princess he woos ostensiblyin a classic bridal questas his Kings wife. On
the long triumphant sea voyage home, fate strikes when the warrior and his future queen
accidentally drink a powerful love potion created by Isoldes mother, the sorceress Queen of
Ireland. The couple drinks love and death together, creating a chain of events that will put
their sacred honor, their lives and the future of the kingdom at risk.
A favorite myth of Joseph Campbell, the story inspired this author to create a screenplay for a
feature film (currently under revision) as well as a book length manuscript (also under revision)
in which more than 60 recurring archetypal motifs are identifiedcommon to mythologies
around the worldincluding ancient Greek mythologies and the most ancient myths of the Celts
and Europeans. The paper identifies several of the major archetypal motifs evident in the
opening scenes of the Tristan narratives, with psychological commentary provided. The sheer
number of archetypal motifs identifiable in the story of Tristan and Isolde, interpreted by
countless storytellers over a span of roughly 1,200 years, prohibits any detailed analysis of the
myth in an essay of this limited scope. What is possible, in the short span of this paper, is a brief
synopsis of some of the more important archetypal symbols, motifs and themes in the opening
narrative of the tale, with some suggestions for their possible psychological meaning/s.


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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

Archetypal Motifs with Commentary

As the myth-tellers like to say, this is a very old tale. The core of the narrative that follows is
based on a retelling of the story by Joseph Bedier (1945):
Tristan is the son, born out of wedlock, of the great warrior, Lord Rivalen of Lyonesse, and
the beautiful Lady Blanchefleur, sister of the young King Mark of Cornwall. Days before his
birth, Tristans father is slain in battle; four days later his mother dies in childbirth. The name
she gives her newborn child, Tristan, means child of sorrows. After being raised secretly by
foster parents, the faithful seneschal, Marshall Rohalt and his wife, to protect him from his
fathers murderer, and having learned the arts of barony befitting his noble station, he grows
into an extraordinarily gifted and handsome young man.
The hero, Tristan, is a conventional orphan-hero. Mythic heroes are typically orphans and/or
foundlings of some sort. This symbolic convention was first discovered by psychoanalyst Otto
Rank (1914/1964), described in his classic work, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. Carl
Kerenyi and C. G. Jung (1949/1973) further amplified and interpreted the image in Essays on a
Science of Mythology, where Kerenyi explicitly identifies the mythic foundlings of Rank
among whom Tristan is specifically identifiedwith the primordial orphans
1
of European
folklore and creation myths. The mythic orphan, established as a convention of mythology
beginning in the creation myths of the world, is still going strong at the box office. Harry Potter,
Luke Skywalker, and Superman, Batman, and Spiderman are among the better known
contemporary reincarnations of the archetype. As a psychological symbol, it can be interpreted

1
This is my term for a family of closely related symbols associated with the origin myths of archetypal heroes. The
central idea is that of premature separation, presumably permanent, from their parents. Other symbolically
equivalent figures include the bastard, or illegitimate child, and the child conceived of a virgin. Tristan, like King
Arthur and a host of Celtic heroes, is both a bastard and an orphan, just as Harry Potter is both a foundling and an
orphan, examples of what both Freud and Jung refer to as overdetermination of symbols. The associated motifs of
the foster parents and the precocious and exceptional gifts of the orphan-hero are conventions of the motif.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

as a metaphor of our existential condition. The orphan is a symbol of the quest/ion of origins
and identity, i.e., the quest for Selfhood. Who am I? is the archetypal mystery embodied by all
mythic orphans, and their quests are alwaysin part or in wholea search for origins, true
nature and identity.
One day, Norwegian merchants sail into the harbor, and reckoning a hefty treasure for
selling the magnificent youth into slavery in some foreign land, they kidnap Tristan and vanish
on the high seas. At sea, a terrible storm erupts that tosses the ship about for eight days and
nights, and fearing that God will destroy them for harming the boy, they bargain with God for
their lives. The sea grows calm, and they abandon the lad on a strange shore.
The narrative closely follows an initiatory structure, i.e., Campbells leitmotif of the
monomyth (Campbell, 1949/1973, pp. 3 40). In this case, the convention of the abduction
motif of the hero, e.g., the Greek Persephone or biblical Jonah, corresponds with Campbells
involuntary calling (pp. 49 - 90) of the hero, a phenomenon echoed in shamanic initiations and
rites of passage the world over, as Eliade
2
(1957/1975) and others describe.
3
For example,
Eliade (1951/1974) writes, speaking of the Mentaweian shamans, a man or woman may be
made a seer by being abducted by the spirits (p. 87). The close parallels between Tristan and
Jonah bear special recognition here, imprisonment in the belly of the whale or the belly of the
ship being symbolically equivalent.
4
Psychologically, the phenomenology of abduction
corresponds with an eruption of an autonomous complex and can be meaningfully associated, for
instance, with the existential crises of adolescents, i.e., metaphysical rebellion or, in Jungs

2
Everywhere one meets with mysteries of initiation, writes Eliade, and everywhere, even in the most archaic
societies, they include the symbolism of a death and a new birth (p. 197). This model lies at the heart of Eliades
voluminous scholarship. Initiation means, he writes elsewhere, the symbolic death and resurrection of the
neophyte or, in other contexts, the descent into Hell followed by ascension into Heaven (p. 49). See Eliade, Images
and symbols: Studies in religious symbolism (P. Mairet, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3
As Jung suggests, this experience is also common to creative artists. See The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature.
4
Campbell discusses this common motif in several of his works.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

terms, the withdrawal of parental projections. The night sea journey
5
is one of Jungs
(1945/1966) favorite metaphors for the katabasis or nekyia, the journey of descent into the
underworld of the unconscious. Tristans separation, first from his biological parents and then
from his adoptive foster parents, conforms to the first stage of the initiatory structure (Campbell,
1949/1973, pp. 49 - 90).
Alone on the beach, Tristan climbs the steep cliffs and sets off into a great wilderness. After
several days, he encounters two friendly pilgrims. While speaking with them, he spies a great
stag fleeing a hunting party nearby, which he slays with an arrow and ritually dismembers. The
huntsmen, subjects of King Mark of Cornwall, are impressed with the young mans skill, and
take him incognito to Marks Court, at Tintagel, where the King is equally impressed and takes
the young lad under his protection. At Court, Tristan soon distinguishes himself, not only for his
skill with weapons and other knightly feats, but for his skills as a bard and harper.
Tristan relies on two exceptional abilities or powers to answer the call to destiny. The first is
a masculine power, that of the bow, with which he shoots the stag, a convention of Celtic
mythology. The second is a feminine power, his talent as a bard and harper. With these two
powers, he secures a new foster father, King Mark. The King, as a living symbol of the divine
on earth, can be meaningfully interpretedin Jungian termsas a symbol of the Self. In the
symbolic language of the tale, the abducted reluctant hero passes his first initiatory task and wins
the protection of the Self. A series of initiatory trials now confront the new initiate, beginning
with an encounter with a threshold guardian who inflicts a terrible initiatory wound on the hero,
catalyzing another night sea journey into the depths, where he meets his soul and is reborn:

5
The night sea journey is a kind of descensus ad inferosa descent into Hades, wrote Jung, and a journey to the
land of ghosts somewhere beyond this world, beyond consciousness, hence an immersion in the unconscious. Jung,
"The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 455.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

Meanwhile, his foster father, Lord Rohalt, searches for years in faraway lands. One day, he
finally finds his young Lord in the Court of King Mark, the brother of Tristans mother,
Blanchefleur. Using Blanchefleurs ring as evidence, Rohalt proves that Tristan is heir to the
throne of Lyonesse. Mark, overcome with joy at discovering Tristan to be his own dear nephew,
makes him heir to Cornwall as well and formally invests him as a knight. Sir Tristan returns to
Lyonesse to exact revenge on his fathers killer, then renouncing his own kingdom, which he
surrenders to Rohalt, he returns to Cornwall to serve his uncle, King Mark. But he arrives only
to discover that the dreaded champion of Ireland, the mortal enemy of the Britons, the giant
Morolt, has come to Cornwall to demand its payment of tribute, young noble men and girls to
serve in the Court of the dark King of Ireland, Gurmun the Gay. Tristan distinguishes himself by
challenging the Morolt to hand-to-hand combat, and slays and beheads the giant, becoming the
champion and savior of his uncles kingdom.
Following the revelation of the heros true identity,
6
as the nephew and sole heir to the
kingdom of Cornwall, Tristan returns to Cornwall to confront the legendary giant, Morolt,
Champion of Ireland, an archetypal monster figure and conventional threshold guardian. He
defeats the Morolt with his masculine powers, i.e., the sword, but pays a price: a fatal wound.
The suffering of a ritual wound is a convention of initiation, found in rites of passage the world
over. As a psychological metaphor, Morolt is a symbol of the wounding masculine Shadow
archetype. It is psychologically meaningful that this confrontation with the seemingly all-
powerful Shadow arises immediately after the heros initial encounter with the Self, i.e., King
Mark.

6
Orphan-heroes typically undertake an identity quest. By knowing his origins, he knows who he is, i.e., his higher
identity and destiny. By knowing where he comes from (before birth), he knows both who he is and where hes
going (after death).
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

Meanwhile, Tristan lies alone in a cottage near the sea, awaiting his own death from a mortal
wound from the Morolts sword, poisoned by his sorceress sisters deadly charms. The wound
exudes a horrible stench that drives all helpers away, and in an act of desperation, Tristan
abandons himself again to the fortunes of the sea, in a rudderless and oar-less boat, armed only
with his harp. Near death, he drifts on the waves for many days, until he reaches the coast of
Ireland, where the sorceress and her daughter, Isolde the Fair, a beautiful princess with golden
hair, nurse him back to life with their healing arts. For a time, Tristan, disguised as a seer
named Tantris, becomes Isolde the Fairs teacher. But when the occasion presents itself, the
hero escapes and returns to Cornwall.
One of the most interesting images in Tristan is his suffering of a magic wound that wont
heal as a price for beheading the Morolt. Although the wound motif is common in myth and
ritualthe wound of the Grail King springs to mindthis stinking wound has few parallels in
archetypal literature.
7
This complex image is associated with a death-rebirth motif in the story.
In shamanism, this could be compared to a state of loss of soul. In what is popularly thought
of as Hegels dialectical philosophy, this corresponds to the stage of antithesis.
8

Psychologically, this could represent an eruption of an autonomous complex, the crisis of
adolescence, a clinical depression, or the existential predicament of a philosopher like Nietzche

7
I believe the only other specific metaphor of a stinking wound is found in the ancient Greek myths of
Philoctetes, where the poison stems from a serpents bite.
8
The popular idea that Hegelian dialectics posits a tripartite structure underlying history of thesis-antithesis-
synthesis is highly controversial according to Walter Kaufman and a host of modern philosophers. Hegel himself
credited Kant for the terminology, which was earlier developed by the neo-Kantian Fichte. Whoever is actually
responsible for the model, it corresponds meaningfully with the leitmotif of the monomyth.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

(1887/1974), i.e., the question of how to live without a transcendent anchor of meaning,
9

metaphorically speaking, in a world where God is dead.
10

In the narrative, Tristan undertakes a night sea journey in a boat lacking oars, rudders and sail,
with only his harp to keep him company. Like the ancient hero Gilgamesh, he made a mast, his
clothes as sail, and drifted on the sea of death (p. 71).
11
This motif bears a striking resemblance
to accounts of initiatory shamanic illness. Rasmussen quotes a female Eskimo shaman: The
great sea has sent me adrift (Bly, 1980/1995). Eliades earlier assertion that one may become a
seer by being abducted by the spirits, which precisely describes the Tristan-as-Tantris arc in
the narrative, takes on more meaning in this context. [No] longer able to eat or drink, says the
poet Rumi (Moyne & Barks, 1986, p. 81), I float freely like a corpse upon the ocean.
Psychologically, this healing journey can be characterized as a process of letting go, calling
upon his feminine power and surrendering to the winds of fate. The ego (hero) is helpless; the
healing cannot be achieved by an act of heroic will. Significantly, he is lead by fate to his
encounter with the two Isoldes of Ireland, the sorceress whose poison fatally wounds him (a
personification of the homeopathic principle of like cures like),
12
and her daughter, the Princess
with Golden Hair, i.e., the anima figure or soul. Through his encounter with the anima-soul, the
hero is miraculously restored to health.
Yet another archetypal figure is suggested in the heros masquerade as a seer. Examples of
the wisdom of blind seers or prophets abound in mythology, a sub-type of Jungs (1948/1959)

9
Ernest Beckers excellent phrase. See Escape from Evil.
10
God is dead, wrote Nietzche in The Gay Science: God remains dead. And we have killed him (Sect. 125; W.
Kaufmann (Trans). The famous phrase first appears in Nietzches The Gay Science, but was popularized later in
Thus Spake Zarathustra.
11
See Mason, H. (Trans.). (1972). Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative.
12
Jung mentions this principle of healing frequently in his analysis of the symbols of alchemy.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

archetype of the Wise Old Man.
13
The blind seer Tiresias, who appears in The Odyssey and at
the center of Sophocles drama King Oedipus, is an example of the archetype. An even more
ancient figure, the blind seer Utnapishtim,
14
appears as the goal of the quest of the Sumerian hero
Gilgamesh, being the source of wisdom guiding the hero through the underworld to the plant that
restores life, i.e., the plant of immortality. This idea seems significant given Tristans objective
in this passage: to be healed of the poisoned wound. Psychologically, this complex symbol of
the blind seer suggests the power of second sight, or intuition through which the hero finds his
or her way by learning to see in the dark. In the dark, says the poet Theodore Roethke
(1998), the eye begins to see.
15

As suggested above, the result of the wounded heros encounter with the soul is restoration to
health, i.e., the renewal of life. A second life had been given him, he was a man newborn,
wrote Gottfried von Strassburg (1960) in his early 13
th
century retelling of the Tristan saga
Only now did he begun to live (p. 151). This central psychological idea of death-rebirth lies at
the heart of countless archetypal narratives, from myths and rites to folk and fairytales. Hero
talesthe Tristan quest is a classic exampleare typically transformational journeys of some
kind. The death-rebirth motif is a universal metaphor of the heros transformation. It is also a
shamanic and initiatory motif. Tristan, like countless heroes, initiates, and shamans is twice
born. If you do not possess this die and be reborn, wrote Goethe (1885), you are only a
troubled guest on the dark earth.
16




13
Jung, "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," CW 9i, par. 398.
14
To my knowledge, this archetypal figure of the blind seer has not been described in the interpretative literature in
spite of its conventional nature.
15
Roethke, T.(1998). Far Fields.
16
Goethe, W. H. von. (1885). The Holy Longing in West-Eastern Divan.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

Conclusion
The mythic narrative of Tristan and Isolde is a classic hero quest, an initiatory journey of
separation-initiation-return (Campbell, 1949/1974), and an example of what Mircea Eliade calls
the initiatic schema of birth-death-rebirth. From his archetypal origins and beginnings, the
orphan-hero Tristan follows a road of trials in which he undertakes identity quests and bridal
quests, slays dragons, and suffers the tragic fate of heroes and gods who die young. The hero
slays a mythical dragon and wins Jungs numinous treasure hard to attain.
17
He also suffers a
series of nearly fatal wounds and miraculous resurrections. He tricks and defeats his shadowy
adversaries, repeatedly triumphing over seemingly impossible odds. Ultimately, he reconciles
with his King, i.e., the Self. And in the end, the lovers are divinely transformed (apotheosis)
when, following their liebestod or love-death
18
echoed centuries later in Shakespeares
immortal Romeo and Julietthey are buried in King Marks tomb, where a magic self-
regenerating briar springs up between their graves, uniting them forever in a love that transcends
death.


17
The motif is typically associated with the acquisition of numinous powers necessary for individuation, for a good
relationship with the Self. The appearance of treasure, jewels, and other images are ubiquitous in archetypal
narratives, including folk and fairytales, myths, etc. Jung equates it with the alchemical metaphor of the
Philosophers Stone.
18
I interpret the love-death as a tragic version of the divine hieros gamos, or royal wedding, a major alchemical
motif appearing throughout Jungs works.
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Running Head: KEY ARCHETYPES IN THE CELTIC MYTH OF TRISTAN & ISOLDE

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