Sir Kehydius

Sir Kehydius is the son of King Howel of Brittany and the brother of Isoud la Blanche Mains. His story connects political service and kinship to the rivalries of love: he helps secure Tristram’s aid for his father, travels beside him, and eventually becomes a rival for La Beale Isoud’s affection. The narrative presents him both as a member of a royal family and as a companion whose private attachment unsettles the bonds that brought him into Tristram’s company.

Identity and Family

Kehydius is identified as King Howel’s son, and his sister is Isoud la Blanche Mains, whom Tristram later marries. His place in King Howel’s family shapes his early connection with Tristram: when Brittany is under military pressure and Kehydius cannot take the field, his father turns to Tristram for help. The family relationship thus gives Tristram’s service a personal dimension as well as a political one.

Kehydius’s later position becomes more complicated because the same journey that brings him alongside Tristram also brings him into contact with La Beale Isoud, Tristram’s beloved. The story does not make him a stranger who intrudes from outside the established company; he is already joined to Tristram by service to his father, marriage to his sister, and shared travel before his own love is disclosed.

Service to King Howel

An earl named Grip makes war against King Howel, puts him at a disadvantage, and besieges him. Kehydius goes out from the town but is unable to continue the fighting. Tristram, at Gouvernail’s recommendation, agrees to help the king and takes the field with whatever fellowship he can assemble. He kills Grip and more than a hundred knights, and his actions bring him wide renown in Brittany.

King Howel receives Tristram with honor and offers to resign his whole kingdom to him. Tristram refuses the offer, saying that his service is owed to King Howel for his daughter’s sake. The connection between the two families is then reinforced by King Howel and Kehydius, whose efforts help foster the love between Tristram and Isoud. Tristram’s association with Brittany grows through a sequence of military aid, royal gratitude, and family ties; Kehydius is part of that sequence even though the passage gives him no detailed account of his own fighting.

Tristram’s position in Brittany eventually changes. Surrounded by welcome, wealth, and other pleasures, he nearly forsakes La Beale Isoud, and he agrees to marry Isoud la Blanche Mains. The marriage binds Tristram still more closely to Kehydius’s family, while the older love remains unresolved. When news of the marriage reaches the court of King Arthur, Sir Launcelot condemns Tristram’s conduct toward La Beale Isoud and says that his own love for Tristram has ended. Kehydius is not the object of this rebuke, but his sister’s marriage to Tristram places him within the consequences of Tristram’s divided attachments.

Journey and Joust

After Tristram is in Brittany, La Beale Isoud sends him a letter through Bragwaine, asking him to come to her court with Isoud la Blanche Mains and promising that they will both be well received. Tristram asks Kehydius whether he will travel secretly with him to Cornwall; Kehydius agrees to go whenever Tristram is ready. They set out in a small vessel with Bragwaine and Gouvernail, but contrary winds drive them onto the coast of North Wales, near Castle Perilous.

Tristram leaves Kehydius and the others to wait for him, setting a limit of ten days before they should make their way to Cornwall without him. He and Kehydius then ride into the forest, where they encounter an armed knight seated by a well, with a horse tied to an oak and a man nearby leading a horse loaded with spears. Tristram challenges the stranger to joust. Kehydius asks permission to go first, and Tristram grants it. The stranger unhorses Kehydius, who is also wounded in the encounter. Tristram then takes up the challenge himself; the knight unhorses him as well, and the two fight on foot for nearly two hours before Tristram asks his opponent to pause and tell him his name. The episode places Kehydius in the role of Tristram’s companion and first challenger, but the evidence does not identify the stranger here or state the further consequences of the encounter for Kehydius.

Love, Discovery, and Departure

When Tristram and Kehydius reach Cornwall, Sir Dinas and Bragwaine secretly bring them to La Beale Isoud. The narrative describes the joy of her reunion with Tristram as beyond the power of speech, thought, or writing. It then reveals that Kehydius, on first seeing La Beale Isoud, falls so deeply in love with her that he cannot draw his affection back. He secretly writes her letters and ballads. She takes pity on his complaint and, without due consideration, writes a reply intended to comfort him.

Tristram is staying in a turret at La Beale Isoud’s direction. One day, while King Mark plays chess below the chamber, Tristram finds both Kehydius’s letter and Isoud’s answer; she is present in the room. Tristram confronts her with the letters and calls her faithless, invoking what he has forsaken for her love. He also turns on Kehydius, reminding him that Tristram brought him from Brittany and won his father’s lands, and that he married Kehydius’s sister in recognition of her goodness. He treats the letters as betrayal and draws his sword against Kehydius. Isoud faints, and Kehydius escapes through a bay window, giving King Mark an excuse for his sudden fall from the chamber.

Later, as Tristram remains in the forest, a damsel sent by Palamides reports the hardship he endures. Kehydius has meanwhile been commanded by La Beale Isoud to leave Cornwall. With a sorrowful heart, he departs and meets Palamides by chance. The two travel together and share their complaints because they both love La Beale Isoud. Palamides proposes that they seek Tristram, who loves her as they do, and try to recover him. They search the forest for three days and three nights without taking lodging. When they meet King Mark alone, Palamides threatens him, blaming the king’s conduct and vengeance for Tristram’s suffering. Mark replies that Tristram’s distress arose from the letter he found and denies having injured him; after hearing this, they become friends. Kehydius then says that he will go to Brittany, while Palamides turns toward Logris.

Narrative Role and Ending

Kehydius’s movement through the story repeatedly links family loyalty to the unstable claims of love. His father’s need draws Tristram into Brittany; his sister’s marriage to Tristram strengthens the bond between the two men; and Kehydius’s own love for La Beale Isoud transforms companionship into rivalry. The letters make that private attachment visible, and Tristram’s response changes the relationship from shared travel and service to accusation and separation.

Kehydius’s departure from Cornwall does not resolve his attachment. The narrator states that, as the book proceeds, Kehydius dies for love of La Beale Isoud. The account in these episodes therefore closes not with reconciliation or a new alliance, but with his departure alongside Palamides and a stated fatal outcome that gives his unreturned love a tragic place in the larger narrative.