Breton lay

A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. Lais are short (typically 600–1000 lines), rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-world Celtic motifs. The word "lay" or “lai” is thought to be derived from the Old High German and/or Old Middle German leich, which means play, melody, or song, or as suggested by Jack Zipes in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, the Irish word laid (song).

Zipes writes that the Arthurian legends were believed to have been transmitted from Wales, Cornwall and Ireland to Brittany; once on the continent the songs were performed in various places by harpists and storytellers. Zipes reports the earliest record lay is Robert Biker's Lai du Cor, dating to the mid- to late-12th century.

The earliest Breton lais to survive in writing are probably The Lais of Marie de France, thought to have been composed in the 1170s by Marie de France, a French poet writing in England at Henry II's court between the late 12th and early 13th centuries. From descriptions in Marie's lais, and in several anonymous Old French lais of the 13th century, we know of earlier lais of Celtic origin, perhaps more lyrical in style, sung by Breton minstrels. It is believed that these Breton lyric lais, none of which has survived, were introduced by a summary narrative setting the scene for a song, and that these summaries became the basis for the narrative lais.

The earliest written Breton lais were composed in a variety of Old French dialects, and some half dozen lais are known to have been composed in Middle English in the 13th and 14th centuries by various English authors.

Breton lais may have inspired Chrétien de Troyes, and likely were responsible for spreading Celtic and fairy-lore into Continental Europe. An example of a 14th century Bretan lai has the king of the fairies carrying away a wife to the land of fairy.

Old French Lais

 * The Lays of Marie de France — twelve canonical lais generally accepted as those of Marie de France.
 * The so-called Anonymous Lais — eleven lais of disputed authorship. While these lais are occasionally interspersed with the Marian lais in Medieval manuscripts, scholars do not agree that these lais were actually written by Marie.
 * 'The Lay of the Beach', one of around twenty Old French lais translated into Old Norwegian prose in the 13th century. This lai gives a detailed description of William the Conqueror's commissioning of what appears to be a lyric lai to commemorate a period spent at Barfleur.

Middle English Lais

 * 'Sir Orfeo', 'Sir Degaré', 'Sir Gowther', 'Emaré' and 'The Erle of Toulouse', all by anonymous authors
 * 'Lay le Freine', a translation of Marie de France's 'Le Fresne'
 * 'The Franklin's Tale' from the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. ('The Wife of Bath's Tale' is sometimes identified as a Breton lai, but in fact it contains none of the generally-agreed defining features of the genre.)
 * 'Sir Launfal', by Thomas Chestre (a retelling of an earlier Middle English lai, 'Landavale', itself a translation of Marie de France's 'Lanval')