the daughter of King Rion, who is an enemy of King Arthur in most other medieval Arthurian stories and usually hails from North Wales. Launfal's home base seems to be Caerleon, in South Wales. The realm of Fayrye is located on the island of Olyroun (probably Oléron, near Brittany). Being the realm of Fayrye, however, it might not be expected to have a specific location in the real world. Marie de France relates that Lanval was taken by his Faërie lover to Avalon, "a very beautiful island," and was never seen again; just as Connla was taken by a daughter of the Irish god Manannan to a land across the sea that "delights the mind of everyone who turns to me", in an ancient Irish legend. Also mentioned are knights of Little Britain (Brittany), and the need to cross the salt sea to reach Lombardy. Arthurian legend Evolution Marie de France's lai was composed at a time when the story of King Arthur was not fully developed, and probably before the story of the love between Lancelot and Queen Guinevere had been added to it by Chrétien de Troyes in his Knight of the Cart. Thomas Chestre describes a 10-year period during which Launfal prospers at Arthur's bachelor court, followed by Arthur's marriage to Guinevere. In the 13th-century French Arthurian romances, Merlin warns against this marriage; in Chestre's poem, he arranges it, betraying Chestre's willingness to adapt an established legend in his own way. Such adaptation is further evident in Guinevere's blinding. Marie de France describes no such mutilation of the Queen, and it sits uncomfortably with the climax of King Arthur's reign, well-known from the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail Cycle, in which Lancelot and a seeing Guinevere play their part in King Arthur's final days. Lanval and Sir Launfal Many passages of Chestre's poem follow Marie de France's Lanval line by line (probably via the earlier English romance). However, he adds or changes scenes and characters, sometimes working in material from other sources, and makes explicit and concrete many motivations and other aspects of the story which Marie leaves undiscussed—for example, the fairy purse and other gifts, such as the horse Blaunchard and the invisible servant Gyfre, who both depart when he breaks his promise not to boast. Some of these additional elements are derived from an Old French lai of Graelent, In Marie's Old French version of the story, Guinevere