Yvain's Return to Wales

In comparing the Welsh Owein with the Yvain of Chrétien de Troyes, rather than debating which text is older or the source for the other, it proves far more fruitful to consider Owein as a cultural translation of a French romance, a work through which an active Welsh storytelling tradition has domesticated a foreign tale and reshaped it to express the values and fulfill the expectations of a native esthetic.