Tristan – orphaned, maternal nephew of King Mark
Mark – noble and respected King of Cornwall
Isolde the Fair – King Marks wife; daughter of Isolde the Elder or Queen Isolde
Queen Isolde – Isolde the Fair’s mom
Isolde of the White Hands – Tristan’s wife
Morholt – Irish knight and Isolde’s maternal uncle (in some versions he is a knight of the Round Table)
Morholt (in some legends described as a giant) comes to Cornwall demanding tribute for Ireland; Tristan challenges Morholt to single combat; Tristan defeats Morholt (embedding the tip of his sword in Morholt’s head) but is in turn wounded by Morholt’s poison-tipped lance. Tristan sends Morholt’s corpse to Ireland as Cornwall’s “tribute”.
Later Tristan (under the name Tantris the Harp Player) travels to Ireland to be healed by Queen Isolde, Isolde’s mother (who is renowned for her herbal magic). He leaves after having taught Isolde to play the harp.
Tristan returns to Ireland to seek Isolde’s hand on behalf of his uncle King Mark. But first he has to slay a dragon and gets poisoned again and needs to be healed by Queen Isolde, who still thinks he is a harp player. However, having saved the sword-tip embedded in her brother’s skull, Queen Isolde (or in some versions Isolde) has occasion to compare the fragment with Tristan’s (aka Tantris’) sword. When Tristan is revealed to be Morholt’s killer, Isolde tries to kill him with his own sword, but he talks her out of it.
On the way back to Cornwall, Isolde and Tristan drink a love potion causing them to fall in love with each other. How and why they both drink a LOVE potion varies from legend to legend, but all of the legends agree it was a MISTAKE. In some versions Isolde was actually trying to kill Tristan with poison and accidentally fed him the love potion which she was supposed to take to make Mark a more palatable husband.
Following her marriage to Mark, Tristan and Isolde engage in a series of deceptions and tricks to hide their affair from the man they both love and respect. However, some of Tristan’s fellow knights who are jealous of Tristan’s relationship with Mark, set out to sabotage him, and ultimately the lovers are discovered.
What happens next varies wildly from text to text. In all of the versions Tristan dies whether it is at Mark’s hand or by Mark’s order or after trying to rescue a damsel in distress. In one version, Tristan escapes Mark’s death sentence and rescues Isolde from a leper colony, and the two lovers live in the woods until Mark finds them, takes back Isolde, and banishes Tristan who finally decides to get his own woman.
Tristan marries Isolde of the White Hands who knows he is still in love with Isolde the Fair. After being mortally wounded by yet another poisoned lance, Tristan sends for Isolde the Fair to heal him. He asks his friend (and brother-in-law) Kahedin to sail back to him with white sails if Isolde is on board and black sails if she is not. Tristan’s wife falsely reports that her brother is sailing black sails, and Tristan dies of grief. Isolde the Fair upon discovering his corpse also dies of grief.
Rufus Sewell as Lord Marke of Cornwall
Mark Strong as Lord Wictred (the guy who wants Marke’s throne and uncovers the affair)
Henry Cavill as Melot (Tristan’s childhood friend, Marke’s nephew, and the guy who betrays Tristan and Marke)
David O'Hara as King Donnchadh (Isolde’s dad)
Bronagh Gallagher as Bragnae (Isolde’s maid)
1. Main Titles
2. Tribes Divided
3. The Queen's Funeral/Rebuilding
4. Nine Years Later
5. The Irish Invade
6. Rescuing Their Own
7. A King's Service
8. Tristan & Isolde
9. Falling in Love
10. Goodbye
11. Tristan's Return
12. The Tournament
13. One Last Fight
14. Wedding Day
15. Duty
16. Lord Marke's Second
17. The Affair
18. Suspicion
19. The Coronation
20. Treachery Exposed
21. Learning the Truth
22. Raid
23. The Death of One True Love
24. End Titles