Note 12 — BOOK IV.
Reading edition
—Page 261, stanza xlviii.
The story heard, the son of royal ban.
According to the French romance-writers, Lancelot was the son of King Ban of Benoic, a tributary to the Cymrian crown. The Welch claim him, however, as a national hero, in spite of his name, which they interpret as a translation from one of their own—Paladr-ddelt, splintered spear. (Lady C. Guest's Mabinogion, vol. i. p. 91.) In a subsequent page, Lancelot tells the tale (pretty nearly as it is told in the French romance) which obtained him the title of "Lancelot of the Lake."—See note in Ellis's edition of Way's Fabliaux, vol. ii. p. 206.