The Tristan Rossignol story should possibly be viewed as a relatively late work, partly created out of elements found already within the corpus of traditional Tristan material.

The Tristan Rossignol story is a well-known representative of that corpus of French texts which deal with Tristan material. It is found in the major collective editions and loosely associated with other so-called episodic poems, such as Marie de France's Chèvrefeuille, the two Folie poems, the Folie Tristan d'Oxford and the Folie Tristan de Berne. The Folie poems are obviously episodic in that they do not tell a full version of the legend but simply recount one incident, an incident which can be attached to a particular moment in the scenario, when Tristan chooses to travel from Brittany (where he has married Iseut aux Blanches Mains) in order to visit Queen Iseut in Cornwall. In much the same way, the Lai du Chèvrefeuille does not contain a full version of the legend but simply recounts one return of Tristan to visit Iseut, a return which probably should be attached to a rather earlier point in the story. The Tristan Rossignol tale is similarly episodic in that it does not contain a full version of the legend, but it is also episodic in a rather special way. The Folie poems, and the Chèvrefeuille, notwithstanding their relative brevity, are complete in themselves: they may draw upon sections of the full legend for their inspiration, but they stand as independent artistic creations.