Wife of Sir Erec [Geraint]. Chrétien de Troyes, describes her as so beautiful that Nature herself, who created her, could never again reproduce her [but this is more or less what Chrétien says of most of his heroins].

At any rate, Enide was so lovely that Arthur easily solved his dilemma of killing the White Stag and having to choose the loveliest maid among the five hundred highborn damsels at court, simply by following Guenevere's suggestion and naming golden-haired Enide as soon as she appeared with Erec, since not even the most jealous lover of any other maid could dispute this choice!

The poverty of Enide's immediate family sprang from her parents' pride. Her mother, Carsenefide, was sister to the Count of Lalut and by her father Liconal's account Enide had any number of would-be suitor, but he refused them all his parental permission until Erec arrived, to whom he betrothed her at once, to her own silent satisfaction. Enide had at least two female cousins, one of them being Mabonagrain's lady.

Her vavasour father being so impoverished he had only a single manservant, Enide could tend horses like an expert stablehand, a talent which must have come in handy when her husband later took her as his only attendant on a series of madcap adventures inspired by her fearing aloud that her bridal doting upon him was enervating his knightly prowess and reputation.

Among his methods to punish her fear was forbidding her to speak a word to him without first being addressed. Poor, patient Griselda, that famous medieval model of wifely virtue, would have obeyed her lord to the strictest letter; but Enide proved herself no patient Griselda by disobeying Erec on several occasions, though not without severe mental anguish, whenever she saw robbers or other dangers bearing down on him to his apparent [though feigned] ignorance. Even while berating her for disobeying his injunction not to speak, he secretly recognized and rejoiced in the love her disobedience displayed.

Such was Enide's affection that it survived even the test to which her husband put it, which must make her one of the most remarkable examples of loyalty in all Arthurian romance.