The poem features a version of the hero's childhood, including the death of his father Pant (Ban) and his upbringing by a water fay, that is similar to that contained in the Prose Lancelot and mentioned in Chrétien de Troyes' "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart", but it deviates very strikingly from the familiar version of Lancelot's life in other respects. The most notable among these is the absence of the hero's famous love affair with Arthur's wife Guinevere; when Ginover (Guinevere) is abducted by King Valerin it is not Lanzelet who rescues her, and Lanzelet eventually finds love elsewhere with a young princess named Iblis. It has been suggested that Lancelot, who is mentioned for the first time by Chrétien de Troyes in his first romance "Erec and Enide", was originally the hero of a story independent of the adulterous love triangle and perhaps very similar to Ulrich's version. If this is true, then the adultury facet would have been added either by Chrétien in "Knight of the Cart" or the source provided him by his patron, Marie de Champagne.