The Lady of the Lake - who was she and what does she have to do with King Arthur?

"I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as 'twas said to me." Walter Scott

The hand rising out of the water, clutching King Arthur's mighty Excalibur -- That is the image I see when I think of the Lady of the Lake. 

 

Of course there is a great deal more to the Lady of the Lake than merely a hand sticking out of a lake with a sword clutched in it! She plays a pivotal role in many of the stories of Arthur and his knights - most notably in the story of Lancelot. 

In Arthurian Legend she is best remembered for:

*Giving Arthur, Excalibur.

*Enchanting Merlin.

*Raising Lancelot after his father's death.

*Nurses Lancelot back to health when he loses his mind.

Let us take a look at the stories and see how the character of The Lady of the Lake developed.

It is in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle where we first learn about The Lady of the Lake. Her name was Vivianne and she is the apprentice of Merlin. Merlin loves her dearly, despite knowing, for he has foreseen, that Viviane will be his undoing, his destruction, his doom! She wants to know all his secrets - she wishes to become as powerful as he is.

Merlin cannot resist her charms. Ignoring the risks, he tells her everything. In return she traps him in a tree - or was it a cave? - a stone? Anyway, he is entombed and apart from the odd wailing that is said to be heard from Merlin's Cave in Wales every so often, he is never heard of again. Such is life.

 In the Post-Vulgate Cycle's, her name changed to Ninianne, and Excalibur makes an appearance.

Sir Robert Malory and The Lady of the Lake.

In Malory's epic tale there are two Ladies of the Lake. Nimue and Nyneve - the reason soon becomes apparent.

Nimue

Nimue is not the typical Arthurian lady - think of all the women you meet in Arthurian Legend - some of the worst villains are, in fact, women - Morgan La Fay being the obvious one, but remember, even Guinevere brings down a kingdom with her notorious affair with Lancelot. No, Nimue is not like them, she is a force for good. She is married to Sir Pelleas, and is seemingly obedient to her husband, but secretly she sways the court of Camelot to do what is right and what is good. She is clever, but sympathetic. Strong, yet kind.

Although, saying that...in Le Morte d'Arthur, after she enchants Merlin, and subsequently entombs him, she then takes his place as Arthur's closest adviser. When Arthur is mortally wounded she travels with him back to Avalon and takes the sword back.

 

Edward Burne-Jones (1872-1877) The Beguiling of Merlin.

Nyneve

Nyneve is the other Lady of the Lake - she too marries Sir Pelleas and is a force for good. She is also linked with giving Arthur, Excalibur. It is interesting that in this story, Arthur receives Excalibur not once, but three times:

Firstly he pulls the sword from the stone.

Then he is given the sword from the Lady of the Lake.

And lastly, Nyneve presents Arthur with the sword in the midst of battle??!

When ever Arthur is in trouble the Lady of the Lake seemingly helps him. A fairy godmother if you like...minus the pumpkin! Instead she brings swords - far more useful.

Nyneve first appears in the tale of Arthur's wedding - noticeable the same time that The Round Table does, and the two have often been linked with this whole idea of chivalry and the Knights Code of Honour ever since.

The story of the Lady of the Lake has enchanted storytellers and their audience alike. Sir Walter Scott wrote the famous Lady of the Lake poem in 1810. Alfred Lord Tennyson also took an interest in this Arthurian character and immortalized her in Idylls of the King. Interestingly, like with Malory, he writes of two Ladies of the Lake. The first being Vivian - the deceitful woman who ensnares Merlin and her opposite, the Lady of the Lake who raised Lancelot and gives Arthur his sword.

 

Gustave Dore's - Viviane and Merlin (1868). 

The question remains, of course...where is the lake? We could start with Avalon and work our way around from there - that's if anyone can agree to where Avalon actually is!  There are so many supposed locations of where the lake could be, that I am not going to bother to list them in fear that I will miss a location out! But still, it's a good story isn't it.

Competition time!!!
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A generation after the fall of Arthur Pendragon...

“It is dangerous to become attached to a du Lac. He will break your heart, and you will not recover.”  

So prophesies a wizened healer to Annis, daughter of King Cerdic of Wessex. If there is truth in the old crone’s words, they come far too late for Annis, who defies father, king, and country to save the man she loves.

Alden du Lac, once king of Cerniw, has nothing. Betrayed by Cerdic, Alden’s kingdom lies in rubble, his fort razed to the ground and his brother Merton missing, presumably dead. He has only one possession left worth saving: his heart. And to the horror of his few remaining allies, he gives that to the daughter of his enemy. They see Annis, at best, as a bargaining chip to avoid war with her powerful father. At worst, they see a Saxon witch with her claws in a broken, wounded king.

Alden has one hope: When you war with one du Lac, you war with them all. His brother Budic, King of Brittany, could offer the deposed young king sanctuary—but whether he will offer the same courtesy to Annis is far less certain.

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Sir Galahad - and why he annoys me!

The son of Lancelot du Lac, Sir Galahad, was the greatest of knights who ever sat around Arthur's fine Round Table. So how come no one had heard of him until the 13th Century?

George Frederick Watts (1817 - 1904) 
 

Galahad first appears in Lancelot-Grail. He became such a popular knight that from here-on-in, we hear about him all the time. He is everything his father was, but then more. The more I read about him, the more I am convinced that he should really have entered the church and stayed well away from Arthur and his knights. If you don't know his story, then read on and you will see what I mean.

Lancelot mistakes Elaine, the daughter of the Fisher King, as Guinevere, and he begets her with child. More magic is involved here, I fear -- unless Lancelot was like Prince Charming who, as I should imagine you all know, failed to recognize the love of his life and had to identify her by placing a glass slipper on her foot! They say love is blind and all that, but...really?
 
Elaine has a son. According to Prose Lancelot, the child is given his father's original name of Galahad - of course. Galahad has a noble ancestry on his mothers side at least, he descends from the brother of Joseph of Aramethia. I guessed he lucked out with his father, who could not tell one woman from the next, (I know, I know, you get the picture, I am just not impressed with Lancelot's excuses).

Merlin foresees Galahad's future in a vision. The son of du Lac is destined to find the Holy Grail.

Galahad grows up and becomes a man.

Lancelot, knights him and takes him to Camelot. Here he sits in the chair that no one should sit on except for the chosen Grail seeker. Luckily for Galahad, he is that man, otherwise he would have died there and then and what a shame that would have been.

With wide eyes, King Arthur asks the young knight to accompany him.  The rest of the knights look on, a few nudge Lancelot knowingly, but Lancelot has no idea what they know, being as he cannot even tell one woman from another, (get over it...he made a mistake, move on). Arthur leads him to a river where there is a sword in a stone. The inscription on the sword reads;

“Never shall man take me hence but only he by whose side I ought to hang; and he shall be the best knight of the world.”

Before you start shouting at the screen saying it is Arthur that pulls a sword from the stone - hold fire.  Galahad pulls the sword free and Arthur declares that Galahad is the best knight to ever live, he could hardly say "...Oh, it is you who is the rightful king, my mistake, here is the crown," can he?

The quest for the Grail begins.

Galahad prefers to work alone, (well, that is what they say anyway - personally I don't think he was that popular in court). He rescue many maidens in distress during his quest, as well as Percival who finds himself out numbered 20 to 1 -- to this day, Percival states that he had everything in hand and he didn't really need rescuing.

Eventually Galahad is reunited with Bors and Percival. Percival's sister knows where the Grail ship is - she could have said something before, I don't really understand why she didn't  - Anyway, she dies and Bors vows to take her body home, (any excuse to get away from Galahad), which leaves just Percival and Galahad.

The two intrepid knights end up at the court of King Pelles (the Fisher King) and Galahad mends a sword - just by holding it - and sees a life changing vision. He now knows where the Grail is - it is on the ship - and he also knows what he has to do with it.

Unfortunately Camelot is far to unsavory for the Grail to go to??!  Instead, the two knights have to sail to the Holy City of Sarras.

Galahad has a "now I have seen it all" moment, and request that he be allowed to die when he chooses. The request is granted. After meeting with Joseph of Arimethea, he chooses to die - it is said because the experience was glorious - The angels come and lift Galahad up to the heavens. As for the Grail...it has never been seen on earth again.

 
"The fact that Sir Galahad had always acted so damned self-righteous that his Grail-hunting companions had wearied of his holier-than-thou ways probably had nothing whatever to do with his demise."

Kim Iverson Headlee  King Arthur's Sister in Washington Court

 

The story of Sir Galahad was to inspire many future poets and writers, and his piety, chastity and purity almost becomes, how can I say it, difficult to read about it. In the blog where I talked about Lancelot, I mentioned that if he had not had the affair with Guinevere he would make me feel slightly ill - because he would have been too good to be true, and I think in the case of Galahad, this statement really does apply. Of all the knights, he is the one that really annoys me. Which probably says more about me than him. Maybe I need to work on that. But listen...

"I never felt the kiss of love,

Nor maiden's hand in mine.”

Lord Tennyson 

"the best of Arthour's Knights,

Who should achieve the quest of the Sangrael

Which only they shall see whose lives are pure.

No bravery is such a virtue as the Graele may gain.”

Thomas de Beverly

Do you see what I mean, he is just to good and too nice. At least Thomas Berger's in Arthur Rex portrays him differently. In Arthur Rex, Galahad does not die after securing the safety of the Holy Grail, instead he is portrayed in a satirical light. Galahad sleeps through most of a battle.. he decides to join in...kills Lancelot by mistake... and then is killed himself. No honorable death there, then.

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Galahad's chastity is put to the test when he finds himself at the mercy of a castle full of sexually frustrated nuns!

So there we have it, Galahad, my least favorite of Arthur's knight's.