by Mike Ashley
Gawain, however, is struggling. He has joined forces with Hector, Lancelot’s half-brother, hoping that together they might have more adventure. They challenge a knight and mortally wound him, only to discover they have wounded their friend Yvain the Bastard. Gawain is distraught and feels himself accursed. A holy man advises Gawain that he is too old and set in his ways for this Quest, expecting to find the solution in temporal matters rather than spiritual. He is told he should return to Camelot, but he cannot bear the thought of not being part of the Quest. Gawain tells the Holy Man that he will talk with him again but hurries to follow Hector. The two subsequently meet Galahad, though again they fail to recognise each other. Galahad severely injures Gawain, as Lancelot had foreseen when Gawain tried to remove the sword from the slab.
Bors is also undergoing his trials, beset by visions, in which he sees his brother Lionel being abducted and goes to his rescue but encounters a maiden being raped. Torn between the two, he saves the maiden but is too late to save Lionel. Bors carries Lionel’s body to a castle for burial, but there a lady asks Bors to be her lover. Bors refuses even when the lady threatens to kill herself. Eventually his visions cease and a priest tells Bors that demons have been testing him but that he made the right choices. When he tracks down Lionel, his brother is furious that Bors had chosen to save the maiden and not him. Lionel attacks Bors and another knight, Calogrenant, intercedes and is killed. Lionel is struck by a firebolt. He survives but is no longer part of the Quest.
Bors and Perceval have survived their trials and meet Galahad at the sea’s edge. Galahad is accompanied by Perceval’s sister Dindrane. A crewless ship arrives. An inscription warns them that only those who are true to God can board. They board and discover a large bed on which is a sword, partly drawn from its scabbard. The sword has several inscriptions forewarning any potential user. Dindrane says that only one can draw the sword and she tells its history. Two generations earlier, the ship had arrived in Logres during a war between the Christian king Lambar, father of the Maimed King, and the pagan king Varlan. Varlan was near defeat when he saw the ship, leapt on board and found the sword. He rushed back into battle and killed Lambar, but when he returned to the ship for the scabbard he dropped down dead. From that day the land had lain barren, and the blow Varlan struck Lambar became known as the Dolorous Stroke. After studying the sword and its portents, Dindrane fastens the sword and belt to Galahad, revealing that this is the Sword of the Strange Straps. They explore the ship and learn that it was built by Solomon from the Tree of Life.
They leave the ship and come to a castle where they are attacked. The lady of the castle suffers from leprosy and a prophecy had told that the blood from a royal maiden would cure her. The townsfolk capture all maidens who pass by for their blood. Dindrane volunteers her blood, knowing that she will die. She asks of Perceval that her body be set adrift in a boat that will take her body to Sarras, where she wants to be buried in a tomb that would later house the bodies of Perceval and Galahad.
This they do. This same boat later passes Lancelot who still waits in grief by the river. He hears a voice telling him to board the boat and he discovers Dindrane with a note left by Perceval. He rejoices to learn that Bors, Perceval and Galahad are together, and hopes that some day he will meet his son. The boat carries him to a chapel where a knight awaits him and boards the boat. He discovers this is Galahad; at last the two meet and share thoughts and memories. They stay aboard for half a year, visiting strange lands, though the story tells nothing of their adventures.
At length Galahad departs, leaving Lancelot to continue his voyage to the Grail Castle. There Lancelot has a vision of the Grail but is so overcome that he passes into a coma that lasts for twenty-four days. He is eventually restored by King Pelles and returns to Camelot, having failed in his Grail Quest.
Galahad’s travels bring him to the abbey where Perceval had seen King Mordrain (Evalach), and it is in his arms that Mordrain is at last able to die. He continues to travel throughout Logres for five years, now accompanied by Perceval, and at the end of that period they meet Bors.
The Grail company, again united, travel to Corbenic where Galahad restores the Broken Sword. Nine further knights arrive, three each from Gaul, Ireland and Denmark, so that twelve knights sit at the Grail Table. Josephus appears before them and conducts the ceremony of the Eucharist. Then he vanishes and from the Grail itself rises the Spirit of Christ. With blood from the Bleeding Lance, Galahad heals the Maimed King. Christ instructs Galahad that he is to take the Grail to Sarras. They feed from the holy Platter and are blessed by Christ before He vanishes.
Galahad, Perceval and Bors sail in the Ship of Solomon to Sarras, where Galahad cures a cripple. The boat carrying the body of Perceval’s sister has also found its way to Sarras. However, the king of Sarras, Escorant, is suspicious and has them imprisoned. It is not until Escorant falls ill, after a whole year, that he releases them and pleads forgiveness. Galahad becomes the new king of Sarras. He rules for a year but prays to Christ to be released. He has one last vision from the Grail and then his soul departs. Bors and Perceval witness a hand reach down from Heaven to retrieve the Grail and the Bleeding Lance and from that day forth they are never seen again.
Perceval retires to a nunnery and dies a year later. He is buried beside his sister and Galahad. Bors, the last of the Grail knights, returns to Camelot and tells his story.
A translation with notes by Pauline Matarasso is available as The Quest of the Holy Grail (Penguin, 1969). Extracts are included in The Lancelot-Grail Reader edited by Norris J. Lacy (Garland, 2000).
ESTOIRE DEL SAINT GRAAL (The History of the Holy Grail) (Vulgate Cycle), anon. (French, cl230).
This is essentially Robert de Boron’s Joseph, updated by incorporating the historical elements of the Grail from the Quest of the Holy Grail, already told in the Vulgate cycle. The story now forms a symbolical Christian history from the time of Jesus to the start of the Arthurian period. In the prologue, the author purports to be writing 717 years after Christ’s Passion (that is, 750).
The story follows the basic outline of de Boron’s work. Joseph of Arimathea is held in prison for 42 years until released during the reign of Vespasian. Recognizing that everyone is that much older (which de Boron fails to do), it is Joseph’s son Josephus who becomes Keeper of the Grail and leads the mission out of Palestine. They take with them the Grail, which is now hidden within a box like the Ark of the Covenant. They go first to Sarras (the capital of the Saracens) where Joseph is able to convert the heathen king Evalach, who takes the Christian name Mordrain, whilst Evalach’s brother-in-law becomes Nascien. Some of Mordrain’s people refuse baptism and Josephus tries to rescue them from a demon, but he is attacked by an angel who wounds him in the thigh, though he is later healed, an early parallel of the later Maimed King. Nascien wishes to see the Grail but looks too closely inside the ark and is blinded. An angel later heals his blindness with the Bleeding Lance.
The company then divides and each has a series of adventures in various lands, before making their way eventually to Britain. The company are beset by temptations but prevail. The story tells of the Christianisation of the West, with Josephus in the role of St. Paul. We learn more about the magical Ship of Solomon and about the individual elements of the Grail, Sword and Lance. The Grail Table is created, which includes the seat reserved for only the most virtuous of heroes. When Moises sits there he is consumed by fire. After Josephus’s death Alain, his cousin and the first of the Fisher Kings, becomes Guardian of the Grail and founds the Grail castle at Corbenic.
Finally we learn of the later Guardians of the Grail, as already recorded in the Quest for the Grail, including the story of the Dolorous Blow which created the Waste Land. The story ends with the death of Lancelot’s grandfather, also called Lancelot.
→ An English verse adaptation was made by Henry Lovelich as The History of the Holy Grail (cl430s). It is fairly faithful to its original, but states that Joseph of Arimathea was
buried at Glastonbury.
Extracts are included in The Lancelot-Grail Reader edited by Norris J. Lacy (Garland, 2000).
DER JÜNGERE TITUREL, Albrecht (possibly, but not conclusively, Albrecht von Scharfenberg) (German, early 1270s)
An intriguing variant version of the Grail drawing upon the work of Wolfram and essentially a completion of his unfinished Titurel. Although it uses as its core theme the love story of Parzival’s cousin Sigune (whose death is one of the most poignant passages in Parzival) and the ill-fated Schionatulandaer, that is only a minor part of a work originally conceived on a grandiose scale. Titurel is the Grail King, his role announced by angels, who receives the Grail from Joseph of Arimathea. As in Parzival, the Grail is not a chalice but a stone, but a dish has been fashioned from it. Titurel takes the Grail to safety in a lost valley beyond impenetrable mountains and forests at Munt Salvasch, where he has built a magnificent temple which is described in loving detail. He guards the Grail for over four hundred years until the outer world becomes too hostile, when he sets forth with Parzival and takes the Grail to India, to the kingdom of Prester John.
A study and summary of the work is available in The Art of Narration in Wolfram’s Parzival and Albrecht’s Jüngere Titurel, by Linda B. Parshall (Cambridge University Press, 1981).
PERCEFOREST, anon. (Dutch, cl330s)
An audacious and brave attempt to completely recast the Matter of Britain into a new historical context set against a vast all-absorbing tapestry of legend, myth and folk tale that, in its first printed edition in Paris in 1528, ran to six thick folio volumes. In this version, the original line of British royalty descended from Brutus has died out and Alexander the Great conquers Britain and establishes his own royal house under his governor Perceforest. The main arc of the story extends from the betrayal of Britain to the Romans by Perceforest’s son Betides, to its salvation through the Grail and the Christian faith being established in Britain. No complete English translation exists, but a projected twelve-volume French critical edition is currently being compiled.
SIR PERCYVELL OF GALES, anon. (English, cl330s), 2,288 lines.
An early English reworking of the Perceval story as told by Chrétien, but omitting the Grail element in order to develop the relationship between Perceval and his mother. Otherwise, the story follows the basic plot. Perceval becomes fascinated by knights, leaves his mother to go to Arthur’s court, kills the Red Knight who had killed his father, and rescues and then marries Lufamour [Blancheflor]. He is then reunited with his mother who returns with him to his home with Lufamour, before Perceval eventually goes to the Holy Land. It thereby removes all mystical elements to convert it into a straightforward morality story.
The original English text is available in Yvain and Gawain, edited by Maldwyn Mills (Dent, 1992).
17
LANCELOT AND GUENEVERE – THE ROMANCE ENDS
Ask anyone to name one knight of the Round Table and they will almost certainly say “Lancelot”. He became the greatest of all of Arthur’s knights and eclipsed the stature of Arthur himself. The love affair between Lancelot and Guenevere is a major element in the story because it is this that leads to the sundering of the Round Table and the death of Arthur. Yet, through all this, Lancelot shines through. He is seen not as the offender but as the victim. He is a victim through his love for Guenevere, through his devotion to Arthur and through his desire to do good. Even though he may be super-human as a warrior and knight, Lancelot is intensely human in his failings.
Yet who was he? Arthur’s other major knights – Bedivere, Kay, Gawain – had their origins in the Celtic tales and are instantly recognisable, but not so Lancelot. Was there an original on whom he was based?
1. The origins of Lancelot
The name Lancelot appears for the first time anywhere in line 1692 of Chrétien de Troyes’s poem Erec et Enide, first composed towards the end of the 1160s. He is mentioned in passing and ranked as the third most renowned knight after Gawain and Erec. Yet when he next appears, anonymously, in Le Chevalier de la charrete, we discover he is a knight of exceptional valour. Within a few years Lancelot do Lac features him as the finest of all knights. It is also clear from Chrétien’s story that he is only telling half the tale. There appears to be no reason why Lancelot keeps his identity a secret, and it was not until Lanzelet, a German version by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, appeared a few years after Erec et Enide that there was any mention of his origins: he was stolen as a baby by a fey and brought up ignorant of his parentage. Yet this version has none of the love affair between Lancelot and Guenevere. That was Chrétien’s invention, under instruction from Marie de Champagne, yet it is evident that he incorporated it into an existing legend, which may or may not have been about Lancelot as we came to know him, about a baby raised by a water sprite.
Such legends are common but we do not need to look far to find one directly within the Celtic Arthurian world. We have encountered Mabon ap Modron before. He was the mighty hunter who, in Culhwch and Olwen, helps hunt the Great Boar. He is also noted as a servant of Uther Pendragon in the poem Pa Gur. But who was he really? The name means “Son of the Mother”, thus some have interpreted Mabon as the son of Mother Earth, the spirit of fertility. However, the land can be blighted and that is what happens to Mabon. Three days after his birth he is abducted, and no one knows where he is. Arthur and his men search for him and discover, from the oldest creature in the world, that Mabon is in a fortress in Caer Loyw (Gloucester) which can only be approached by water. Mabon is rescued by Arthur’s forces and takes part in the hunt.
Lancelot likewise was abducted when only a few days old and raised by the Lady of the Lake in a fortress mysteriously surrounded by water and otherwise unapproachable. Unlike Mabon’s, Lancelot’s “imprisonment” was not harsh, because he was raised in the ways of chivalry, but he knows nothing of his parentage or origins, almost to the point of being frightened to know them. Like Mabon, we can consider Lancelot a great hunter inasmuch as he is unceasingly undertaking quests. As the son of Mother Earth, Mabon is seen as the eternal youth, which may be much of his appeal. Intriguingly the name of Melwas, the abductor of Guenevere, translates as “Prince Youth” (mael gwas).
If the character of Lancelot contains a faint folk memory of him likewise being a god of youth and fertility, it may also explain his relationship with Guenevere as perhaps representing a pre-Arthurian legend. There is little about Guenevere, or Gwenhwyfar, in the early Celtic tales. Her name means “white phantom” or “white shadow”. She is mentioned in the Triads as the First Lady of the Island, but this is post-Arthurian. Geoffrey of Monmouth states that she was descended from a noble Roman family. In Marie de France’s Lanval we see her portrayed as a seductress who, when spurned, turns vindictive. Her relationship towards Lancelot also waxes and wanes like the Moon, and it may well be that she is the embodiment of a distant lunar deity fighting for control of the Son of the Earth with Arthur in the role of the Sun.
If these ancient folk deities are distant forebears of Lancelot, what about his name? It is clearly not a Celtic name, nor is there anything similar in the Welsh tales. In his translation of the Mabinogion into French in 1913 Joseph Lot put forward the idea that Lancelot was derived from Llenlleawc, the character who wields the sword Caledvwlch in Culhwch and Olwen and wins the Cauldron of Plenty. There is a similar character in the Preiddeu Annwvyn whose name is spelled Lleminawc. Lleminawc, or Llemenig, crops up in several places. A Triad lists him as one of the “Three Unrestricted Guests” at Arthur’s court and since the other two, Llywarch Hen and Heledd, are both refugees at the court of Powys, this may be the same for Llemenig. A surviving fragment of an otherwise lost poem about Cynddylan (Heledd’s brother and a Prince of Powys in the mid-seventh century) calls Llemenig the “battle-hound of wrath, victorious in battle.” He is described as the son of Mawan or Mawn, descended from Cadell Ddyrnllug of Powys. I have included him in Table 3.9. The pedigrees are slightly confused and he may be a generation earlier. Eith
er way he would be contemporary with Artúir of Dyfed. The whole of this dynasty is associated with white, with Cadell of the Gleaming Hilt and Cynan of the White Chariot, and this may also be true of Llemenig, as it is of Guenevere.
Lot believed that Llenlleawc and Llemenig were one and the same, but that is by no means certain. One translation of Preiddeu Annwvyn places both characters in the story, but the most recent translation by John Koch suggests that the line translated as “The sword of Llwc Lleawc” actually means “A sword of lightning slaughter”.
Lot equated both these names with a third name, Llwch Llawwynniog, “of the Striking Hand”, which may well relate to someone wielding a sword of “lightning slaughter”. He is mentioned in Pa Gur as defending Eidyn’s border. This character equates with the Irish god of the sun and lightning, Lugh Loinnbheimionach, “of the mighty blows”. Lugh is described as a shining god of light, and Lancelot was first perceived in all white armour with a white crest.
The derivation, as suggested by Lot and developed by Loomis, is that the Bretons believed Llwch Llawwyniog and Llwch Lleminawc/Llenlleac were one and the same. They also believed that Llwch meant “lake”. Llenlleac transmuted to Lancelin, a name in use in Brittany since the eleventh century, and that by degrees shifted to Lancelot of the Lake. I must confess that although I can imagine this might have happened I do not find it wholly convincing. Whilst Llemenig may be the source of the character he does not seem a likely source for the name. In Old Welsh llain means “blade” or “sword” and lloyg is “warrior” or “hero”, so Llainlloyg is a composite that could corrupt to Lancelot.