| Lady of the Lake (Viviane / Nimue) | |
|---|---|
| Matter of Britain character | |
 The Lady of the Lake inLancelot Speed's illustration forJames Thomas Knowles'The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1912) | |
| First appearance | Vulgate Cycle |
| Based on | Disputed origins, earlier and unnamed versions of the character inLanzelet andLancelot |
| In-universe information | |
| Species | Fairy or human |
| Title | Lady of the Lake |
| Occupation | Enchantress |
| Family | Dyonas (father),Lunete (cousin) |
| Spouse | Pelleas |
| Significantother | Merlin, sometimes others |
| Children | Lancelot (adopted),Bors andLionel (proteges) |
| Home | Lake,Brocéliande,Avalon |
TheLady of the Lake (French:Dame du Lac, Demoiselle du Lac) is a title used by multiple characters in theMatter of Britain, the body of medieval literature and mythology associated with the legend ofKing Arthur. As either actuallyfairy or fairy-like yet human enchantresses, they play important roles in various stories, notably by providing Arthur with the swordExcalibur, eliminating the wizardMerlin, raising the knightLancelot after the death ofhis father, and helping to take the dying Arthur toAvalon afterhis final battle. Different Ladies of the Lake appear concurrently as separate characters in some versions of the legend since at least thePost-Vulgate Cycle and consequently the seminalLe Morte d'Arthur, with the latter describing them as members of a hierarchical group, while some texts also give this title to eitherMorgan orher sister.[1]
Today, the Lady of the Lake is best known as the character called eitherNimue, or several scribal variants[2] ofNinianne andViviane. French and foreign medieval authors and copyists since the early 13th century produced various forms of the latter two. Such forms includeNymenche (in addition to Ninianne /Ninienne) in theVulgateLancelot;Nim[i]ane andUi[n/ui]ane (in addition to Viviane) in the VulgateMerlin (Niniane in the versionLivre d'Artus);Nin[i]eve /Nivene /Niviène /Nivienne andVivienne in thePost-VulgateMerlin (Niviana in the SpanishBaladro del Sage Merlin); andNimiane /Niniame andVivian /Vivien inArthour and Merlin andHenry Lovelich'sMerlin. Further variations of these include alternate spellings with the letteri written asy, such as in the cases ofNymanne (Nimanne as in Michel le Noir'sMerlin) andNynyane (Niniane).[3][4][5] According to Lucy Paton, the most primitive French form of this name might have been Niniane.[4] Danielle Quéruel of theBibliothèque nationale de France explains:
Fairies are one of the most important elements of Arthurian fantasy. They are supernatural beings of Celtic origin, oftenfatal women, whose figures are an extension of thenymphs andgoddesses of antiquity. Knights searching for adventures meet these women with strange powers in the dark and deep forests but also in the castles that stand on their roads. Beneficial or malicious, they often hide their nature under the guise of avirgin in distress in order to test the bravery and virtue of the knights.
Among these fairies, Viviane plays a prominent role. The Lady of the Lake, called Niniène or Niniane in medieval texts, embodies the traditional water fairy. It is she who spirits away the newbornLancelot to keep him and raises him in her domain of the Lake, sheltered from the world. Once he is knighted, she will always keep an eye on her protégé, whom she will save several times from madness.[6]
The much later form Nimue, in which the lettere can be written asë oré, was invented and popularized byThomas Malory through his 15th-century EnglishLe Morte d'Arthur and itself has several variations: her name appears asNymue,Nyneue,Nyneve andNynyue inWilliam Caxton's print edition, but it had been ratherNynyve (used predominantly[7]) andNenyve in theWinchester Manuscript. Even though 'Nymue' (with them) appears only in the Caxton text, the modernized and standardized 'Nimue' is now the most common form of the name of Malory's character, as Caxton's edition was the only version ofLe Morte d'Arthur published until 1947.[8] Nimue is also sometimes rendered by modern authors and artists as eitherNimuë orNimüe (the forms introduced in the 19th century throughTennyson's poem "Enid and Nimuë: The True and the False"[9] andBurne-Jones' paintingMerlin and Nimüe[10]), orNimueh.
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Arthurian scholar A. O. H. Jarman, following suggestions first made in the 19th century, proposed that the name Viviane used in French Arthurian romances, was ultimately derived from (and a corruption of) theWelsh wordchwyfleian (also spelledhwimleian andchwibleian in medieval Welsh sources), meaning "a wanderer of pallid countenance", which was originally applied as an epithet to the famous prototype ofMerlin, a prophetic wild man figureMyrddin Wyllt inmedieval Welsh poetry. Due to the relative obscurity of the word, it was misunderstood as "fair wanton maiden" and taken to be the name of Myrddin's female captor.[11][12][13] Others have linked the name Nymenche with theIrish mythology's figureNiamh (anotherworldly woman from the legend ofTír na nÓg),[14] and the name Niniane with theWelsh mythology's figureRhiannon (another otherworldly woman of a Celtic myth),[15] or, as a feminine form of the masculine name Ninian, with the likes of the 5th-century (male) saintNinian and the riverNinian.[3][16]
Further theories connect her to the Welsh lake fairies known as theGwragedd Annwn (including a Lady of the Lake unrelated to the legend of Arthur[17]), the Celtic water goddess Covianna (worshipped in theRomano-British times asCoventina),[18][19] and the Irish goddess of the underworld Bé Finn (Bébinn, mother of the heroFráech).[20] It has been also noted how theNorth Caucasian goddess Satana (Satanaya) from theNart sagas is both associated with water and helps theScythian heroBatraz gain his magic sword.[21] Possible literary prototypes include two characters fromGeoffrey of Monmouth'sVita Merlini: Merlin's one-time wifeGuendoloena and Merlin's half-sisterGanieda.[22] Another possibility involvesDiana, the Roman goddess of hunt and nature,[23] a direct or spiritual descent from whom is actually explicitly attributed to Viviane within some French prose narratives, in which she is arguably even serving as Diana'savatar.[6] It has also been speculated that the name Viviane may be a derivative form of Diana (FrenchDiane).[24]
Themythical Greek sea nymphThetis, mother of the heroAchilles, similarly provides her son with magical weapons.[25] Like the Lady of the Lake, Thetis is a water spirit who raises the greatest warrior of her time. Thetis' husband is namedPeleus, while in some tales the Lady of the Lake has the knightPelleas as her lover; Thetis also uses magic to make her son invulnerable, similar to how Lancelot receives a ring that protects him from evil magic.[26] The Greek myth may therefore have inspired or influenced the Arthurian legend, especially sinceThe Iliad involving Thetis was well known across the former Roman Empire and among the medieval writers dealing with Celtic myths and lore. The Roman fortAballava, known to the post-Roman Britons as Avalana and today seen by some as the location of the historicalAvalon, had been also curiously dedicated the Roman water goddessDea Latis.[27]Laurence Gardner interpreted the supposed (as attributed by medieval authors) Biblical origins ofLancelot's bloodline by noting the belief aboutJesus' purported wifeMary Magdalene's later life inGaul (today's France) and her death atAquae Sextiae; he identified her descendant as the 6th-century Comtess ofAvallon named Viviane del Acqs ("of the water"), whose three daughters (associated with the mothersof Lancelot,of Arthur, andof Gawain) would thus become known as the 'Ladies of the Lake'.[28]
Chrétien de Troyes's FrenchLancelot, the Knight of the Cart, the first known story featuringLancelot as a prominent character, was also the first to mention his upbringing by a fairy in a lake. If it is accepted that the Franco-GermanLanzelet byUlrich von Zatzikhoven contains elements of a more primitive version of this tale than Chrétien's, the infant Lancelot was spirited away to a lake by a water fairy (merfeine inOld High German) known as the Lady of the Sea and then raised in herLand of Maidens (Meide lant[29]).[30] Thefairy queen character and her paradise island inLanzelet are reminiscent of Morgen (Morgan) of the Island of Avallon in Geoffrey's work.[31] Furthermore, the fairy fromLanzelet has a son whose name Mabuz is anAnglo-Norman form ofMabon, son of Morgan's early Welsh counterpartModron.[32] According toRoger Sherman Loomis, "it seems almost certain" that Morgan and the Lady of the Lake have originally began as one character in the legend.[33] In a related hypothesis, the early Myrddyn tradition could have merged with the fairy lover motif popular in medieval stories, and such role would later split into Merlin's two fairy mistresses, one of them 'good' and the other 'bad'.[22]
| Select element or episode | Earliest text |
|---|---|
| A fairy lady has raised and magically aidsLancelot. | Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (c. 1177) |
| A water fairy queen abducts and raises the young Lancelot as a great knight. | Lanzelet (after 1194)(translation from an unknown earlier source) |
| Introducing the concept and name of the Lady of the Lake. After rescuing and raising Lancelot, she sends him to the court ofKing Arthur, and later aids him during his knight-errant adventures and in his romance withGuinevere. | VulgateLancelot (c. 1215) |
| The Lady of the Lake is retrospectively identified as the fairy Viviane (Niniane), introduced as a young teenage noble (with supernatural ancient origins) fromLittle Britain. She captures the wizardMerlin, using the very magic that he himself taught her out of his love for her, almost always unrequited. | VulgateMerlin Continuation (before 1235) |
| Another Lady of the Lake gives the swordExcalibur to Arthur and is later killed byBalin. Viviane cruelly kills Merlin out of her hatred of him. Afterwards, she begins to aid Arthur and protects him from his wicked sisterMorgan. | Post-VulgateMerlin Continuation (after 1235) |
| CompilerMalory's redefinition of Viviane as Nimue (Nynyve), the "chief Lady of the Lake", who marriesPelleas and in the end accompanies Morgan in taking Arthur toAvalon. | Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) |
| Modern authorTennyson splitting the evil Vivien back from Malory's Nimue while keeping the latter as a separate character, a development that influenced modern portrayals. | "Vivien" (1859) inIdylls of the King |
According to Maureen Fries, "more beneficent splittings-off from [Morgan's] original role emerge in the several Ladies of the Lake who later develop from her archetype: literally watered-down from Morgan (whose name indicates her origins in the greater body of water, the sea)." She wrote about this "fluid figure, always at least double and usually multiple in her manifestations":
Obviously the Lady has been retailored to represent the (mostly) nurturing side of the split mother-image, as Morgan has become the (mostly) devouring side. A combination of these split images appears in the figure of Nimue (also called Niniane and Viviane), who first serves as a devourer and then as a restorer of Arthurian males. Like her [Excalibur giver] sister-avatar, she is called the Lady of the Lake. In a borrowing from Morgan's career, she has the besotted Merlin teach her his magic, but without yielding to him sexually. Shutting Merlin away in a cave, she deprives the male Arthurians of their counselor and reveals her own cunning ambition. But Nimue then becomes the devoted and influential friend of Arthurian society: she saves the King and his knights from Morgan's death-dealing [...] and emerges as one of the three (or more, depending on the work) queens who bear the King away to Avalon. This last function allies her, of course, with her original—Morgan le Fay.[34]
Following her early appearances in the 12th-century poems ofChrétien andUlrich, the Lady of the Lake began being featured by this title in the Frenchchivalric romance prose by the 13th century. As afairy godmother-typefoster mother of the hero Lancelot, she inherits the role of an unnamed aquatic (sea)fairy queen, her prototype found in Ulrich'sLanzelet. Ulrich uses thechangeling part of the fairy abduction lore for the background of Lancelot as having been swapped with her son Mabuz.[35] However, the figure of Lancelot's supernatural foster mother has no offspring of her own in any of the later texts.
She does not appear in person in Chrétien'sLancelot. The text only has her mentioned briefly as an unnamed (referred to as just "lady" by Lancelot when he calls upon her) fairy "who had cared for him in his infancy" and continues to aid Lancelot remotely, through amagic ring given by her to him.[36] There is no connection to water mentioned in this version.
In theLancelot-Grail (Vulgate) prose cycle, loosely based on Chrétien, the Lady resides in anotherworldly enchanted realm, the entry to which is disguised as an illusion of a lake (thePost-Vulgate explains it as Merlin's work[37]). There, she raises Lancelot from his infancy having stolen him fromhis mother following the death of his father,King Ban. She teaches Lancelot arts and writing, infusing him with wisdom and courage, and overseeing his training to become an unsurpassed warrior. She also rears his orphaned cousinsLionel andBors after having her sorcerous damsel Saraïde (later called Celise[38]) rescue them from KingClaudas. All this takes her only a few years in the human world. Afterwards, she sends off the adolescent Lancelot toKing Arthur's court as the namelessWhite Knight, due to her own affinity with this color (wearing white is a common attribute of faery women in Arthurian legend[39]).
Through much of the ProseLancelot Propre, the Lady keeps aiding Lancelot in various ways during his early adventures to become a famed knight and discover his true identity, usually acting through her maidens serving as her agents and messengers. She gives him her magical gifts, including a magic ring of protection against enchantments in a manner similar in that to his fairy protectoress in Chrétien's poem (either the same or another of her rings also grants Lancelot's lover QueenGuinevere immunity fromMorgan's power in the ItalianProphéties de Merlin). Later on, she also works to actively encourage Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship and its consummation. That includes sending Guinevere a symbolically illustrated magic shield, the crack in which closes up after the queen finally spends her first night with Lancelot. She furthermore personally arrives to restore Lancelot to sanity during some of his recurring periods of madness, on one occasion using the above-mentioned shield to heal his mind.
The Vulgate Cycle is first to tell of (depending on the version) either possibly a different or explicitly the same Lady of the Lake in theProseMerlin-derived section in which Merlin falls in love with her, typically unrequited. There, she also uses other names, includingElaine.[40] As a result of their usually final encounter, Merlin almost always either dies or at very least is never seen again.
The story takes place before the main VulgateLancelot section but was written later, linking her with the disappearance of Merlin from the romance tradition of Arthurian legend. She is given the name Viviane (or similar) and a human origin, although she is still being called a fairy. In the VulgateMerlin, Viviane refuses to give Merlin (who at this time is already old but appears to her in the guise of a handsome young man) her love until he has taught her all his secrets, after which she uses her power to seal him by making him sleep forever. The text explains this by a spell she put "on her groin which, as long as it lasted, prevented anyone from deflowering her and having relations with her."[41] In an alternative BristolMerlin fragment, she resists his seduction with the help of a magic ring during the week they spend together.[42]
Though Merlin knows beforehand that this will happen due to his power of foresight, he is unable to counteract her because of the 'truth' this ability of foresight holds. He decides to do nothing for his situation other than to continue to teach her his secrets until she takes the opportunity to get rid of him. Consequently, she entraps and entombs her unresisting mentor within a tree, in a hole underneath a large stone, or inside a cave, depending on the version of this story as it is told in the different texts. In theProphéties de Merlin, for instance, Viviane is especially cruel in the way she disposes of Merlin, making him die a long death inside his tomb while taunting him. There, she is proud of how Merlin had never taken her virginity, unlike what happened with his other female students, such as Morgan.[43]
The Post-Vulgate revision has Viviane described as causing Merlin's death out of her hatred of him. Conversely, theLivre d'Artus, a late alternative (and updated) variant of the ProseLancelot, shows a completely peaceful scene taking place under a blooming hawthorn tree where Merlin is lovingly put to sleep by Viviane, as it is required by his destined fate that she has learned of. He then wakes up inside an impossibly high and indestructible tower, invisible from the outside, where she will come to meet him there almost every day or night—a motif reminiscent of Ganieda's visits of Merlin's house in an earlier version of his life as described by Geoffrey inVita Merlini.[23]
In theProphéties de Merlin, she then takesTristan's half-brother Meliadus the Younger, also raised by her along with Lancelot, as her actual lover who then convinces her to access Merlin's tomb to record his prophecies while Merlin is still alive.[44] TheLancelot-Grail, too, has Viviane take a lover, in this case the evil king Brandin of the Isles, whom she teaches some magic that he then applies to his terrible castleDolorous Gard.[45] In the VulgateMerlin, an unnamed lady, possibly Viviane, abortively turns King Brandegorre's son Evadeam into the deformed Dwarf Knight for refusing her love.[46] In the Post-VulgateMerlin, Viviane later protects Arthur from Morgan through her magical interventions.
In her backstory in the VulgateMerlin, Viviane was a daughter of the knight Dionas (Dyonas) and a niece of the Duke ofBurgundy. According to the Post-Vulgate, she was born in Dionas' domain that included the fairy forests of Briosque (Brocéliande) and Darnantes,[47] and it was an enchantment of her fairy godmother,Diana the Huntress Goddess, that caused Viviane to be so alluring to Merlin when she first met him there as a young teenager.[48] The narrator informs the reader that, back "in the time ofVirgil", Diana had been a Queen ofSicily that was considered a goddess by her subjects. The Post-VulgateSuite de Merlin describes how Viviane was born and lived in a magnificent castle at the foot of a mountain inBrittany as a daughter of the King ofNorthumbria. Here, she is initially known as the beautiful 15-year-oldDamsel Huntress (Damoiselle Cacheresse) in her introductory episode, in which she serves the role of adamsel in distress in the adventure of the three knights separately sent by Merlin to rescue her from kidnapping; the quest is soon completed by KingPellinore who tracks down and kills her abductor.
The Post-Vulgate rewrite also describes how Diana had killed her partnerFaunus to be with a man named Felix, but then she was herself killed by her lover at that lake, which came to be called the Lake of Diana (Lac Diane). This is presumably the place where Lancelot of the Lake (du Lac) is later raised, at first not knowing his real parentage, by Viviane. Nevertheless, only the narration of the Vulgate Cycle actually makes it clear that its Lady of the Lake (that is Lancelot's adoptive mother) and Viviane are in fact the one and same character in the French romances.[22] Viviane is also only 12 when she meets Merlin in the Forest of Briosque in the VulgateMerlin.
Another, unnamed Lady of the Lake appears in the Post-Vulgate tradition to bestow the magic swordExcalibur from Avalon to Arthur in a now iconic scene. She is presented as a mysterious early benefactor of the young King Arthur, who is directed and led to her by Merlin. Appearing in her lake, she grants him Excalibur and its special scabbard after his original (also unnamed) sword breaks in the duel against King Pellinore. She is a mysterious character who is evidently neither Morgan nor the Damsel Huntress, but may possibly have a connection to the Lady of Avalon (Dame d'Avalon) from thePropheties de Merlin.[22]
Later in the Post-VulgateSuite du Merlin, either this Lady of the Lake personally or one of her damsels (her identity is unclear, as, despite her explicit connection with the Excalibur episode, the woman is not actually identified as the "Lady of the Lake" in this scene[49]) comes to King Arthur's court, where she is suddenly attacked and beheaded bySir Balin. It comes as a result of a kin feud between them (she blames Balin for the death of variably either her brother or her lover, while he blames her for the death of his mother, who had been burned at the stake) and a dispute over another enchanted sword from Avalon. Her body later vanishes.
All this takes place relatively early in the Post-VulgateMerlin Continuation, during the time when Merlin is still at Arthur's side and prior to the introduction of the young Viviane in the same part of the cycle. Modern retellings, however, usually make this Lady of the Lake the same character as Viviane, while also omitting the Balin episode.
In some cases, it is uncertain whether Morgan and the Lady of the Lake are identical or separate characters.[50]Richard Cavendish wrote: "It may be that the two sides of Morgan's nature separated into two different characters and that the Lady of the Lake is an aspect of Morgan herself. If so, the two fays represent the two aspects [...] fertile and destructive, motherly and murderous, loving and cruel."[51]
According toAnne Berthelot, Morgan herself should be considered "the Lady of the Lake", as compared to the "upstart magician" Viviane in the French prose cycles.[23] The 13th/14th-century English poemOf Arthour and of Merlin explicitly gives the role of Lady of the Lake to Morgan, explaining her association with the name "Nimiane" by just having her residing near a town called Nimiane (Ninniane).[52] Morgan is also depicted as a fairy from a lake (with an underwater and invisible castle that can be accessed only with a guide water dragon) in the Italian taleCantari del Falso Scudo,[53] and as a former student of her fellow fairy Viviana in the French romanceClaris et Laris.[54]
The 15th-century Italian proseLa Tavola Ritonda (The Round Table) makes the Lady a daughter ofUther Pendragon and thus a sister to both Morgan the Fairy (Fata Morgana) and Arthur. Here she is a character mischievous to the extent that her own brother Arthur swears to burn her at the stake (as he also threatens to do with Morgan).[55] This version of her briefly kidnaps Lancelot when he is an adult (along with Guinevere andTristan and Isolde), a motif usually associated with Morgan; here it is also Morgan herself who sends the magical shield to Guinevere in an act recast as having malicious intent.[56] The Lady is also described as Morgan's sister in some other Italian texts, such as the 13th-century poemPulzella Gaia.[57]Mike Ashley identified Viviane with one of Arthur's other sisters, the otherwise obscureElaine.[58]
In the 14th-century French prose romancePerceforest, a lengthy romance prequel to the Arthurian legend, the figures of the Lady of the Lake and of the enchantressSebile have been merged to create the character of Sebile [the Lady] of the Lake (Sébil[l]e [la Dame] du Lac, named as such due to her residence of the Castle of the Lake later known as the Red Castle), who is depicted as an ancestor of Arthur himself from her union with King Alexander (Alexander the Great).[59][60][61] The later Lady of the Lake who raises Lancelot is also mentioned inPerceforest, where both hers and Merlin's ancestry lines are derived from the ancient Fairy Morgane (Morg[u]ane la Faee /la Fée, living in a castle on the Isle of Zeeland). Here, their shared ancestors have been born from an illicit love between her beautiful daughter Morg[u]anette and Passelion, an amorous young human protégé of the mischievous spiritZephir, hundreds years earlier when Morgane cursed them so that one of their descendants would one day kill the other.[62][63][64]
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In Thomas Malory's 15th-century compilation of Arthurian stories that is often considered definitive in much of the world today, the first Lady of the Lake remains unnamed besides this epithet. When the young King Arthur, accompanied by his mentor Merlin, comes to her lake in need of a sword (the original sword-from-the-stone having been recently broken in battle), he sees an arm extending from the surface of the water holding a sword; Merlin identifies this arm as belonging to another Lady of the Lake.[49] Arthur, informed by Merlin that the Lady can grant him the sword, requests the sword from the Lady and is granted permission to go out upon the lake and take it if he promises to fulfill any request from her later, to which he agrees.
Later, when the Lady comes with her damsel toCamelot to hold Arthur to his promise, she asks for the head of Balin the Savage, whom she blames for her brother's death. However, Arthur refuses this request. Instead it is Balin, claiming that "by enchantment and sorcery she has been the destroyer of many good knights", who swiftly decapitates her with his own magic sword (a cursed blade that had been stolen by him from a mysterious lady from Avalon just a moment earlier) in front of Arthur and then sends off his squire with her severed head, much to the distress and shame of the king under whose protection she should have been there. Arthur gives the Lady a rich burial, has her slayer banished despite Merlin telling him Balin would become Arthur's greatest knight, and gives his permission for the Irish prince Launcenor to go after Balin to avenge this disgrace by killing him.[65][66][67]
Malory does not tell of Lancelot's upbringing by his Viviane character (i.e. Nimue),[49] as the knight's foster mother is only mentioned by him once and off hand as one of the (unnamed) Ladies of the Lake.[68][69] It may be so because Malory had only access to theSuite du Merlin part of the Post-Vulgate Cycle as a relevant source for this part of his telling.[70]
The most important of Malory's Lady of the Lake characters is sometimes referred to by her title and sometimes referred to by name, today best known as Nimue (Caxton's print variant), which was rendered Nynyve in Malory's original Winchester Manuscript. Malory initially describes Nimue (Nynyve) as "one of the damsels of the Lady of the Lake", and repeatedly as both the "Damsel of the Lake" and the "Lady of the Lake", before ultimately calling her the "chief Lady of the Lake" at the end.[49]
Nimue first appears at the wedding of Arthur and Guinevere, as the young huntress rescued by Pellinore. She then plays an important role in the Arthurian court throughout the story,[8] performing some of the same actions as the Lady of the Lake of Malory's sources, but with differences. For instance, in the Post-VulgateSuite du Merlin (Malory's main source for the earliest parts ofLe Morte d'Arthur), the Lady of the Lake traps Merlin in a tomb, which results in his death. She does this out of cruelty and a hatred of Merlin.[71] InLe Morte d'Arthur, on the other hand, Nimue is still the one to trap Merlin, but Malory gives her a sympathetic reason: Merlin falls in love with her and will not leave her alone; Malory gives no indication that Nimue loves him back. Eventually, since she cannot free herself of him otherwise, she decides to trap him under rock and makes sure he cannot escape. She is tired of his sexual advances, and afraid of his power as "a devil's son", so she does not have much of a choice but to ultimately get rid of him.[8]
After enchanting Merlin, Malory's Nimue replaces him as Arthur's magician aide and trusted adviser. When Arthur himself is in need in Malory's text, some incarnation of the Lady of the Lake, or her magic, or her agent, reaches out to help him. For instance, she saves Arthur from a magical attempt on his life made by his sister Morgan le Fay and from the death at the hands of Morgan's loverAccolon as in the Post-Vulgate, and together with Tristan frees Arthur from the lustful sorceressAnnowre in a motif taken from theProseTristan. In Malory's version, Brandin of the Isles, renamed Brian (Bryan), is Nimue's evil cousin rather than her paramour. Nimue instead becomes the lover and eventually wife ofPelleas, a gentle young knight whom she then also puts under her protection so "that he was never slain by her days."
In the end, a female hand emerging from a lake reclaims Excalibur in a miraculous scene when the sword is thrown into the water byBedivere just afterArthur's final battle. Malory's narration then counts the "chief Lady of the Lake" Nimue among the magical queens who arrive in a black boat with Morgan (in the original account in the Vulgate Cycle'sMort Artu, the chief lady in the boat, seen holding hands with Morgan and calling for Arthur, is not recognised byGirflet who is this scene's witness instead of Malory's Bedivere[72]). Together, they bear the mortally wounded Arthur away to Avalon.
In an analysis by Kenneth Hodges, Nimue appears through the story as thechivalric code changes, hinting to the reader that something new will happen in order to help the author achieve the wanted interpretation of the Arthurian legend: each time she reappears inLe Morte d'Arthur, it is at a pivotal moment of the episode, establishing the importance of her character within Arthurian literature, as she transcends any notoriety attached to her character by aiding Arthur and other knights to succeed in their endeavors, subtly helping sway the court in the right direction. According to Hodges, when Malory was looking at other texts to find inspiration, he chose the best aspects of all the other Lady of the Lake characters, making her pragmatic, compassionate, clever, and strong-willed.[73] Nevertheless, Nimue's character is often seen as still very ambiguous by other scholars. As summarized by Amy S. Kaufman:
"Though Nynyve is sometimes friendly to Arthur and his knights, she is equally liable to act in her own interest. She can be also selfish, ruthless, desiring, and capricious. She has been identified as a deceptive and anti-patriarchal equally as often as she has been cast as a benevolent aid to Arthur's court, or even the literary descendant of protective goddesses."[74]
A number of locations are traditionally associated with the Lady of the Lake's abode.[75] Such places within Great Britain include the lakesDozmary Pool[76] andThe Loe[77] in Cornwall, the lakesLlyn Llydaw[78] andLlyn Ogwen[78] in Snowdonia,River Brue's area of Pomparles Bridge[79] in Somerset, and the lakeLoch Arthur[80] in Scotland.
In France, Viviane is also connected with Brittany'sPaimpont forest, often identified as the Arthurian enchanted forest of Brocéliande, where her lake (that is, the Lake of Diana) is said to be located at the castleChâteau de Comper.[81] The oldest localization of the Lake is in theLancelot en prose, written around 1230: the place where Lancelot is raised is described there as to the north ofTrèves-Cunault, on theLoire, in the middle of the (now extinct) forest ofBeaufort-en-Vallée (the "Bois en Val" of the book).[82]
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Walter Scott's 1810 influential poemThe Lady of the Lake drew on the romance of the legend, but with an entirely different story set aroundLoch Katrine in theTrossachs of Scotland. Scott's material furnished subject matter forLa donna del lago, an 1819 opera byGioachino Rossini.Franz Schubert setseven songs from Walter Scott'sLady of the Lake, including the three "Ellen songs" ("Ellens Gesang I",[83] "Ellens Gesang II",[84] and "Ellens Gesang III"[85]), although Schubert's music toEllen's third song has become far more famous in its later adaptation as "Ave Maria".
William Wordsworth's 1831 poemThe Egyptian Maid or The Romance of the Water-Lily features the Lady of the Lake Nina, who, inverting Nimue's role in Malory, brings Merlin out of his cave and back to Arthur's court.[86]Alfred, Lord Tennyson adapted several stories of the Lady of the Lake for his 1859–1885 poetic cycleIdylls of the King. He split her into two characters: Viviane is aCirce-like deceitful villain and an associate ofKing Mark and Mordred who ensnares Merlin, while the Lady of the Lake is aguardian angel style benevolent figure who raises Lancelot and gives Arthur his sword.[87]
The full French name of theUniversity of Notre Dame, founded in 1842, isNotre Dame du Lac. Meaning "Our Lady of the Lake", it makes reference toMary, mother of Jesus as the Lady of the Lake in a fusion between Arthurian legend and Catholicism.
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Twentieth- and 21st-century authors of Arthurian fiction adapt the legend of the Lady of the Lake in various ways, sometimes using two or more bearers of this title while others choose to emphasize a single character. Typically influenced by Thomas Malory's telling of the story, fantasy writers tend to give their version of Merlin a sorcerous female enemy, usually either Nimue, Morgan (often perceived as more plausible in this role due to her established enmity with Arthur in much of the legend), or Morgan's sisterMorgause.[89] Various characters of the Lady (or Ladies) of the Lake appear in many works, including poems, novels, films, television series, stage productions, comics, and games. Though her identity may change, her role as a significant figure in the lives of Arthur and Merlin usually remains consistent. Some examples of such works are listed below.
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