Guiomar is the best known name of a character appearing in many medieval texts relating to theArthurian legend, often in relationship withMorgan le Fay or a similarfairy queen type character.
His earliest known appearances are asGraelent,Guingamor andGuigemar, the titular character of three 12th-centuryBreton lai "fairy lais" (lais féeriques):Graelent,Guingamor andGuigemar, each telling a similar story. There, he is a king's relative or vassal who, after rejecting the advances of the unnamed queen (the king's adulterous and jealous wife), becomes a lover of a fairy queen known only as the Fairy Mistress (a figure considered to representMorgan) and is taken to anOtherworld (Avalon). All of these texts are related toMarie de France'sLanval, where the human queen character isGuinevere.[1][2][3] His name may have been derived from that ofGwyn ap Nudd,[4] who in the Welsh Arthurian tales appears as the ruler of the Celtic Otherworld,Annwn.
Guinguemar (Guigomar,Guingomar,Gryngamore) is one of the vassals ofArthur summoned to King Arthur's court forErec's wedding inChrétien de Troyes'sErec and Enide (c. 1170). Guigomar, the lord of the Isle of Avalon, arrived with his "friend" Morgan the fairy (for the first time established as Arthur's sister later in the same text) and his brother Graislemier (Greslemuef).[5][6] He appears asGimoers, the ruler of Avalon, inHartmann von Aue'sErec (c. 1185), wherein his fairy lover is Marguel and his brother is Gresmurs.[7]
In the anonymous First Continuation (Pseudo-Wachier) of Chrétien'sPerceval, the fairy lover ofGuingamuer is named Brangepart. The two had a son, King Brangemuer, who ruled an otherworldly isle until he was slain by the gigantic Little Knight (Petit Chevalier). Brangemuer's death is avenged byGaheries, who then sends his body in a boat to his isle in the Otherworld.[8][9] As KingGuingras (Gringras) he also appears, with his daughter, inRenaud de Beaujeu’sLe Bel Inconnu.[10][11] AsGvigamiers (Gwinganiers), he shows up in connection with Avalon in the GermanDiu Crône.[12][13]
Guiomar (Guiamor de Tarmelide,Guyomar,Guyomard,Guyamor,Goimar) is Morgan's first paramour in the 13th-century French Vulgate Cycle (Lancelot-Grail). In the VulgateMerlin, Guimoar of Carmelide (Cameliard) is 26-years-old and the handsome cousin or nephew of Guinevere. He fights against the Saxons alongside Arthur, Guinevere's father KingLeodagan, and his own brotherSinados (Sadoine,Sadones).[14][15][16] Guiomar and the teenage Morgan, the wife of KingNeutres, first meet when she was weaving a gift forher sister. They begin flirting with each other and quickly become lovers during their first encounter. But Arthur's newly-wed Queen Guinevere eventually discovered their affair and exposed them, which resulted in the banishment of Guiomar fromCamelot. Morgan leaves Camelot of her own volition which marks the onset of her unforgiving hatred of Guinevere.[15][17][18] In the versions retold in the VulgateLancelot and in theLivre d'Artus, Guinevere easily convinces Guyamor to abandon Morgan. Morgan later gives birth to his (unnamed) son, who himself becomes a great knight, and eventually uses the magic learnt from Merlin to trap Guiomar and then also many other false-lover knights within theVale of No Return until they are freed byLancelot.[15][19][20][21] In the GermanLancelot und Ginevra (c. 1230), a knight namedGaimar is an early lover of both Guinevere and Morgan.
In the English manuscriptMerlin,Gogenar is mentioned fighting against KingRyance alongside his uncleLeodegan.[22] InArthour and Merlin, a related English romance,Goionard is instead a kinsman of KingRion who fights against Leodegan.[23]
InThomas Malory's 15th-centuryLe Morte d'Arthur, SirGringamore is a knight with all-blackarms, and lives in Castle Perilous in the Isle of Avalon (Avilion). He has two sisters,Lynette and Lyonesse (among other spellings), and becomesGareth's brother-in-law after kidnapping the dwarf servant of "Beaumains" (Gareth) to uncover his true identity and arrange the marriage with Lyonesse.[24][25]
In a tradition inBrittany, France, Morgan is said to have turned her unfaithful lover Guiomar, also known asGuyomarc'h,[26][27] and the woman he betrayed her with, into a rock known as the Rocher des Faux-Amants (the False-Lovers' Rock). It is located on the ridges of theVal sans Retour (the Valley of No Return, also known as the Perilous Valley or the Valley of False Lovers) withinPaimpont forest.[28]
Sir Guyon is the protagonist of Book II ofEdmund Spenser's 1590The Faerie Queene. In a reversal of the legend, it is he who frees the knights held captive by Acrasia, one of the book's Morgan counterparts.
Guiomar appears as Guinevere's brother and Morgan's secret lover in Harry Robin's 1995I, Morgain. In Krystyna Kwiatkowska's 1998Prawdziwa historia Morgan le Fay i Rycerzy Okrągłego Stołu, Guimoar is an early love of Anna (Morgan's original name here) who plans to poison her husbandUriens to marry him.