Note: gosh, having posted the previous fic, I didn't think that I would have been researching so much further into the various legends in response to a few queries. Anyway, here are my findings of this very old tale that has become very complex over the centuries – this is a whistle-stop tour of what I think I have managed to untangle from what seems to be a big Arthurian ball of string!
Firstly, I would like to amend my mistake of saying Guinevere runs away with Lancelot. Rather, varying legends (from 12th century Chretien de Troyes onwards) have her conducting their affair under the same roof as Arthur while others take a different route. In the Vulgate Cycle, she is Mordred's accomplice and portrayed as a traitoress in others.
The only time when you might say she had 'run away with him' is in Book 20 of Caxton's twenty-one books of Sir Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur' when Lancelot rescues her from being burnt at the stake by Arthur and takes her to his castle, Joyous Gard, where he raises an army against Arthur.
Secondly, while she never bore children of her own in most stories, in 'Perlesvaus' ("The High History of the Holy Grail") the knight Loholt is depicted as the son of Guinevere and Arthur and he is killed by another knight. However, in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, it is implied that she willingly had two sons by Mordred.
Guinevere has been variously portrayed as: Daughter of King Leodegrance (Malory); Daughter of King Ogrfan Gawr (Welsh Tradition); Daughter of King Garlin of Galore (Germanic Tradition); Daughter of a Roman Noble (Geoffrey of Monmouth). The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that she is Arthur's wife.
It then gets more complicated…who she is abducted by changes depending on who you read. In pre-1136, Caradoc of Llancarfan wrote 'Life of Gildas' and here she is kidnapped by King Melwas of Somerset (this is the earliest written account). Monmouth's version has her kidnapped by Mordred, who in this is Arthur's nephew. De Troyes's version has her kidnapped by Meleagant (son of King Bagdemagus). The first two see her rescued by Arthur while in the last, it is Lancelot who saves her.
With regard to her ending, the stories there are wildly conflicting. Some say she spent the rest of her days after (Lancelot / death of Arthur) in a nunnery in either Caerleon or Amesbury. Some say she is killed by Lancelot in vengeance. A Scottish version says she is killed by Mordred's followers at Barry Hill in Strathmore and that she was buried at Meigle where you can still see her memorial. Despite which end you choose to follow, it is believed that her body finally joined Arthur's at Glastonbury Abbey when monks found his grave in 1191, according to Giraldis Cambrensis (1193).
From here, matters don't get any easier, there are 5 different reported inscriptions on the funeral cross with Cambrensis reporting,
"Here lies buried the famous King Arthur with Guinevere his second wife in the isle of Avalon"
Other reported inscriptions make no reference to her at all. Margam Abbey in Wales reports,
"Here lies the famous King Arthur, buried in the isle of Avalon"
So, perhaps, her body never made it there at all.
And just in case you haven't got a headache by now, this reflects the story of the False Guinevere from French Romance where her half-sister, Guinevere the False (aka Guinevack) was born on the same night as Guinevere to Leodegrance's lover. At some point, it is said she had been able to exile the real queen, separating Arthur from Guinevere for 2 and a half years and taking her place until he eventually found out.
Ahh, but that's not the end of the saga, the last thing to tell you which might send you over the edge is that…
The Welsh Triads claim that Arthur was married not once, twice, but three times – and all to women named Guinevere. There is:
Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Cywryd
Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Gwythyr ap Greidiol
Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Ogrfan Gawr
The Triads call them Arthur's "Three Chief Queens" and may be an indication of a triple-aspect goddess with roots in Celtic mythology. It might also be due to the confusion regarding exactly what her parentage was as mentioned previously.
From early 6th century texts of a Welsh warrior king who fought the Romans, Geoffrey of Monmouth then wrote his Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the Kings of Britain") which many consider to be an unreliable source of information about King Arthur due to some of its unrealistic accounts of Arthur's achievements.
The 12th century saw the introduction of Lancelot, a character invented by the French poet, Chretien de Troyes, to add romanticism and used as a main character with Guinevere, depicting their love affair for the first time in 'Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette' ('Lancelot, Knight of the Cart').
From there, Sir Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte d'Arthur in the 15th century, also using de Troyes' Lancelot in his stories.
Nowadays, the popular view of King Arthur is generally a mixture of these three versions of him skilfully woven into one.
So, that's kinda the 2-minute guide to the Guinevere legend and it barely scrapes the surface – there is years and years worth of Arthurian material out there and the thing is, when you get right down to it, nobody is 100% sure of what is truth, embellishment or blatant fabrication.
I would simply recommend you find a version of this legend that you like because there were a lot more out there than I first thought and all I got trying to sort them out into a definitive version was a sore head!
There are just too many. Some are better than others but there are too many discrepancies or lack of hard evidence to prove any one version as completely and utterly true as a source of fact.
Hope this has been of some use or interest to anyone out there.
i would like to give a shout out to guardian izz and cassiopeeyeaaah without whom i wouldn't have looked into the legends so deeply.
also thanks to twelvestopsandhome : guardian izz : Babybee61 : dreamland4 for ur reviews
x