Lady of the Lake
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In an Arthurian legend, the Lady of the Lake is the name of several related characters who play integral parts in the stories. These characters' roles include giving King Arthur his sword Excalibur, taking the king to Avalon after the Battle of Camlann, enchanting Merlin and raising Lancelot after the death of his father. Different writers and copyists give her name variously as Nimue, Numae, Viviane, Niniane, Nyneve, and other variations.
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Origins
The Lady of the Lake's origins are probably ancient and pagan, like Morgan le Fay's, and she and Morgan may have derived from the same tradition. The first mention of Avalon, a magical island with which the Lady and Morgan are frequently associated, is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae; Geoffrey says Arthur's sword Caliburn was forged there, and says Arthur was taken to the isle after his battle with Mordred to have his wounds healed.
Chrétien de Troyes mentions that Lancelot had been raised by a water fay who gave him a magic-resisting ring in his romance Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. Lancelot's life with the Lady of the Lake is detailed in the German Lanzelet by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven and the Prose Lancelot Proper, which was later expanded into the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. There, the Lady of the Lake fosters the infant Lancelot after his father Ban has been killed fighting against his enemy Claudas. It has been suggested that these three works are derived from a lost tradition of Lancelot, which is perhaps best preserved in Ulrich's version.
Her guise as a water fay makes her somewhat similar to Melusine.
The character in medieval literature
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle provides a backstory for the Lady of the Lake, "Viviane", in the Prose Merlin section, which takes place before the Lancelot Proper though it was written later. There, Viviane learns her magic from Merlin, who becomes enamored of her. She refuses to give him her love until he has taught her all his secrets, but when he does, she uses her power to trap him beneath a stone. Because he could see the future, he knew this would happen, but was powerless to avoid it.
The Post-Vulgate Cycle omits the entire account of Lancelot's early adventures found in the Lancelot-Grail, and splits the Lady of the Lake's character in two. The first of these acts benevolently and gives Arthur his sword Excalibur after he breaks his first one, but she demands he repay the favor at the time of her choosing. Some time later, she shows up at court and demands Arthur put the knight Sir Balin to death, explaining her family has had an ongoing blood feud with his. Instead, Balin chops off her head, and is banished from court.
The Post-Vulgate's second Lady of the Lake is called Ninanne, and her story is nearly identical to the one in the Lancelot-Grail. Sir Thomas Malory also uses both Ladies of the Lake in his Le Morte d'Arthur; he leaves the first one unnamed and calls the second one Nimue. The character appears in other episodes of Malory's work, including a memorable one with Sir Pelleas, who becomes her lover.
Later uses
The Walter Scott poem and its musical settings
Walter Scott wrote an influential poem, The Lady of the Lake, in 1810, drawing on the romance of the legend, but transplanting it to Loch Katrine in the Trossachs of Scotland. In La Donna del Lago, Scott's material furnished subject matter for an opera by Gioacchino Rossini (Naples 1819). It was the first of a fashion for operas with Scottish settings and based on Scott's works, of which Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor is the most familiar.
Ellen's Third Song, which is part of the Scott poem, became known as Schubert's Ave Maria – one of the three "Ellen songs" that were put to music by this composer (D. 837 - D. 839).
Alternative musical settings of these and other parts of the Scott poem (as separate songs) can be found here. The full text of Walter Scott's poem is available from the Project Gutenberg website here: The Lady of the Lake (Gutenberg e-text #3011)
Other appearances and popular references
Alfred Tennyson adapted several stories of the Lady of the Lake for his poetic cycle Idylls of the King. He splits her into two characters; Vivien is a deceitful villain who ensares Merlin while the Lady of the Lake is a benevolent figure who raises Lancelot and gives Arthur his sword.
Mystery novelist Raymond Chandler wrote The Lady in the Lake in 1943, which revolves around a set of mysterious deaths in the San Bernadino Mountains. Here, the symbolic Arthur, questing for the Grail of truth and adhering to his own chivalric code, is Chandler's hero Philip Marlowe. As in the original tales, Marlowe's lady in the lake is not what she first seems, and has a devastating effect on her lover.
The murder victim Margaret Hogg, whose body was found in a lake in England's Wasdale Valley in 1984, became known as "the Wasdale Lady in the Lake". Similarly, an unidentified murder victim thought to have been killed by the Cleveland Torso Murderer in the 1930s is referred to as the "Lady of the Lake".
Modern references
Anywhere there is a retelling of Arthurian Legend, an adaptation of the Lady of the Lake is usually found. She was the Guardian of Magic and the sister of Titania in the animated series Gargoyles, the sister of Merlin in T.A. Barron's The Great Tree of Avalon, and many others. Her most recent modern appearance was in the Broadway musical Monty Python's Spamalot, and her most famous was in The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, where the Lady is an office filled first by the Priestess Vivian, and later by Morgan le Fay.
In the Warhammer Fantasy universe the lady of the lake is the primary diety of the nation of Bretonnia and speaks to them through her damsels and enchantresses the chief one of whom is known as the Fay enchantress and is currently known as Morgiana.
A rather different version of Nimue appears in Dominion, one of the novels in Fred Saberhagen's Dracula Sequence.