Editing Lady of the Lake (section)

==Character evolution==
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Iconic motifs and their sources
|-
! Select element or episode !! Earliest text
|-
|A fairy lady has raised and magically aids [[Lancelot]].
|''[[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) <small>(translation from an unknown earlier source)</small>
|-
|Introducing the concept and name of the Lady of the Lake. After rescuing and rising Lancelot, she sends him to the court of [[King Arthur]], and later aids him during his knight-errant adventures and in his romance with [[Guinevere]].
|[[Lancelot-Grail|Vulgate ''Lancelot'']] (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) from [[Brittany|Little Britain]]. She captures the wizard [[Merlin]], using the very magic that he himself taught her out of his love for her, almost always unrequited.
|[[Lancelot-Grail|Vulgate ''Merlin Continuation'']] (before 1235)
|-
|Another Lady of the Lake gives the sword [[Excalibur]] to Arthur and is later killed by [[Sir Balin|Balin]]. Viviane cruelly kills Merlin out of her hatred of him. Afterwards, she begins to aid Arthur and protects him from his wicked sister [[Morgan le Fay|Morgan]].
|[[Post-Vulgate Cycle|Post-Vulgate ''Merlin Continuation'']] (after 1235)
|-
|The author [[Thomas Malory|Malory]]'s redefinition of Viviane as Nimue (Nynyve), the "chief Lady of the Lake", who marries [[Pelleas]] and in the end accompanies Morgan in taking Arthur to [[Avalon]].
|''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'' (1485)
|-
|The author [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]] 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) in ''[[Idylls 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": {{clear}}

{{Quotebox|align=center|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.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tRZclHHtLLkC&pg=PA71 | title=Arthurian Women | isbn=978-0-415-92889-2 | last1=Fenster | first1=Thelma S. | date=2000 | publisher=Psychology Press }}</ref>}}