Editing Gawain (section)

=== Origin narratives and alternate siblings ===
''Les Enfances Gauvain'', based in part on ''De Ortu Waluuanii'', tells of how Arthur's sister Morcades ([[Morgause]]) becomes pregnant by Lot, at this point a mere [[Page (servant)|page]] in King Arthur's court. She and Lot secretly give the child to a knight named Gawain the Brown (''Gauvain li Brun'') who baptises the infant with his own name, puts the infant Gawain in a cask with a letter explaining who the child is, and sets him adrift on the sea. The cask is found by a fisherman and his wife. Sometime after Gawain is ten years of age, his foster-father vows to make a pilgrimage to Rome if he recovers from his severe illness. When he undertakes the pilgrimage, he takes his foster-child with him to Rome. There a clerk reads the knight's letter, understands that the boy is of high birth, and the Pope takes Gawain as his own foster-son. Accounts similar to this can be found in ''Perlesvaus'', the ''[[Gesta Romanorum]]'', and many other texts.

In ''De Ortu Waluuani'', the young Gawain, trained as a [[Roman cavalry]] officer, undertakes a duel to determine whether Rome or [[Persia]] should possess [[History of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages|Jerusalem]]. On his way, Gawain and his men defeat the pirate king Milocrates and his brother Buzafarnam, rescuing the Roman Emperor's niece whom Milocrates has abducted. In Jerusalem, he fights the giant Persian champion Gormund and slays him after three days of single combat. He is then sent to King Arthur with the proof of his birth. Arthur's queen, here named Gwendoloena and possessing prophetic powers, warns Arthur of the coming of a knight of Rome who is more powerful than him; Arthur and [[Sir Kay|Kay]] meet Gawain on his way but he unhorses them both. Gawain then arrives at Arthur's court, but the king rejects him despite learning of the knight being his nephew. In response, Gawain vows that he will do what Arthur's entire army could not do. The occasion comes when the Lady of the [[Castle of Maidens]] sends to Arthur for aid, having been abducted by a pagan king who wants to force marriage on her. Arthur and his forces go to fight the pagan army but lose, yet Gawain single-handedly succeeds and returns with the Lady and with the pagan king's head. Arthur is finally forced to publicly accept the knight's worth, and Lot and Anna formally acknowledge Gawain as their son.

[[File:Caen église St Pierre Gauvain.JPG|thumb|left|''[[Parzival]]'''s Gawain in a capital relief at the [[Church of Saint-Pierre, Caen]]]]

Similar to this tale are the stories of the Castle of Wonders, found in ''Diu Crône'', Chrétien's ''Perceval'', [[Wolfram von Eschenbach]]'s ''[[Parzival]]'', and the [[Old Norse|Norse]] ''Valvens þáttr'' (''The Tale of Gawain''), wherein Gawain comes to the castle where, unknown to him, live his grandmother (King Arthur's mother), his own mother, and his sister. Gawain becomes the castle's lord, and it would be likely that he would unknowingly marry either his mother or his sister, but Gawain discovers who the women are. In a variant included in the ''Gesta Romanorum'', a Gawain-like character named Gregory comes to a castle where his mother dwells, besieged by the [[Dukes of Burgundy family tree|Duke of Burgundy]]. Gregory enters the lady's service and succeeds in winning back her lands, after which he unwittingly marries his own mother.

Later romances, however, abandon the motif of Gawain being brought up, unknown, in Rome. In the ''Suite du Merlin'' attributed to [[Robert de Boron]], a marriage between King Lot and a daughter of Ygerne ([[Igraine]], Arthur's mother) is part of the negotiations arranging for Arthur's father [[Uther Pendragon]]'s marriage to Ygerne; Gawain must be thus about the same age as Arthur, or even older. In the [[Lancelot-Grail|Vulgate ''Merlin'']], he first appears as a young squire in his father's kingdom. Gawain, his brother Gaheris, and a number of other squires, most of them sons or kindred of the kings who at this time are rebelling against King Arthur, come together and defend the land of [[Logres]] against the Saxons while Arthur is away aiding King Leodegan ([[Leodegrance]]) against King Rion ([[Rience]]), after which Arthur knights the squires. During this time, Gawain notably saves their mother Belisent (Morgause) and the infant Mordred from being kidnapped by the Saxon king Taurus. This account is revised in the later [[Post-Vulgate Cycle|Post-Vulgate ''Merlin'']], where King Lot fights against Arthur but his forces are defeated and he himself is killed by King Pellinor ([[Pellinore]]), one of King Arthur's allies. Gawain first appears as an eleven-year-old boy at Lot's funeral and swears to avenge his father's death on Pellinor, praying that he may never be known for knightly deeds until he has taken vengeance. The story of the feud between Gawain and Pellinor and his sons is very important in the Post-Vulgate Cycle and the [[Prose Tristan|Prose ''Tristan'']], but not a trace of it is found in the Lancelot-Grail Cycle or in any earlier known tale, some of which picture Lot as still alive long after Gawain becomes a knight.

In many works outside the ''Lancelot-Grail''-derived tradition in which Gawain has only his now-familiar four brothers (among whom he is the eldest and is explicitly described as the most handsome of them by the Vulgate ''Lancelot''), Gawain also has sisters in different settings. These include an unnamed sister whom he rescues (along with her unnamed husband and children) from a giant in Chrétien's ''Yvain''; two sisters named Soredamors (Cligés' mother) and Clarissant in Chrétien's ''[[Cligès|Cligés]]''; an unnamed sister abducted by Gorvain Cadru in ''Hunbaut''; and Elainne in the Modena manuscript of the Didot ''Perceval''. In ''Parzival'', he has two sisters named Cundriê and Itonjê and a sole younger brother named Beacurs (the King of Norway and a Knight of the Round Table who marries King [[Bagdemagus]]'s niece Antonie). In some Welsh adaptations of ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' and in ''The Birth of Arthur'', King Hoel is his half-brother from their mother's first marriage. Mordred is Gawain's younger brother (by Lot, originally) or half-brother (by Arthur, later) in almost every text in which he figures since Geoffrey of Monmouth.