Editing Guinevere (section)

=== Abduction stories ===

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Story types and their earliest known sources 
|-
! Abductor !! Rescuer  !! Text
|-
|[[Maleagant|Melwas]] <small>(unclear, includes rape)</small>
|[[Gildas]] <small>(negotiated)</small>
|''Vita Gildae''
|-
|Prince [[Maleagant]] <small>(out of unrequited love)</small>
|[[Lancelot]] <small>(in a duel)</small>
|''[[Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charette]]''
|-
|King Valerin twice <small>(claiming to be her rightful husband)</small>
|Lancelot <small>(in a duel)</small> <br> Arthur <small>(aided by Lancelot, Malduc, and others)</small>
|''[[Lanzelet]]''
|-
|Gotegrim <small>(to [[honor killing|honor kill]] her for infidelity)</small>
|[[Gawain]] <small>(in a duel)</small>
|''[[Diu Crône]]''
|-
|Brun de Morois <small>(motivated by love)</small>
|Durmart
|''[[Durmart le Gallois]]''
|-
|King [[Urien]] <small>(as a war prisoner)</small>
|Gawain
|''Livre d'Artus''
|-
|Conspiracy of the [[Gwenhwyfach|False Guinevere]] <small>(to replace her on the wedding night)</small>
|Abduction failed<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C8RKJhpaJ5sC&pg=PA194|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend|first1=Elizabeth|last1=Archibald|first2=Ad|last2=Putter|date=10 September 2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-86059-8 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
|[[Vulgate Cycle|Vulgate]] ''Lancelot''
|-
|King Arthur <small>(to execute her on a false accusation)</small>
|Lancelot <small>(in a [[trial by combat]] duel against [[Mador de la Porte]])</small><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q1HhEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA18|title=Medieval French Literature and Law|first=R. Howard|last=Bloch|date=15 November 2023|publisher=Univ of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-33357-4 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
|Vulgate ''Mort Artu''
|-
|King Arthur and his loyalists <small>(to execute her for treason)</small>
|Lancelot and his followers <small>(in battle)</small>
|Vulgate ''Mort Artu''
|-
|King [[Mordred]] <small>(to secure power; some versions, including the derived ''[[Alliterative Morte Arthure|Morte Arthure]]'', present the episode as an affair between them)</small>
|Escapes herself <small>(helped by her cousin Labor and others)</small><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SyRt_1b3fo0C&pg=RA1-PA376|title=The Evolution of Arthurian Romance i|publisher=Slatkine|via=Google Books}}</ref>
|Vulgate ''Mort Artu''
|-
|King Eugenius of Scotland <small>(as a war trophy)</small><ref name=scot>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aLx7w5IzCDMC&pg=PA88|title=King Arthur's Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition|first=Tyler R.|last=Tichelaar|date=31 January 2010|publisher=Loving Healing Press|isbn=978-1-61599-066-5 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
|None
|''Historia Gentis Scotorum''
|}

A major and long-running Arthurian story trope features Guinevere being kidnapped and then tells of her rescue by either her husband or her lover. Welsh cleric and author [[Caradoc of Llancarfan]], who wrote his ''[[Gildas|Life of Gildas]]'' sometime between 1130 and 1150,<ref>{{cite web|url= https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/1150-Caradoc-LifeofGildas.asp|title= Caradoc of Llangarfan: The Life of Gildas|website= Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook|publisher= Fordham University|access-date= 9 April 2016|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150906061946/https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/1150-Caradoc-LifeofGildas.asp|archive-date= 6 September 2015|url-status= dead}}</ref> recounts her being taken and raped (''violatam et raptam'') by [[Maleagant|Melwas]], king of the "Summer Country" (''Aestiva Regio'', perhaps meaning [[Somerset]]), and held prisoner at his stronghold at [[Glastonbury]]. The story states that Arthur (depicted there as a tyrannical ruler) spent a year searching for her and assembling an army to storm Melwas' fort when Gildas negotiates a peaceful resolution and reunites husband and wife.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XZFbczeMtYcC&pg=PA355|title=The Arthurian Name Dictionary|first=Christopher W.|last=Bruce|date=21 March 1999|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9780815328650 |via=Google Books}}</ref> The 14th-century Welsh poet [[Dafydd ap Gwilym]] alludes to it in one of his poems, calling her Ogfran the Giant's daughter.<ref name=mw/> It is also the subject of the obscure Welsh poem "The Dialogue of Melwas and Gwenhwyfar" that exists only in two late copies.<ref name=mw>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DV2uBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA52|title=Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature|first=Oliver James|last=Padel|date=30 May 2013|publisher=University of Wales Press|isbn=978-0-7083-2658-9 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

[[File:Ambito di wiligelmo, porta della pescheria, 02 ciclo di artù 03,1.jpg|thumb|"Winlogee" depicted on the Italian [[Modena Cathedral|Modena Archivolt]] (c. 1120–1240)]]

The Melwas story seems to be related to an [[Old Irish]] abduction motif called the {{lang|sga|aithed}} in which a mysterious stranger kidnaps a married woman and takes her to his home; the husband of the woman then rescues her against insurmountable odds.<ref>Kibler, William W., ''The Romance of Arthur'', New York & London, Garland Publishing, Inc. 1994 p. 121.</ref> A seemingly related account was carved into the [[Modena Cathedral#Archivolt|archivolt of Modena Cathedral]] in Italy, which most likely predates that telling (as well as any other known written account of Guinevere in Arthurian legend). Here, Artus de Bretania and Isdernus approach a tower in which Mardoc is holding '''Winlogee''', while on the other side Carrado (most likely Caradoc) fights Galvagin (Gawain) as the knights Galvariun and Che (Kay) approach. Isdernus is most certainly an incarnation of Yder ([[Edern ap Nudd]]), a Celtic hero whose name appears in ''Culhwch and Olwen''. Yeder is actually Guinevere's lover in a nearly-forgotten tradition mentioned in [[Béroul]]'s 12th-century ''Tristan''. This is reflected in the later ''[[Romanz du reis Yder|Romance of King Yder]]'', where his lover is Queen Guenloie of Carvain (possibly [[Caerwent]] in Wales<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SyRt_1b3fo0C&pg=RA1-PA221|title=The Evolution of Arthurian Romance i|publisher=Slatkine|via=Google Books}}</ref>).

[[File:Boys King Arthur - N. C. Wyeth - p278.jpg|thumb|left|[[N. C. Wyeth]]'s illustration for ''[[The Boy's King Arthur]]'', abridged from ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'' by [[Sidney Lanier]] (1922): "He [Lancelot] rode his way with the Queen unto [[Joyous Gard]]."]]

Chrétien de Troyes tells another version of Guinevere's abduction, this time by Meliagant ([[Maleagant]], derived from Melwas) in the 12th-century ''[[Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart]]''. The abduction sequence is largely a reworking of that recorded in Caradoc's work, but here the queen's rescuer is not Arthur (or Yder) but Lancelot, whose adultery with the queen is dealt with for the first time in this poem. In Chrétien's [[love triangle]] of Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot, the young knight is literally madly in love with the queen.<ref name=bnf/> In his trials, Lancelot accepts shame and dishonor to prove his total submission and devotion to Guinevere,<ref>https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/litterature/moyen-age-1/ed6c3713-b2d5-4b94-8cac-a35fbd9471b1-mythe-arthurien/article/e76ddfb8-96ee-49d0-80ce-be118642b75a-amour-dans-romans-arthuriens</ref> in the end earning the reward of a night of love after rescuing her from the otherworldly land of Gorre. It has been suggested that Chrétien invented their affair to supply Guinevere with a courtly extramarital lover (as requested by his patroness, [[Marie of France, Countess of Champagne|Princess Marie]]); Mordred could not be used as his reputation was beyond saving, and Yder had been forgotten entirely.<ref>{{cite book|last=(de Troyes)|first=Chrétien|title=Lancelot, or, The Knight of the Cart|year=1990|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-1213-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_BkOv2P91UMC&pg=PR9}}</ref> This version has become lastingly popular. Today it is most familiar from its expansion [[#Life in popular tradition|in the prose cycles]], where Lancelot comes to her rescue on more than one occasion.

There are furthermore several other variants of this motif in medieval literature. In Ulrich's ''[[Lanzelet]]'', Valerin, the King of the Tangled Pinewood, claims the right to marry her and attempts to carry her off to his castle in a struggle for power, possibly related to her connections to the fertility and sovereignty of Britain. Lancelot, acting as Guinevere's champion, defeats Valerian and saves her from the plot. However, Valerin later kidnaps Guinevere anyway and places her in a magical sleep inside his castle guarded by dragons; she is rescued by Arthur's party (including Lancelot) with the help of Malduc, wizard of the Misty Lake.<ref>{{Cite book |last=App |first=August Joseph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DojebX3x-i0C&pg=PA14 |title=Lancelot in English Literature, His Rôle and Character |date=1929 |publisher=Ardent Media |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Edmunds |first=Lowell |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-3S7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA290 |title=Stealing Helen: The Myth of the Abducted Wife in Comparative Perspective |date=2020-04-28 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-20233-4 |language=en}}</ref> In Heinrich's ''Diu Crône'', Guinevere's captor is her own brother Gotegrim, intending to kill her for refusing to marry the fairy knight [[Knights of the Round Table#Osenain|Gasozein]], who falsely<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43485991 | jstor=43485991 | title=An Unlikely Hero: The Rapist-Knight Gasozein in "Diu Crône" | last1=Samples | first1=Susann Therese | journal=Arthuriana | year=2012 | volume=22 | issue=4 | pages=101–119 | doi=10.1353/art.2012.a494786 | s2cid=160239206 }}</ref> claims to be her lover and rightful husband (and who also appears as the young Guinevere's human lover named Gosangos in the ''Livre d'Artus''),<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uNjGNu2w7WcC&pg=PA40 | title=Diu Crône and the Medieval Arthurian Cycle | isbn=9780859916363 | last1=Thomas | first1=Neil | year=2002 | publisher=DS Brewer }}</ref> and her saviour there is Gawain. In ''[[Durmart le Gallois]]'', Guinevere is delivered from her abduction by the eponymous hero, having been abducted by Brun de Morois in a scenario reminiscent that of Valerin but more romantic on Brun's side (who is spared by Gawain and joins Arthur's knights).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rhys |first=Sir John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hHw6AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA68 |title=Studies in the Arthurian Legend |date=1891 |publisher=Clarendon Press |language=en}}</ref> In the ''Livre d'Artus'', she is briefly taken prisoner by [[King Urien]] during his rebellion against Arthur, and her rescuer is again Gawain.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ewTuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA9|title=Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance|first=Roger Sherman|last=Loomis|date=30 August 2005|publisher=Chicago Review Press|isbn=978-1-61373-209-0 |via=Google Books}}</ref> 

[[File:Meigle 2 Vanora.jpg|thumb|Meigle stone detail]]

Another version of the narrative is associated in local folklore with [[Meigle]] in Scotland, known for its carved [[Pictish stone]]s. One of the stones, now in the [[Meigle Sculptured Stone Museum]], is said to depict '''Vanora''', the local name for Guinevere.<ref name="HScot"/> She is said to have been abducted by King Modred (Mordred). When she is eventually returned to Arthur, he has her condemned to death for [[infidelity]] and orders that she be torn to pieces by wild beasts, an event said to be shown on Meigle Stone 2 (Queen Venora's Stone).<ref name="HScot"/> This stone was one of two that originally stood near a mound that is identified as Vanora's grave.<ref name="HScot">{{cite web|url=https://www.historicenvironment.scot/|title=Historic Environment Scotland|website=historicenvironment.scot|access-date=22 December 2018}}</ref> Modern scholars interpret the Meigle Stone 2 as a depiction of the Biblical tale of [[Daniel in the lions' den]]. One Scotland-related story takes place in [[Hector Boece]]'s ''Historia Gentis Scotorum'', where Guinevere is taken north by the [[Picts]] following Mordred's and Arthur's deaths at Camlann. She spends the rest of her life as their prisoner, and after her death she is buried at Meigle.<ref name=scot/>

This prominent story in its many versions may be ultimately of early Celtic origin.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bromwich |first=Rachel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V2muBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT464 |title=Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain |date=2014-11-15 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78316-147-8 |language=en}}</ref> Medievalist [[Roger Sherman Loomis]] suggested that this recurring motif shows that Guinevere "had inherited the role of a Celtic [[Persephone]]" (a figure from [[Greek mythology]]).<ref>{{cite book|last=Loomis|first=Roger Sherman|title=The Development of Arthurian Romance|year=2000|publisher=Dover Publications|isbn=978-0-486-40955-9}}</ref> All of these similar tales of abduction by another suitor – and this allegory includes Lancelot, who saves her when she is condemned by Arthur to [[death by burning|burn at the stake]] for her adultery – are demonstrative of a recurring '[[Hades]]-snatches-Persephone' theme, positing that Guinevere is similar to the [[Celtic Otherworld]] bride [[Étaín]], whom [[Midir]], king of the Underworld, carries off from her earthly life.<ref>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Neil|title=Diu Crône and the medieval Arthurian cycle|year=2002|publisher=D.S. Brewer|isbn=978-0-85991-636-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uNjGNu2w7WcC&pg=PA39}}</ref> According to [[Kenneth G. T. Webster]], a scenario such as the one from ''Diu Crône'' may be an echo of a more ancient lore in which Guinevere is "a [[fairy queen]] ravished from her supernatural husband by Arthur of this world and therefore subject to raids which the other world would regard as rescues, but which to the Arthurian world appear as abductions."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/%27Siner+tugende+anegenge+sagen%27:+The+re-writing+of+Arthurian+(hi)story...-a065506636|title='Siner tugende anegenge sagen': The re-writing of Arthurian (hi)story in 'Diu Crone'. – Free Online Library|website=www.thefreelibrary.com}}</ref>