In The White Goddess, Robert Graves Quotes An Old Irish Triad As Saying, “It Is Death To Mock A Poet,

Veronica Whall’s depiction of Galahad ascending, from King Arthur’s Great Halls at Tintagel

When you realize that Tristan, Iseult, Dinadan, Palamedes, and Mark are basically the stock cast of a sitcom…

A few things which are “canon” somewhere for people who are worried they’re stretching it too far

Arthur was killed by a giant cat. 

Arthur killed the cat.

Arthur didn’t fight the cat. Kay did.

Kay and Bedivere use salmon as taxis. 

Lucan is half giant, half lion. (This Lucan, Lucano in the original Italian, is evil and not related to Bedivere). 

King Arthur raided the land of the dead.

The human knight Caradoc Briefbras has three half siblings: a dog, a horse, and a pig.

A large portion of Arthur’s troops was killed a while before Camlann by his nephew’s attack ravens in self-defense. Arthur and said nephew were playing chess at the time and neither did much to stop it.

Merlin retired peacefully and went to live in the countryside with Taliesin.

Wherever Arthur walks, plants die. They don’t grow back for years.

Arthur had a spunky (half?) brother who died in battle after making a mysterious oath.

Dagonet is more or less able to run the kingdom when Arthur is gone. His biggest error is overspending on mercenaries.

Guinevere has an evil almost identical twin half-sister.

Hector beat up all the best knights except for Galahad while possessed by a demon.

Gawain plays tennis.

Gawain has used a chessboard as a weapon.

Near the start of his reign, Arthur left Lot in charge of the kingdom and went on a quest with a sassy parrot.

Gawain or Galahad succeeded Arthur as king. 

The top ten who come to my mind at the moment are Caradoc, Dagonet, Dinadan, Galahad, Gawain, Griflet, Kay, Lucan, Melora, and Mordred, in alphabetical order. That being said, if you mess with Gareth, Morvran, or really most of the others, I will offer to duel you on the spot, tell the magic trees about you, and (if all else fails) besiege you with flaming arrows.

To anyone who loves Arthurian legends, who’s your fav knight? Mine has been Sir Palomides and Sir Gareth lately.

My new job is making people’s often ill-advised wishes come true on a resort island which might actually be Purgatory but no one knows because the premise of the show was never adequately explained to anyone, including the stars.

The back of my Siege Perilous

Going from left to right and down, the symbols stand for Galahad, Percival, Ragnell, Blanchefleur, the Grail Heroine, the Lady of the Lake who gives Arthur Excalibur, Guinier, Gawain, Dinadan, Ector de Maris, Morgan le Fay, Caradoc Briefbras, Griflet, Isolde, Vivian, Taliesin, Tristan, Brunnisend, the Nine Witches, Laudine, the Three Queens or Morgause, Kay, Dagonet, Merlin, Palamedes, Sebile, Guinevere, Igraine, Melora, Yvain, Mordred, and Arthur.

If you’re confused about some or all of them, here’s my rationale/what the symbols are: 

Galahad and Percival have slightly different Grails. I think Ragnell is found sitting under a tree, and another story has Gawain in a relationship with the queen of Avalon, isle of the apples. Blanchefleur means “white flower”. The square with the spiral in it is the Grail Heroine’s box of hair. The sword under the wave is fairly obvious. That is the drinking horn from Guinier’s chastity test. Gawain’s is a SGatGK reference. Dinadan’s is an aro ring. Ector de Maris, Griflet, Kay, and Palamedes all have symbols or patterns from their attributed arms. Morgan le Fay takes Arthur to Avalon on a boat. Caradoc has to be saved from a serpent which is wound around his arm. The torch is a Wagner reference. Nimue traps Merlin, whose symbol is the bird who shares his name, so she is represented by a birdcage. Taliesin got his wisdom from a cauldron, and there’s a cauldron in the Preideu Annwfn. Tristan plays a harp. The formation of the relationship between Brunnisend and her eventual husband is defined by their dire yet mutually exclusive needs for a good night’s sleep. The Nine Witches’ symbol seemed cool and has a threefold element. Laudine has a magic fountain. The evolution of the nature and deeds of Anna/Morcades/Morgause/etc. seemed to sort of go with the Maiden, Matron, Crone archetype and I really couldn’t think of anything else. Dagonet eventually became a jester. Yblis, who has a magic mantle, is Sybil scrambled, and there is a strong modern association between magic and capes. Guinevere is sometimes given authority over the knights of the vergescu. My justification for Igraine’s is particularly weak and would take too long to explain. Melora wields the Lance of Longinus. Yvain befriends a lion. Mordred has a broken table because he helped break the Round Table. Arthur is King.

okay sorry thinking about false guinevere again and I think I get it now. like if you were raised alongside your beautiful sister, the beautiful daughter of the king, and she gets everything and everyone loves her and she marries the guy who pulls the sword out of the stone and she’s the queen now and everyone’s looking to her and knights are dying for her and you look exactly like her and you have her same face, your father’s face, but the man who raised you isn’t him because no one can talk about what the king did to your mom and everyone pretends it’s normal but actually they all know you were born from violence and you were never supposed to be born and there she is, your sister, with your same name, your same face, the most desired woman alive, and she is everything you’re not. i might also do something evil tbh

Wait a minute, I might have read a short story like that. If I can’t find it, I’m writing one. If I can find it, I’m still probably writing one.

Who is your favorite Arthurian POV to write in? Why?

Brangain’s family in Arthuriana

As we all know, Brangain is Isolde’s handmaid, who helps her mistress with the whole affair shenanigans with Tristan. It was of interest for me to find out all there was to know about this minor character. This led me to research three different Arthuriana, two from the 13th century and the other from the 16th century.

The earliest of these Arthuriana is the French one, “Tristan en Prose” (which is also known as the Prose Tristan), written by Luce de Gat & Helie de Boron in the 13th century. According to Löseth (1890) and Curtis (1994), Brangain is a young lady of noble birth under the service of then Princess Isolde of Ireland (later Queen Isolde of Cornwall). She serves as one of her ladies-in-waiting. Interestingly, she’s not the only member of her family that comes to Cornwall as part of Isolde’s royal retinue.

In the part of Prose Tristan in which Tristan is hiding his identity in Ireland, there’s a tournament going down in which he disguises himself as a white knight. Brangaine helps him by providing him with armor and assigns her younger brothers, Mathael and Perrin (also called Perynin/Perinis), as his squires. After he’s discovered, he leaves for Cornwall in the company of Brangain’s brothers who laments their departing (Löseth, 1890; Curtis, 1994).

Much later in the narrative, Tristan is wounded by an arrow. King Mark sends one of his wife’s ladies-in-waiting, who is very much loved by the queen and is also a relative of Brangain (most likely a cousin) as his messenger. This cousin is very fond of Tristan and Tristan is fond of her as well. And she comes in the company of her younger brother, who is a squire (Löseth, 1890; Curtis, 1994).

Fast forward once more, another scene features Brangain’s niece, accompanied by her younger brother, a squire, whom she raised since he was an infant. Isolde sent her to Logres with a message for Tristan in order to meet to have some, ahem, alone time (Löseth, 1890).

By the end of Prose Tristan, though, out of all the relatives mentioned, only Perrin makes a reappearance. He sends a letter to his sister and her husband Governal telling them where Tristan and Isolde’s graves are located. Brangain and her husband come to the graveyard to mourn for Tristan and Isolde. Afterwards, Perrin and Tristan’s dog Husdent leave with Brangaine and her husband to the kingdom of Lyonesse (which Tristan gave to Governal) where he serves as his sister’s seneschal (Spector, 1973).

On the other hand, in the German Arthuriana “Tristan” by Gottfried von Strassburg (which was also written in the 13th century), Brangain is called Brangwen in the narrative. She’s most probably a niece of Queen Iseult the Wise (Iseult’s mother) from the maternal side of the family and a first cousin of Isolde (Iseult the Fair in the narrative) as well. She’s also called the Full Moon to Iseult the Wise’s sun and Iseult (Isolde) the Fair’s dawn. Moreover, she advises her aunt not to kill Tristan, accompanies Iseult to Cornwall and we all know the rest of the story (Von Strassburg, 2020).

In contrast, in the 16th century Spanish Arthuriana “Tristan de Leonis y el rey don Tristan el joven, su hijo” by an unknown author, Brangain is called Brangel. Brangel is Iseo la Brunda’s (Isolde in the narrative) handmaid and she has two younger brothers, who are assigned by Iseo to be Tristan’s squires in the tournament (which coincides with Prose Tristan) (Cuesta Torre, 1997).

Long story short, on the voyage to Cornwall Tristan and Iseo drink the love potion and consummate the passion they feel for one another. Iseo falls pregnant and they land in this island called “Ploto.”  Brangel and another of the ladies help Iseo give birth to her first child with Tristan, whom they also called Tristan. They also have a daughter named Iseo like her mother (because Tristan and Isolde can’t keep their hands off each other) (Cuesta Torre, 1997).

We all know the rest of the story. Anyways, Gorvalán (as in Governal in the narrative) and Brangel get married, but they don’t rule over Lyonesse. Instead, according to the will Tristan left, Governal is to be his son’s regent until he comes of age. Fast forward a few years, young Tristan becomes king and he and his sister Iseo become the godparents of Gorvalán and Brangel’s son Leonelo (in English Lionel) named after the city he was born in (Cuesta Torre, 1997).

If these sources are consolidated, the following can be thus concluded:

Brangaine is of noble birth and a first cousin of Isolde from the maternal side of the family. She’s the eldest of her two younger brothers, Perrin and Mathael. Moreover, she has a niece and a nephew from an older sibling. In addition, she also has cousins, one of them a lady-in-waiting and the other a squire.

Brangaine later marries Governal with whom she has a son named Lionel. She and her husband are King and Queen of Lyonesse after Tristan gave it to his tutor before he died. Her brother Perrin is their seneschal.

References

Cuesta Torre, M. L. (1997). Tristán de Leonís y el rey don Tristán el joven, su hijo: (Sevilla, 1534). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Curtis, R. L. (1994). The Romance of Tristan: The Thirteenth-century Old French “prose Tristan.” Oxford University Press.

Löseth, E. (1890). Le roman en prose de Tristan, le roman de Palamède et la compilation de Rusticien de Pise: Analyse critique d’après les manuscrits de Paris (E. Bouillon, Ed.). Macon, Protat Frères, Imprimeurs.

Spector, N. B. (1973). The romance of Tristan and Isolt. Northwestern University Press.

Von Strassburg, G. (2020). Tristan (A. S. Kline, Trans.). Poetry in Translation. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Tristanhome.php

I was today years old when I remembered that Beowulf, Hrolf Kraki, some of the Irish King cycle characters and Dietrich von Bern (Theodoric the Great) all lived together during the reign of King Arthur.

500 A.D./Early 6th Century was a wild time.