THE WATSON FAMILY - On a road trip to Glastonbury, the magic Dinobot picks up signals left by Merlin the Magician, from Ley Lines pointing to Camelot.

The Lady of the Lake The Lady of the Lake (Dame du Lac, Demoiselle du Lac) is a title used by multiple characters in the Matter of Britain, the body of medieval literature and mythology associated with the legend of King Arthur. As either actually fairy or fairy-like yet human enchantresses, they play important roles in various stories, notably by providing Arthur with the sword Excalibur, eliminating the wizard Merlin, raising the knight Lancelot after the death of his father, and helping to take the dying Arthur to Avalon after his final battle. Different Ladies of the Lake appear concurrently as separate characters in some versions of the legend since at least the Post-Vulgate Cycle and consequently the seminal Le Morte d'Arthur, with the latter describing them as members of a hierarchical group, while some texts also give this title to either Morgan or her sister.

LANCELOT'S GUARDIAN

Following her early appearances in the 12th-century poems of Chrétien and Ulrich, the Lady of the Lake began being featured by this title in the French chivalric romance prose by the 13th century. As a fairy godmother-type foster mother of the hero Lancelot, she inherits the role of an unnamed aquatic (sea) fairy queen, her prototype found in Ulrich's Lanzelet. Ulrich uses the changeling part of the fairy abduction lore for the background of Lancelot as having been swapped with her son Mabuz. However, the figure of Lancelot's supernatural foster mother has no offspring of her own in any of the later texts.

She does not appear in person in Chrétien's Lancelot. The text only has her mentioned briefly as an unnamed (referred to as just "lady" by Lancelot when he calls upon her) fairy "who had cared for him in his infancy" and continues to aid Lancelot remotely, through a magic ring given by her to him. There is no connection to water mentioned in this version.

In the Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate) prose cycle, loosely based on Chrétien, the Lady resides in an otherworldly enchanted realm, the entry to which is disguised as an illusion of a lake (the Post-Vulgate explains it as Merlin's work). There, she raises Lancelot from his infancy having stolen him from his mother following the death of his father, King Ban. She teaches Lancelot arts and writing, infusing him with wisdom and courage, and overseeing his training to become an unsurpassed warrior. She also rears his orphaned cousins Lionel and Bors after having her sorcerous damsel Saraïde (later called Celise) rescue them from King Claudas. All this takes her only a few years in the human world. Afterwards, she sends off the adolescent Lancelot to King Arthur's court as the nameless White Knight, due to her own affinity with this color (wearing white is a common attribute of faery women in Arthurian legend).

Through much of the Prose Lancelot Propre, the Lady keeps aiding Lancelot in various ways during his early adventures to become a famed knight and discover his true identity, usually acting through her maidens serving as her agents and messengers. She gives him her magical gifts, including a magic ring of protection against enchantments in a manner similar in that to his fairy protectoress in Chrétien's poem (either the same or another of her rings also grants Lancelot's lover Queen Guinevere immunity from Morgan's power in the Italian Prophéties de Merlin). Later on, she also works to actively encourage Lancelot and Guinevere's relationship and its consummation. That includes sending Guinevere a symbolically illustrated magic shield, the crack in which closes up after the queen finally spends her first night with Lancelot. She furthermore personally arrives to restore Lancelot to sanity during some of his recurring periods of madness, on one occasion using the above-mentioned shield to heal his mind.

MERLIN'S CAPTOR

The Vulgate Cycle is first to tell of (depending on the version) either possibly a different or explicitly the same Lady of the Lake in the Prose Merlin-derived section in which Merlin falls in love with her, typically unrequited. There, she also uses other names, including Elaine. As a result of their usually final encounter, Merlin almost always either dies or at very least is never seen again.

The story takes place before the main Vulgate Lancelot section but was written later, linking her with the disappearance of Merlin from the romance tradition of Arthurian legend. She is given the name Viviane (or similar) and a human origin, although she is still being called a fairy. In the Vulgate Merlin, Viviane refuses to give Merlin (who at this time is already old but appears to her in the guise of a handsome young man) her love until he has taught her all his secrets, after which she uses her power to seal him by making him sleep forever. The text explains this by a spell she put "on her groin which, as long as it lasted, prevented anyone from deflowering her and having relations with her." In an alternative Bristol Merlin fragment, she resists his seduction with the help of a magic ring during the week they spend together.

Though Merlin knows beforehand that this will happen due to his power of foresight, he is unable to counteract her because of the 'truth' this ability of foresight holds. He decides to do nothing for his situation other than to continue to teach her his secrets until she takes the opportunity to get rid of him. Consequently, she entraps and entombs her unresisting mentor within a tree, in a hole underneath a large stone, or inside a cave, depending on the version of this story as it is told in the different texts. In the Prophéties de Merlin, for instance, Viviane is especially cruel in the way she disposes of Merlin, making him die a long death inside his tomb while taunting him. There, she is proud of how Merlin had never taken her virginity, unlike what happened with his other female students, such as Morgan.

The Post-Vulgate revision has Viviane described as causing Merlin's death out of her hatred of him. Conversely, the Livre d'Artus, a late alternative (and updated) variant of the Prose Lancelot, shows a completely peaceful scene taking place under a blooming hawthorn tree where Merlin is lovingly put to sleep by Viviane, as it is required by his destined fate that she has learned of. He then wakes up inside an impossibly high and indestructible tower, invisible from the outside, where she will come to meet him there almost every day or night—a motif reminiscent of Ganieda's visits of Merlin's house in an earlier version of his life as described by Geoffrey in Vita Merlini.

In the Prophéties de Merlin, she then takes Tristan's half-brother Meliadus the Younger, also raised by her along with Lancelot, as her actual lover who then convinces her to access Merlin's tomb to record his prophecies while Merlin is still alive.[44] The Lancelot-Grail, too, has Viviane take a lover, in this case the evil king Brandin of the Isles, whom she teaches some magic that he then applies to his terrible castle Dolorous Gard. In the Vulgate Merlin, an unnamed lady, possibly Viviane, abortively turns King Brandegorre's son Evadeam into the deformed Dwarf Knight for refusing her love.[46] In the Post-Vulgate Merlin, Viviane later protects Arthur from Morgan through her magical interventions.

In her backstory in the Vulgate Merlin, Viviane was a daughter of the knight Dionas (Dyonas) and a niece of the Duke of Burgundy. According to the Post-Vulgate, she was born in Dionas' domain that included the fairy forests of Briosque (Brocéliande) and Darnantes,[47] and it was an enchantment of her fairy godmother, Diana the Huntress Goddess, that caused Viviane to be so alluring to Merlin when she first met him there as a young teenager. The narrator informs the reader that, back "in the time of Virgil", Diana had been a Queen of Sicily that was considered a goddess by her subjects. The Post-Vulgate Suite de Merlin describes how Viviane was born and lived in a magnificent castle at the foot of a mountain in Brittany as a daughter of the King of Northumbria. Here, she is initially known as the beautiful 15-year-old Damsel Huntress (Damoiselle Cacheresse) in her introductory episode, in which she serves the role of a damsel in distress in the adventure of the three knights separately sent by Merlin to rescue her from kidnapping; the quest is soon completed by King Pellinore who tracks down and kills her abductor.

The Post-Vulgate rewrite also describes how Diana had killed her partner Faunus to be with a man named Felix, but then she was herself killed by her lover at that lake, which came to be called the Lake of Diana (Lac Diane). This is presumably the place where Lancelot of the Lake (du Lac) is later raised, at first not knowing his real parentage, by Viviane. Nevertheless, only the narration of the Vulgate Cycle actually makes it clear that its Lady of the Lake (that is Lancelot's adoptive mother) and Viviane are in fact the one and same character in the French romances. Viviane is also only 12 when she meets Merlin in the Forest of Briosque in the Vulgate Merlin.

GIVER OF EXCALIBUR

Another, unnamed Lady of the Lake appears in the Post-Vulgate tradition to bestow the magic sword Excalibur from Avalon to Arthur in a now iconic scene. She is presented as a mysterious early benefactor of the young King Arthur, who is directed and led to her by Merlin. Appearing in her lake, she grants him Excalibur and its special scabbard after his original (also unnamed) sword breaks in the duel against King Pellinore. She is a mysterious character who is evidently neither Morgan nor the Damsel Huntress, but may possibly have a connection to the Lady of Avalon (Dame d'Avalon) from the Propheties de Merlin.

Later in the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, either this Lady of the Lake personally or one of her damsels (her identity is unclear, as, despite her explicit connection with the Excalibur episode, the woman is not actually identified as the "Lady of the Lake" in this scene) comes to King Arthur's court, where she is suddenly attacked and beheaded by Sir Balin. It comes as a result of a kin feud between them (she blames Balin for the death of variably either her brother or her lover, while he blames her for the death of his mother, who had been burned at the stake) and a dispute over another enchanted sword from Avalon. Her body later vanishes.

All this takes place relatively early in the Post-Vulgate Merlin Continuation, during the time when Merlin is still at Arthur's side and prior to the introduction of the young Viviane in the same part of the cycle. Modern retellings, however, usually make this Lady of the Lake the same character as Viviane, while also omitting the Balin episode
       

BEGIN AGAIN OR READ JIMMY'S PROJECT DIARY

This website is Copyright © January 2026 Jameson Hunter Limited