Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake (French: Dame du Lac, Demoiselle du Lac, Welsh: Arglwyddes y Llyn, Cornish: Arloedhes an Lynn, Breton: Itron an Lenn, Italian: Dama del Lago) is a name or a title used by several fairy-like enchantresses in the Matter of Britain, the body of medieval literature and mythology associated with the legend of King Arthur. They play pivotal roles in many stories, including providing Arthur with the sword Excalibur, eliminating Merlin, raising Lancelot after the death of his father, and helping to take the dying Arthur to Avalon. Different sorceresses known as the Lady 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 a hierarchical group, while some texts also give this title to either Morgan or her sister.

For other uses, see Lady of the Lake (disambiguation).
Lady of the Lake
(Nimue / Viviane)
Matter of Britain character
The Lady of the Lake in Lancelot Speed's illustration for James Thomas Knowles' The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1912)
First appearanceEstoire de Merlin[1]
Based onDisputed origins
In-universe information
OccupationEnchantress
FamilyDyonas (father)
SpousePelleas
Significant otherMerlin, sometimes others
ChildrenBors, Lancelot, Lionel (all adopted)
HomeHer lake, Brocéliande, Avalon

Names and origins
Nimue in Howard Pyle's illustration for The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903)

Today the Lady of the Lake is best known as either Nimuë (Nimue), or several scribal variants[2] of Ninianne and Viviane. Medieval authors and copyists produced various forms of the latter, including Nimane (Vulgate Merlin, in addition to "Viviane"), Nimanne / Niv[i]en[n]e / Vivienne (Huth Merlin), Vivien, Vivian, Nimiane/Niniame (Arthour and Merlin and Henry Lovelich's English Merlin Continuation), Nymenche (Lancelot Propre), Nin[i]eve (Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin), Niniane (Livre d'Artus), Niviana (Baladro del Sage Merlin), and Ui[n/ui]ane (Estoire de Merlin), among other variations, including alternate spellings with the letter i written as y (such as Nymanne or Nynyane).[3][4][5] The most primitive French form might be Niniane.[4] The form Nimue, in which the letter e can be written as ë or é, has been popularized by Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and itself has several variations: in William Caxton's edition, her name appears as Nymue, Nyneue and Nynyue, but it had been rather Nynyve (predominantly[6]) and Nenyve in Malory's original Winchester Manuscript. Even though "Nymue", with the m, appears only in the Caxton text, Nimue is perhaps the most common form of the name of the character as this was the only version of Le Morte d'Arthur published until 1947.[7]

Witches' Tree by Edward Burne-Jones (1905)

Arthurian scholar A. O. H. Jarman, following suggestions first made by scholars of the 19th century, proposed that the name "Viviane" used in French Arthurian romances were ultimately derived from (and a corruption of) the Welsh word chwyfleian (also spelled hwimleian, chwibleian, et al. in medieval Welsh sources), meaning "a wanderer of pallid countenance", which was originally applied as an epithet to the famous prophetic "wild man" figure of Myrddin Wyllt (a prototype of Merlin) in medieval Welsh poetry. Due to the relative obscurity of the word, it was misunderstood as "fair wanton maiden" and taken to be the name of Myrddin's female captor.[8][9][10] Others have linked the name "Nymenche" with the Irish mythology's figure Niamh (an otherworldly woman from the legend of Tír na nÓg), and the name "Niniane" with either the Welsh mythology's figure Rhiannon (another otherworldly woman of a Celtic myth), the 5th-century saint Ninian, or the river Ninian.[3]

Further theories connect her to the Welsh lake fairies known as the Gwragedd Annwn (including a Lady of the Lake unrelated to the legend of Arthur[11]), the Romano-British water goddess Coventina (Covienna),[12] and the North Caucasian Satanaya (Satana) from the Nart sagas.[13] Possible prototypes include Guendoloena and Ganieda, respectively Merlin's one-time wife and his sister from Geoffrey's work, besides the Roman goddess of the hunt and the nature, Diana,[14] the spiritual descent from whom is actually explicitly stated within the French prose narratives.

Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, the first known story featuring Lancelot as a prominent character, was also the first to mention his upbringing by a fairy in a lake. If it is accepted that the French-German Lanzelet by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven contains elements of a more primitive version of this tale than Chrétien's, the infant Lancelot was spirited away to a lake by a water fairy (merfeine in Old High German) known as the Lady of the Sea and then raised in her Land of Maidens (Meide lant[15]).[16] The fairy queen character and her paradise island in Lanzelet are reminiscent of Morgen (Morgan) of the Island of Avallon in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini.[17] Furthermore, the fairy from Lanzelet has a son named Mabuz, an Anglo-Norman form of the name of Mabon, the son of Morgan's early Welsh counterpart and reputed progenitor Modron.[18]

In medieval literature
The Lady finds Lancelot at Tintagel Castle to cure his madness caused by a dream of Guinevere's infidelity that was sent to him by Morgan le Fay. Evrard d'Espinques' illumination of the Vulgate Lancelot (c. 1475)

The Lady of the Lake began appearing by this title in the French chivalric romances by the early 13th century as the fairy godmother-type foster mother of the hero Lancelot. In the Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate) prose cycle, the Lady resides in an enchanted realm, an otherworld the entry to which is disguised as an illusion of a lake (the Post-Vulgate notes it as Merlin's work[19]). There, she raises Lancelot from his infancy following the death of his father King Ban, teaching 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 Seraide (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 young Lancelot to King Arthur's court as the nameless White Knight (a part of her affinity with the color white), but then keeps aiding him in various ways during his early adventures with her magic-item gifts (similar in that to his unnamed fairy protectoress in Chrétien's version, who too gives him a magic ring; the same of another of her magic rings also grants Lancelot's lover Queen Guinevere immunity from Morgan le Fay's power in the Prophéties de Merlin) and through her maidens serving as her agents and messengers. She furthermore personally arrives to restore Lancelot to sanity during some of his recurring fits of madness.

Merlin and Vivienne, Otway McCannell's illustration for Lewis Spence's Legends and Romances of Brittany (1917)
"Waving her hands and uttering the charm, [she] presently enclosed him fast within the tree." Lancelot Speed's illustration for James Thomas Knowles' The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1912)

The Vulgate Cycle tells of either a different or the same (that was made explicitly clear only in the later revisions) Lady of the Lake in the Prose Merlin-derived section, which takes place before its main Vulgate Lancelot section but was written later, and links her with the disappearance of Merlin. Here, she is given the name Viviane (or similar) and a human origin. In the Vulgate Merlin, she 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 forever, originally either in the trunk of a hawthorn tree or beneath a stone. 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 entrap and entomb him within a tree, underneath a large stone, or inside a cave or a tomb, depending on the version of this story. In the Prophéties de Merlin, she is proud of how Merlin had never taken her virginity, unlike what happened with his other students, and is especially cruel in the way she disposes of him;[20] she then takes Tristan's brother Meliadus the Younger as her actual lover. The Vulgate Lancelot 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."[21] The Livre d'Artus has Niniane leave Merlin for another lover (the evil king Brandin of the Isles, whom she teaches some magic that he then applies to his terrible castle Dolorous Gard[22]); she is never actually molested by Merlin and rids herself of him only as a precaution.[23] In still another telling, in a nonviolent scene taking place under a blooming hawthorn, Merlin is betrayed and placed inside an invisible and indestructible tower, but then she comes to him every day or night (a motif reminiscent of Ganieda's visits of Merlin's house in an earlier version of Merlin's life as described in Vita Merlini[14]).

According to her backstory in the Vulgate Merlin, Viviane was a daughter of the knight Dionas (Dyonas) and a niece of the Duke of Burgundy. She was born in Dionas' domain of Briosque in the forest Brocéliande,[24] and it was an enchantment of her fairy godmother Diana that caused Viviane to be so alluring to Merlin when she first met him there as a young teenager.[25] The Vulgate Lancelot 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. In the Post-Vulgate Suite de Merlin, the future Lady of the Lake was born and lived in a magnificent castle at the foot of a mountain in Brittany as a daughter of the King of Northumbria. She is initially known as the beautiful 12-years-old Damsel Huntress in her introductory episode, in which she serves the role of a damsel in distress in the quest of three knights sent by Merlin to rescue her from kidnapping. 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 also the place at where Lancelot du Lac ("of the Lake") is later raised, at first not knowing his real parentage, by Viviane after she is 18 years old. Prior the Post-Vulgate, however, the Lady of the Lake from Lancelot and Viviane from Merlin might have been separate characters.

The gift of the sword Excalibur in an illustration for George Melville Baker's Ballads of Bravery (1877)

Another, unnamed Lady of the Lake appears to bestow the magic sword Excalibur from Avalon to Arthur. In the Post-Vulgate tradition, she is presented as an early benefactor of King Arthur who grants him Excalibur when his original sword is damaged in the fight against King Pellinore. She is later suddenly beheaded by Sir Balin as a result of a kin feud between them (she blames him for the death of her brother, while he blames her for the death of his mother, who had been burned at the stake, as well as for how, he says, "by enchantment and sorcery she has been the destroyer of many good knights") and a dispute over an enchanted sword. This takes place during the time when Merlin is still at Arthur's side and before the introduction of Viviane in the story. Modern retellings often omit that episode.

In some cases, it is also uncertain whether Morgan le Fay and the Lady of the Lake are identical or separate characters.[26] According to Anne Berthelot, Morgan herself is "the Lady of the Lake", as compared to the "upstart magician" Viviane, in the French prose cycles.[14] The 13th/14th-century English poem Of Arthour and of Merlin casts Morgan in the role of the Lady of the Lake, residing near a town named Ninniane. The 15th-century Italian manuscript La Tavola Ritonda (The Round Table) makes the Lady a daughter of Uther Pendragon and a sister to both Morgan and Arthur; here she is a character villainous to the extent that her own brother Arthur swears to burn her.[27] She is also Morgan's sister in some other Italian texts such as Pulzella Gaia.[28] In the 14th-century French prose romance Perceforest, a lengthy prequel to the Arthurian legend in a more fantasy manner than the chronicles, the figures of the Lady of the Lake and of the enchantress Sebile have been merged to create the character of Sebile of the Castle of the Lake, an ancestor of Arthur. The Lady of the Lake who raised Lancelot also appears in Perceforest, which derives her ancestry line from the descendants of ancient fairy named Morgane, whose own source of power was the deity Zephir.

In Le Morte d'Arthur

In Thomas Malory's 15th-century compilation, the first Lady of the Lake remains unnamed besides this epithet. When Arthur and Merlin first go to meet her, she holds Excalibur out of the water and offers it to Arthur if he promises to fulfill any request from her later, to which he agrees. Later, the Lady comes to Arthur's court to receive her end of the bargain; she asks for the head of Sir Balin, whom she blames for her brother's death. Arthur refuses this request, and Balin swiftly decapitates her instead with his own magic sword (a cursed blade given to him by a mysterious lady from Avalon just a moment earlier) in front of Arthur and then sends off his squire with her severed head, much to the distress and shame of the king. Arthur gives the Lady a rich burial, has her slayer banished, and allows Sir Launcenor of Ireland to go after him to avenge this disgrace.[29][30]

George Housman Thomas' illustration for The Story of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by James Thomas Knowles (1862)

The second Lady of the Lake is sometimes referred to by her title and sometimes referred to by name. Nimue (named Nynyve in the original Winchester Manuscript), whom Malory describes as the "chief Lady of the Lake", plays a pivotal role in the Arthurian court throughout his story.[7] The first time the character named Nimue appears is at the wedding of Arthur and Guinevere, as the young huntress rescued by Pellinore. She then proceeds to perform some of the same actions as the Lady of the Lake of his sources but is different in some ways. For instance, in the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, Malory's source for the earlier parts of Le Morte d'Arthur, the Lady of the Lake traps Merlin in a tomb, which results in his death. She does this out of cruelty and a hatred of Merlin.[27] In Le Morte d'Arthur, on the other hand, Nimue is still the one to trap Merlin, but Malory gives her a sympathetic reason: Merlin falls in love with her and will not leave her alone; Malory gives no indication that Nimue loves him back. Eventually, since she cannot get rid of him otherwise, she decides to trap him under rock and makes sure he cannot escape. She is tired of his sexual advances, and afraid of his power as "a devil's son", so she does not have much of a choice but to ultimately get rid of him.[7]

"'Look!', said the Lady Nimue, 'Ye ought to be sore ashamed to be the death of such a knight!'" William Henry Margetson's illustration for Janet MacDonald Clark's Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1914)

After enchanting Merlin, Malory's Nimue replaces him as Arthur's magician aide and trusted adviser. When Arthur himself is in need in Malory's text, some incarnation of the Lady of the Lake, or her magic, or her agent, reaches out to help him. For instance, she saves Arthur from a magical attempt on his life made by his sister Morgan le Fay and from the death at the hands of Morgan's lover Accolon as in the Post-Vulgate, and together with Tristan frees Arthur from the lustful sorceress Annowre in a motif taken from the Prose Tristan. In Malory's version, Brandin of the Isles, renamed Brian (Bryan), is Nimue's evil cousin rather than her paramour. Nimue instead becomes the lover and eventually wife of Pelleas, a gentle young knight whom she then also puts under her protection so "that he was never slain by her days."

In an analysis by Kenneth Hodges, Nimue appears through the story as the chivalric code changes, hinting to the reader that something new will happen in order to help the author achieve the wanted interpretation of the Arthurian legend: each time the Lady reappears in Le Morte d'Arthur, it is at a pivotal moment of the episode, establishing the importance of her character within Arthurian literature, as she transcends any notoriety attached to her character by aiding Arthur and other knights to succeed in their endeavours, subtly helping sway the court in the right direction. According to Hodges, when Malory was looking at other texts to find inspiration, he chose the best aspects of all the other Lady of the Lake characters, making her pragmatic, compassionate, clever, and strong-willed.[31] However, Nimue's character is often seen as still very ambigius by other scholars. As summarized by Amy S. Kaufman,

Thought Nynyve is sometimes friendly to Arthur and his knights, she is equally liable to act in her own interest. She can be also selfish, ruthless, desiring, and capricious. She has been identified as a deceptive and anti-patriarchal equally as often as she has been cast as a benevolent aid to Arthur's court, or even the literary descendant of protective goddesses.[32]
The Passing of Arthur in Andrew Lang's Stories of King Arthur and His Knights (1904)

Malory does not use Nimue's name for the Lady of the Lake associated with Lancelot, who too goes unnamed and may be considered the third one (it is highly possible that he had only access to the Suite du Merlin part of the Post-Vulgate Cycle as a source[33]).[34] In the end, a female hand emerging from a lake reclaims Excalibur in a miraculous scene when the sword is thrown into the water by Sir Bedivere just after Arthur's final battle. Malory then counts Nimue among the magical queens who arrive in a black boat with Morgan. Together, they bear the mortally wounded Arthur away to Avalon.

Later appearances
"O master, do you love my tender rhyme?" Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdales' illustration for Idylls of the King (1913)

Walter Scott wrote an influential poem, The Lady of the Lake, in 1810, drawing on the romance of the legend, but with an entirely different story set around Loch Katrine in the Trossachs of Scotland. Scott's material furnished subject matter for La donna del lago, an 1819 opera by Gioachino Rossini. Franz Schubert set seven songs from Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake, including the three "Ellen songs" ("Ellens Gesang I",[35] "Ellens Gesang II",[36] and "Ellens Gesang III"[37]), although Schubert's music to Ellen's third song has become far more famous in its later adaptation, known as "Ave Maria".

The full French name of the University of Notre Dame, founded in 1842, is Notre Dame du Lac. This is translated as "Our Lady of the Lake", making reference to Mary, mother of Jesus as the Lady of the Lake, evidencing fusion between Arthurian legend and middle-Christian history.[38]

Alfred, Lord Tennyson adapted several stories of the Lady of the Lake for his 1859–1885 poetic cycle Idylls of the King. He too splits her into two characters; Viviane is a deceitful villain who ensnares Merlin, while the Lady of the Lake is a benevolent figure who raises Lancelot and gives Arthur his sword. Some other authors choose to emphasize a single character.

20th–21st century
Howard Pyle's 1905 illustration for The Story of the Champions of the Round Table: "Therefore [Sir Percival] cried out with a loud voice and seized the enchantress by her long golden hair, and drew her so violently forward that she fell down upon her knees."[39]

Modern authors of Arthurian fiction adapt the Lady of the Lake legend in various ways, often using two or more bearers of the title. Versions of the Lady (or Ladies) of the Lake appear in many other works of Arthurian fiction, including novels, films, television series, stage musicals, comics, and games. Though her identity may change, her role as a significant figure in the lives of both Arthur and Merlin remains consistent. Some examples of such 20th and 21st century works are listed below.

  • Nineue ferch Afallach, "Tennyson's Vivien",[40] is a fairy enchantress in John Cowper Powys's novel Porius: A Romance of the Dark Ages (1951). In Welsh mythology, Modron ("divine mother") was a daughter of Avallach; she was derived from the Gaulish goddess Matrona and may have been the prototype of Morgan le Fay. The novel ends with the protagonist Porius saving the wizard Myrddin (Merlin figure) from his entombment by Nineue on the summit of Snowdon, Wales' highest mountain.
  • Nimue appears in T. H. White's 1958 novel The Once and Future King as a water nymph and Merlin's enchantress. True to the legend she traps Merlin in a cave, but Merlin does not convey it as negative, and even refers to it as a holiday.
  • The 1960 musical Camelot includes the character Nimue who has a song called "Follow Me" performed in Act I. In the play (and the later film adaptation), Arthur "tells Guinevere the story of how he pulled the sword from the stone and became king, and she finally agrees to marry him. The wizard Merlyn is amused by this development, but his joy turns to sorrow as his memories of the future begin to fade. He realizes that Nimue, a beautiful water nymph, has come to draw him into her cave for an eternal sleep. He begs Nimue for answers, as he has forgotten if he has warned Arthur about two important individuals, Lancelot and Mordred. His memories fade permanently, though, and he is led away."
  • The Lady of the Lake is satirized in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which late 20th century notions are inserted into a mythic tale for comic effect. A peasant named Dennis says, "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
  • In the DC Comics Universe, Vivienne is the Lady of the Lake while Nimue is Madame Xanadu (introduced in 1978), her youngest sister, and their middle sister is Morgaine le Fey (given name Morgana); their surname is Inwudu. The Lady of the Lake has appeared in Hellblazer, Aquaman, and her sister's own series.
    • In the 1983 DC Comics series Camelot 3000, an unrelated Lady of the Lake is referred to as Nyneve, depicted as a woman with a beautiful body wearing a golden sun-shaped mask. Morgan le Fay sends her to confront the heroes of Camelot. When Nyneve removes the mask, Merlin, upon seeing her face, is unable to resist her and departs, thus removing him from Morgan's path. Later, when he escapes her control, it is revealed that her only facial feature is a gigantic mouth with a long serpentine tongue, which Merlin turns against her.
  • Mary Stewart's 1979 novel The Last Enchantment radically recasts the story of Merlin and Niniane, completely removing the aspect of malicious seduction and treachery dominant in the traditional version. In this depiction Merlin takes Niniane on as an apprentice, with her at first disguised as a boy, and willingly teaches her his magic. When her identity as a woman is discovered, they fall in love despite their age difference. As he gives her the secrets of his psychic abilities and how to control them, he seems to lose them himself – which Merlin does not mind. In a depleted, weakened condition, he takes ill and falls into a coma, and is believed to be dead. Niniane has him buried within his "crystal cave", where he awakes some time later. He escapes after a few weeks, through a combination of chance luck and ingenious planning, and travels incognito to let Arthur know he is still alive. Niniane takes Merlin's place as the court wizard-seer, while Merlin retires to the crystal cave and lives a quiet and happy life as a hermit.
  • In John Boorman's 1981 film Excalibur, an uncredited actress plays the Lady of Lake, twice holding up the fabled sword, once for Merlin (played by Nicol Williamson) to give to Uther Pendragon, and once to return to Arthur. Separately, the Morgana la Fay character (played by Helen Mirren) takes on other parts of the traditional Lady of the Lake story, learning the occult arts from Merlin and ultimately trapping him with his own powerful "Charm of Making".
  • Marion Zimmer Bradley's 1983 novel The Mists of Avalon takes the tradition of multiple Ladies one step further. In Bradley's works, both the 'Lady of the Lake' and the 'Merlin' are names of offices in the pagan hierarchy. The Lady of the Lake is the title of the ruling priestess of Avalon, and the Merlin is a druid who has pledged his life to the protection of Britain. Various characters assume the title of the Lady, including Viviane, Niniane, Morgaine (Morgan le Fay), and Nimue, a sympathetic and tragic young priestess who falls in love with the Merlin but is duty bound to seduce and lure him to his death – following which she drowns herself. Even more Ladies of the Lake appear in Bradley's extended Avalon prequels.
  • In The Pendragon Cycle, Stephen Lawhead takes up the figure of the Lady of the Lake under a different name: Charis, daughter of the king of Avalon. Married to the Breton prince Taliesin, she gives birth to Merlin. After Taliesin's death, Charis takes care of Merlin at Lake Logres, hence her name "Lady of the Lake".
  • In Bernard Cornwell's 1990s novel series The Warlord Chronicles, Nimue is an Irish orphan adopted by the British druid Merlin. She becomes Merlin's most adept priestess and lover, but she eventually turns against him and imprisons him, torturing him to reveal the last of his magical secrets in her desperate obsession to bring back the Old Gods of Britain at any price. She is a prominent character in the books, being a childhood friend of, a major love interest for, and finally an adversary to the series' main protagonist, Arthur's warrior Derfel Cadarn. Eventually, she brings Merlin to total madness before ultimately sacrificing him to their lost gods, whose return she believes would rid the island of the Saxons and the Christians alike. As Nimue believes the key to her goal is to sacrifice Arthur's son with Guinevere using Excalibur, Derfel's final act of casting the sword away is not to return it to her but to hide it from her forever.
  • In the 1995–1996 animated series Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, the name of the first season's antagonist Lady Kale, here too a former student of Merlin who magically imprisons him,[41] was created as an anagram of Lady of the Lake.[42] However, a good Lady of the Lake herself briefly appears in the eponymous episode "Lady of the Lake" to give the heroine Guinevere the Staff of Avalon with enough magic power to finally defeat Lady Kale and free Merlin, who then uses the same magic against the evil queen Morgana.
  • In the 1998 miniseries Merlin, the characters of the Lady of the Lake (Miranda Richardson) and Nimue (Isabella Rossellini) are separated, with the former being a goddess-like fae who is the sister of Queen Mab (also Richardson in a dual role), and the latter being a noblewoman who is the object of Merlin's affections.
    • In the 2006 pseudo-sequel Merlin's Apprentice, Richardson reprises her role as the Lady of the Lake, though she portrays a much different characterization. In this depiction, the Lady is the main antagonist who serves as an enchanter to an army of barbarians who seek to destroy Camelot. The Lady herself wishes to punish Camelot for the way they poisoned her streams and drained her lakes. This miniseries also depicts Merlin's sleep in the cave; as he slept, the Lady used her magic to conceive a son with Merlin (Sam Neill also reprising his role from the 1998 miniseries), and then enchanted him to sleep for 50 years.
  • In French television series Kaamelott, the Lady of the Lake, played by Audrey Fleurot, is an angel sent to help King Arthur progress in the quest for the Grail.
  • The BBC 2008–2012 drama series Merlin also features two characters based on the Lady of the Lake. Nimueh serves as the primary antagonist of the series 1. The character has no connection to Merlin beyond his opposition to her plans, and her only connection to a lake is her use of a location called the Isle of the Blessed. The ninth episode of the series 2 is titled "The Lady of the Lake", wherein a sorceress named Freya dies and vows to repay Merlin for his kindness to her. In the series 3 finale, Freya, now a water spirit, gives Excalibur to Merlin so that he can give it to Prince Arthur Pendragon. In the series 5 finale, which features the Battle of Camlann, a despondent Merlin casts the sword back into Lake Avalon, where a hand (presumably Freya's) catches it.
  • Nimue appears as one of the primary antagonists in the Hellboy comic book series, where she was introduced in 2008. She is driven mad after the powers she acquired from Merlin give her knowledge of the Ogdru Jahad, prompting the witches of Britain to dismember her and seal her away underground. Resurrected in the present day, she assumes the mantle of the Irish triple war goddess the Morrígan and assembles an army of legendary and folkloric beings to eradicate mankind.
  • The 2010s anime series Seven Deadly Sins features Vivian as a supporting antagonist, taking her name without her position as Lady of the Lake. Vivian is a minion of Holy Knight Grand Master Hendrickson, and works toward his goals of unleashing the Demon Clan, mostly due to her obsession with Gilthunder, a handsome young Holy Knight. In the first season, Vivian is eventually defeated by her former master, a female Merlin who is one of the titular Seven Deadly Sins, after a surprise appearance by King Arthur. In the second season, Merlin berates Vivian for her stupidity, explaining that she and Hendrickson really did not know anything about how horrible demons are, and puts a geas on her so she will leave Gilthunder alone.
  • Nimue is featured in the ABC 2010s fantasy series Once Upon a Time. She appears as the main antagonist in the first half of Season 5, portrayed by Caroline Ford. While fleeing from Vortigan, who sacked and burned her village, she meets Merlin and they fall in love. With Merlin being immortal, Nimue drinks from the Holy Grail so they can be together forever. Afterward, she kills Vortigan, which darkens her magic and turns her into the very first Dark One. Nimue breaks Excalibur and Merlin uses one of the pieces to make the Dark One dagger in order to control her. At some point, Nimue is killed and her power is taken. However, she manages to live on in all of the following Dark Ones, appearing to them as a vision. She forms an alliance with Captain Hook, manipulating him into casting the Dark Curse and reviving her and the Dark Ones. She then leads a Dark One invasion in Storybrooke, which ultimately leads to her demise at the hands of Hook, who betrays her to redeem himself. The Lady of the Lake is referenced several times as Lancelot's mother, but she never appears; the episode titled "The Lady of the Lake" does not feature her and instead refers to Prince Charming's mother.
  • In BBC Radio 4's 2013 Afternoon Drama Pilgrim, the antagonist Birdie (or Mrs Pleasance) is gradually revealed to be responsible for trapping Merlin ("The Drowned Mage") beneath a lake.[44] Her story draws on that of Nimue.
  • The 2017 film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword features the Lady of the Lake played by Jacqui Ainsley in a few scenes. She first appears in the flashbacks of the film as Bedivere tells Arthur how she bound Excalibur to the Pendragon bloodline after Merlin used it to destroy the Mage Tower. She reappears in a later scene when she catches the sword underwater after Arthur throws it into the lake in shame at his failures; she pulls him underwater, shows him a vision of what his uncle Vortigan would do to England if he did not accept the sword, and tells him that only he can prevent it. She then tells him that Vortigan must be met where sword meets tower and advises him to trust the Mage before returning the sword to Arthur.
  • In the novel and Netflix series Cursed, a re-imagining of the Arthurian legend set as a prequel with Katherine Langford portraying Nimue in the adaptation. Before becoming the Lady of the Lake, Nimue is a young woman coming into her Fey abilities, but whilst her home was ravaged by the Christian fanatics called the Red Paladins she is sent on a mission by her dying mother to deliver The Sword of Power to Merlin.

The Lady's lake
Llyn Ogwen as seen from the slopes of Pen yr Ole Wen in 2008

A number of locations are traditionally associated with the Lady of the Lake's abode.[45] Such places within Great Britain include the lakes Dozmary Pool[46] and The Loe[47] in Cornwall, the lakes Llyn Llydaw[48] and Llyn Ogwen[48] in Snowdonia, River Brue's area of Pomparles Bridge[49] in Somerset, and the lake Loch Arthur[50] in Scotland. In France, Viviane is also connected with Brittany's Paimpont forest, often identified as the Arthurian enchanted forest of Brocéliande, where her lake (that is, the Lake of Diana) is said to be located at the castle Château de Comper.[51]

The oldest localization of the Lake is in the Lancelot en prose, written around 1230. The place where Lancelot is raised is described there as to the north of Trèves-Cunault, on the Loire, in the middle of the (now extinct) forest of Beaufort-en-Vallée (the "Bois en Val" of the book).

See also

References
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  2. Christopher Bruce (1999) The Arthurian Name Dictionary. In manuscript form, the letters u, n, v (written ıı) are all easily confounded, as is m with any of them plus the vowel i (all written ııı) or any two of them with im or mi (all written ıııı).
  3. Markale, Jean (1995). Merlin: Priest of Nature. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1620554500.
  4. Paton, Lucy Allen (1903). Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance. Boston, Ginn & Co. – via Internet Archive.
  5. Nitze, William A. (1954). "An Arthurian Crux: Viviane or Niniane?". Romance Philology. 7 (4): 326–330. ISSN 0035-8002. JSTOR 44938600.
  6. Mangle, Josh (2018). "Echoes of Legend: Magic as the Bridge Between a Pagan Past and a Christian Future in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur". Graduate Theses.
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  8. Jarman, A. O. H., "A Note on the Possible Welsh Derivation of Viviane," Gallica: Essays Presented to J. Heywood Thomas (Cardiff 1969) 1–12.
  9. Jarman, A. O. H., "Hwimleian, Chwibleian", Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 16 (1954–1956) 72–76.
  10. Ford, Patrick K., "The Death of Merlin in the Chronicle of Elis Gruffudd", Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Vol 7 (1976), University of California Press, pp. 379–390, [381].
  11. "Folklore of the Welsh Lakes: The Legend and Legacy of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach". August 17, 2017.
  12. Westenfeld, Adrienne (July 17, 2020). "How Netflix's 'Cursed' Twists the Ancient Arthurian Stories of Nimue, The Lady of the Lake". Esquire.
  13. Littleton, C. Scott; Malcor, Linda A. (August 18, 2000). From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780815335665 – via Google Books.
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  33. Archibald, Elizabeth; Leitch, Megan G; Saunders, Corinne, eds. (2018). The Evolution of Middle English Romance. Boydell & Brewer. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1ntgs3. ISBN 9781787443341. JSTOR j.ctv1ntgs3.
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  44. "Pilgrim Series 4, Bleaker Lake". Bbc.co.uk. 2013-03-14. Retrieved 2013-11-15.
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  50. Begg, Ean C. M.; Rich, Deike (1991). On the Trail of Merlin: A Guide to the Celtic Mystery Tradition. Aquarian. ISBN 978-0850309393.
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