King Lot

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For Lot Kapuaiwa, the 5th monarch of Hawaii, see Kamehameha V. For a patriarch in the biblical Book of Genesis, see Lot (biblical person).

Lot (Loth)
Matter of Britain character
Attributed arms of King Loth of Orkney (Le Roy Loth d'Orchanie) according to romance heraldry
First appearanceHistoria Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth
Based onLeudonus
In-universe information
OccupationKing
SpouseArthur's sister
ChildrenGawain and Mordred, various others (Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth in the prose cycle tradition)
RelativesKing Arthur's family, various others
HomeLothian and either Norway or Orkney

King Lot

Saint Teneu
.

Lot is generally portrayed as the husband of Arthur's sister or half-sister known by many names but most often as Anna, Gwyar, or variants of Morgause. The number and names of their children vary depending on the source, but usually they prominently include Gawain as well as other sons and sometimes daughters. Geoffrey suggests Lot as also the biological father of Mordred, and the much later prose romances identify him as the father of Gawain's younger brothers Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth while turning Mordred into an incestous son of Arthur.

Origins

A king of Lothian named Leudonus or Leudon of Leudonia can be found in both Latin and Welsh sources. A hagiography fragmentary, Vita Kentigerni, features Leudonus as the maternal grandfather of Saint Mungo (Kentigern).[1] In this text, Leudonus has his daughter Teneu thrown from a cliff when he discovers that she had been raped and impregnated by Owain mab Urien. However, she survives the ordeal with divine protection and goes to Saint Serf's community, where she gives birth to Mungo. The story of Saint Mungo is placed around a century after the timeframe generally associated with Arthur. Welsh sources refer to Leudonus as Lewdwn or Llewdwn Lluydauc ("L[l]ewdwn of the Host") and make him king of the Gododdin people in the region of Hen Ogledd.

Coel with Colchester, as well as William of Malmesbury's assertion that Gawain was king of Galloway, following a common idea of medieval historiography that places took their names from people.[2] An explicit connection between Leudonus and Geoffrey's Lot was made in 1521 in John Major
's Historia Majoris Brittaniae, which named Kentigern's mother as Thametes, the daughter of Lot and sister of Gawain.

Llew ap Cynfarch (Lleu son of Cynfarch) shares his name with the figure Lleu Llaw Gyffes, probably a euhemerized deity known from the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, though the extent of this connection is conjectural.[3] Lot was also identified with the Welsh mythology hero Lludd Llaw Eraint.[4]

The name Lot may be connected to the Norse name Ljot, which appears in

Norse sagas and was known in Orkney. The Old Norwegian name Ljot was common in the Galte clan, who ruled the Orkneys and parts of Scotland before the Sinclairs. In Hardanger, the Lothe family, close kin to the old Galte clan, also used a raven banner. Lot may also be linked to the Highland Scottish standing stone called the Stone Lud.[5]

Arthuriana

In Historia Regum Britanniae, Lot is one of three brothers, each of whom rules a part of northern Britain: Lot rules Lodonesia and is the lord of Carlisle, while his brothers Urien (the father of Owain, both generally reckoned historical kings of Rheged) and Angusel rule over Mureif (Moray) and Scotland, respectively.[6] Lot is first mentioned as a vassal to Uther Pendragon in the wars against Octa, the Saxon king of Kent. When Uther falls ill, he marries his daughter to Lot and entrusts the couple with control of the kingdom.[7] Lot and Anna have two sons, Gawain and Mordred. When Arthur becomes king, he helps Lot and his brothers regain their territories, which have fallen to the Saxons.[6] Lot is also the heir to the throne of Norway, as the nephew of its previous king, Sichelm. With Arthur's aid, he takes the kingdom from the usurper Riculf.[8] Lot later leads one of Arthur's armies in his war against Emperor Lucius of Rome.[9]

In the wake of Geoffrey, Lot entered into Welsh Arthurian tradition under the name Lleu or Llew.

Gwyar
, mother of Gwalchmei (Gawain).

Early Arthurian works of chivalric romance, such as those of Chrétien de Troyes, often refer to Lot, but he rarely receives more than a mention in connection to his son Gawain.[11] De Ortu Waluuanii and Les Enfances Gauvain tell of how the teenage Lot fell in love with Uther Pendragon's young daughter Anna while serving as her page. The story takes place during the time when he was a royal hostage at the court of Uther after the first British conquest of Norway. German stories by Wolfram von Eschenbach and Der Pleier give Gawain a brother, Beacurs (Beatus), and several sisters, including Cundrie (Gundrie), Itonje (Itoni), and Soredamor (Surdamur), born from Arthur's sister named Sangive or Seife. Some works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, feature Lot as a member of Arthur's court. In the Alliterative Morte Arthure and the Didot Perceval, Lot dies in Arthur's final battle against Mordred.

Lot takes a more prominent role in the cyclical narratives of the early 13th century. In these works he is the king of Lothian and Orkney, probably due to his earlier association with Norway.

at Bedegraine and helps fend off the Saxons, Lot becomes Arthur's ally.[12]

Beginning with the

Pellinore enabled by intervention of Merlin
.

Lot's death sparks a long

Grail Quest and the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere)[13]
and has appeared in a number of modern Arthurian works.

While Lot's realm is usually placed south of Hadrian's Wall (in post-Roman Lothian), Scottish late-medieval chronicles, including Hector Boece's Historia Gentis Scotorum, cast him as both king of the Picts[14] and a Pict himself.[15] This association has carried on to some works of modern Arthurian legend.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Bromwich, pp. 414–415.
  2. ^ a b R. S. Loomis, Scotland and the Arthurian Legend. Retrieved January 26, 2010.
  3. ^ "lleu of lleuddiniawn". cyberscotia.com. Archived from the original on 25 November 2010. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
  4. ISBN 0-7525-2676-6
    )
  5. ^ Leslie J. Myatt, The Standing Stones of Caithness, 2003.
  6. ^ a b Historia Regum Britanniae, Book 9, ch. 9.
  7. ^ Historia Regum Britanniae, Book 8, ch. 21.
  8. ^ Historia Regum Britanniae, Book 9, ch. 11.
  9. ^ Historia Regum Britanniae, Book 10, ch. 6.
  10. ^ Bromwich, pp. 195–198.
  11. ^ "Four Arthurian Romances:, by Chretien Detroyes". www.gutenberg.org. Archived from the original on 9 April 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
  12. ^
    ISBN 0-8153-2865-6. Archived
    from the original on 21 March 2009. Retrieved 11 January 2010.
  13. JSTOR j.ctt130jm5v. Archived
    from the original on 18 May 2019. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  14. ISBN 9780815328650
    – via Google Books.
  15. ISBN 9781473620285. Archived
    from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2022 – via Google Books.
  16. ISBN 9780755349678. Archived
    from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 27 June 2022 – via Google Books.
Bibliography
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