Morgause

Morgause (

In early texts, Morgause is the wife of King Lot of Orkney, Mordred's father, with whom she may also have other children. In later versions, including the seminal Le Morte d'Arthur, Mordred is the offspring of Arthur's accidental incest with Morgause, his estranged half-sister.^{[Notes 1]} There, she is furthermore a sister of Morgan le Fay, as well as the mother of Gareth, Agravain, and Gaheris, the last of whom murders her.

Medieval literature

Character history and counterparts

The corresponding character in Geoffrey of Monmouth's early-12th-century Norman-Welsh chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae is named Anna who is depicted as the sole daughter of Uther Pendragon and his wife Igraine, thus making her Arthur's full (younger) sister. She is the wife of King Lot and the mother of brothers Gawain and Mordred, but Geoffrey says very little about her otherwise. This was later elaborated in the romance De Ortu Waluuanii, telling how the teenage Lot fell in mutual love with the also young Anna while serving as her page when he was a royal hostage at the court of Uther.

In

In Alain Bouchart's Breton Grande Croniques de Bretagne, "Anna or Emine"[9] is Uther's eldest child who there also marries Budic and births Hoel. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's romance Parzival, Anna is replaced by Sangîve, who is first wed by Uther to a knight named Florant before her later marriage to Lot. Another German poet, Der Pleier, calls the mother of Gawain Seifê, wife of King Lot, but also names the mother of Gaheris as Anthonje, Arthur's other sister and the wife of King of Gritenland. There and in other early works, in addition to Mordred (a younger brother, not always appearing in the texts, especially these dealing with Gawain's youth), Gawain is usually given various sisters, daughters of King Lot. In Parzival, he also has a brother named Beacurs. Thomas Grey's Anglo-Norman chronicle Scalacronica mentions Arthur's "eldest" (not just elder) sister as bestowed by him on Lot.

The earliest known form of a Morgause-type name is Orcades (Norcadés), given to her in the

In the Post-Vulgate story, Gaheris' brothers Gawain and Agravain initially vow to kill him in revenge for their mother's death until they are persuaded by Gareth and Bors to end the bloodshed in the family. Arthur buries the Queen of Orkney in the main church in Camelot, inscribing the name of her killer on it, while everyone grieves for her and condemns the "treacherous and cruel" act of Gaheris, including actually even Gaheris himself in his self-exile.^[13] In Malory's telling, however, Lancelot calls the slaying of Morgause "shameful" but Gawain seems to be angry at Gaheris only for leaving Lamorak alive at the spot.^[14] Her death was first included in the Post-Vulgate Queste;^[15] Malory used the variant from the Second Version of the Prose Tristan.

The act of Mordred's conception is described variably in the different works of Arthurian romance. In the Vulgate Merlin, the episode takes place earlier, back when a young teenage Arthur was only a mere squire to his foster-brother Kay (prior to the fateful drawing of the sword in the stone) and completely oblivious about his true heritage. During a meeting of the lords of Britain, when King Lot is out hunting, Arthur sneaks into the queen's chamber and pretends to be her husband; she eventually discovers the deception, but forgives him the next morning and agrees to keep the incident a secret between the two of them. Conversely, a flashback scene in the Post-Vulgate Merlin Continuation portrays the Queen of Orkney as entirely aware and willing in her incestous tryst with her young half-brother.

Modern fiction

In modern

• Morgause is the title character of
  T.H. White's novel The Queen of Air and Darkness (1939), the second of four books in his series The Once and Future King
  . She hates Arthur due to his father killing her father and raping her mother and raises her children, known as the Orkney clan, to hate the Pendragons. She seduces Arthur through magic, siring Mordred. As in Malory, she is found in bed with Lamorak, but here it is Agravaine who kills her. Due to Mordred being raised by her alone, he is left damaged and hateful, blaming Arthur for his mother's death.
• In her Merlin novels (1970–1983), Mary Stewart characterizes Morgause unflatteringly as an ambitious and resentful young princess who wants to learn magic from Merlin, but he refuses her. She seduces Arthur in the hope that she can later use it against him.
• A sorceress with authority over dark powers, Morgawse is a central figure in Hawk of May (1980) and its sequel, Kingdom of Summer (1982), the first two novels in Gillian Bradshaw's Down the Long Wind series. In Kingdom of Summer, she and her husband ("King Lot of The Orcades") intrigue with King Maelgwn of Gwynedd, whom she takes as a lover.
• film adaptation
  (2001), Morgause tricks Morgaine into revealing her son's paternity, then decides to raise him as her own, thus assuming her traditional role of mother to Mordred.
• She appears in
  neopagan Patricia Kennealy-Morrison as the evil Marguessan, would-be usurper of the Throne of Scone and an evil twin
  sister of Morgan.
• Morgause is the main antagonist in The Squire's Tales series (1998-2010) by Gerald Morris. She is portrayed as the latest version of "the enchantress", an evil sorceress who wishes to destroy the kings of men. She plots numerous times to kill King Arthur but is foiled in multiple books, however, she successfully seduces Arthur (who does not realize she is his half-sister) and births Mordred. In the final book she is killed by her son Gaheris, which undoes her evil spells.
• A main antagonist in the BBC television series
  Morgana
  , whom she seeks to make queen of Camelot.