A To Z Blogging Challenge 2020: Y Is For ... Ygerna!

Merlin takes the baby. Public Domain

Ygerna, Igraine, Ygraine, Igerna - the same person, Arthur’s mother. Also, the mother of Morgan Le Fay and Morgause, one of whom was always trying to kill or at least seriously disadvantage her little brother, the other of whom seduced him when he didn’t know who he was and gave birth to the son who did kill him. Oh, and a daughter, Elaine, who is the only one of the three sisters who doesn’t do much at all. 

Today I will call Arthur’s mother Ygerna, to simplify things, and because I need a Y post. 

We know of her mainly as the beautiful wife of Gorlois of Cornwall, who was deceived and, let’s face it, raped by Uther Pendragon, given that she didn’t consent to him, only to her husband.

She does appear in fiction. There is even a novel written in 1903, Uther And Igraine, in which she is a major character. It’s a love story. I had forgotten about this one till doing some looking up yesterday. I do have a print copy somewhere on my overflowing shelves, but it’s on Gutenberg if you are interested. 

Illo: Uther And Ygraine. Public Domain

In Malory she is parted from her baby son as soon as he is born, when Merlin takes him away. She doesn’t even know his name, let alone that he is king! Arthur finds out he has a living mother and sends for her. This could become serious, because questions are asked at this point, as to whether he might, in fact, be Gorlois’s son, not Uther’s, but she answers satisfactorily, and mother and son give each other a big hug. 

The odd thing is, we don’t know where she spent the time between Uther’s death and Arthur’s sending for her. For that matter, it’s the last time we hear of her. It would be nice to think that Arthur has his Mum living at court and can go to her for advice and help when he wants. Or maybe she just retires to a convent? That would, at least, spare both her and her daughter-in-law some tension, especially after Guinevere starts sleeping with Lancelot! 

I can just hear the conversation now: “Arthur, I told you not to marry her! She is nothing but a slut!” No. I think she retired to a convent. 

Uther Pendragon gets a lot of coverage in Geoffrey of Monmouth.  Ygerna doesn’t. Malory’s Ygerna is shown as uncomfortable when Uther hits on her, and warns her husband, saying she supposed they were only invited to court so Uther could dishonour her. Geoffrey’s Ygerna says nothing much. It’s her husband who notices and drags the wife back to Tintagel. And after Uther has fooled her and left in the morning(Gorlois’s men have arrived to tell her that her husband is dead, only to find the fake Gorlois having breakfast with her), he returns and marries her and they have another child, Anna(associated with Morgana). She doesn’t seem to mind. 

In Parke Godwin’s Firelord, she is dead, but we do get some background on her. 

Arthur’s Mum is a changeling. Not in the fairytale way. In the world of Firelord, the Faerie are not supernatural beings at all, but the indigenous folk of Britain, feared by the later inhabitants but, let’s face it, the poorest of the poor. They are in small matriarchal tribes, one of which is ruled by Morgana. Morgana takes Arthur as her husband number 3 at one stage, before he becomes king. She loves him, but says she can’t dump her other husbands for him. Probably just as well, as he leaves her to go back when there is an emergency. But their son, Medraut, resents this later. 

As I said - poorest of the poor. So when they have a drought or some other event that makes it impossible to raise their children, they slip them in among the richer folk, Romans and such.

In Ygerna’s case, she is swapped with the stillborn child of a wealthy Roman woman who has been unable to have a living child. The Faerie midwife does the switch and the new mother is delighted. She wants to name her little girl after the midwife, but when she is told “Ghern Y Fain”, which just means “head of the household” she assumes it’s a name and calls the child Ygerna. Ygerna is brought up as a Roman. She is a wild young woman. 

So this Arthur is half indigenous Briton. 

In the film Excalibur, she is shown dancing a wild dance for the knights at the celebration banquet, and you can tell exactly what Uther is thinking as he watches her. Oh, dear...  

Tomorrow I will talk about a few of the animals that appear in the legend, under Z Is For Zoology!