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| 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.
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| 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!
15 comments:
I remember she appears in Kevin Crossley-Holland's Seeing Stone, in relation to a female knight in disguise I think...
The Multicolored Diary
Goodness, it has been a while since I read that one! I only remember that it had very good, believable descriptions of the manor as just a big farm.
Thanks, Stuart! I hope you will write some of them.
Ygerna has one of, if not THE, most thankless role in the entire Arthurian Legends. She's essentially just there to pop out the baby and then conveniently disappear from the narrative. She deserved better.
Agreed, Debra! She deserves her own book. Uther And Ygraine is one with both of them, but it was written in 1903. She does get a bit more to say and do in Mary Stewart.
I was thinking exactly what Debra She Who Seeks said. When I saw the person you were talking about today I didn't even recognise the name!
Hi, I am a medievalist specialized in Arthurian literature, Debra gave me the link to your blog. Became a fan of the Arhturian legend when I saw Excalibur at age six or seven. The film is more of a guilty pleasure now. But I always thought Katrine Boorman looked hot. Kind of creepy knowing that her father directed her in a sex scene.
Arthur's conception is often cited as one of the reasons his reign ultimately failed and ended in tragedy, in spite of his qualities as a king. He was doomed to pay for the sins of his parents, as he was born in adultery, through no fault of his own.
Hi Anita! Possibly you might have recognised the name if I’d called her Igraine? But I chose Iseult for that one. 🙂
Hi Guillaume! Welcome to my blog.
I believe that T.H White, author of The Once And Future King, also saw it as a tragedy, beginning with the sin. That fascinated him, so inspired him to write it. And it does work out that way, I agree.
At the same time, as you know, it’s a whole lot of stories from different countries, each with its own hero, who gets the spotlight, and contradict other versions. Plus all those earlier stories. When I studied Malory at university, the edition I had to read was labelled “Works of Malory” because the editor didn’t see it as one big novel.
Yet... it is amazing what Malory manages to do with all those French stories he put together, isn’t it? If it’s not a novel, it does feel like one.
Whatever Excalibur does to the story, it’s one of the better Arthurian films, I think. And I’ve seen a few!
I agree, it must have been awkward, directing that scene, but I suppose they discussed it first. If she had minded it might have been less over the top!
Excalibur is sure one of the best adaptations, in spite of all its flaws. I always had a soft spot for it.
Yes, it’s my soft spot movie too, Guillaume. They did the right thing filming it in Ireland, too - the visual beauty, the appropriate music, the casting... it was a mishmash of different versions of the story, but it worked.
Interesting facts about Ygraine :-)
An A-Z of Faerie: Krampus
Amazing, Ronel, how many things you can find out about a character who has so few appearances in the original stories. She’s not a goddess or a folklore type, or anything like that. So you can play around with her a bit.
Ygran or whichever spelling works is as other implied a tragic and overlooked character. And I sense the karmic effect on Arthur - pre-destined failure? I too feel that Boorman's Excalibur is the best Arthur movie despite some flaws. However, Antoine Fuqua's King Arthur is a close second for me - or for something completely different, can I choose 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'?
Your mentions over the month of Parke Godwin's Firelord have set me delving too - overlooked reading.
Definitely predestined failure, Roland! But not his fault. The karmic backlash should have affected his father. Uther didn’t die, or fail, because of what he had done.
Oh, yes, the 2004 King Arthur film was very good, I thought, though I believe the Romans had gone well before the time in which it was set, about fifty years before. But if you suspended that particular disbelief, it was very enjoyable and slipped in some bits and pieces of history, as well as that Sarmatian theory I read about years ago. I liked the characters, and oh, that scene where Arthur is determined to fight the Saxons all by himself if he has to!
I hope you can unearth a copy of Firelord, and its sequel, Beloved Exile. The quest of the Holy Grail is launched by Arthur with “Oh, go and look for your silly cup!”
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