Guinevere

Afterwork: Bordered, sharpened, titled. Nothing else required.


Project W.I.L.D. Exhibit, 2007 Indiana State Fair, Indianapolis.


Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. The name Guinevere may be an epithet – the Welsh form Gwenhwyfar can be translated as The White Fay or White Ghost (Proto-Celtic *Uindā Seibrā, "white phantom" or "white fairy"; Brythonic *vino-hibirā; see also Ishara). Additionally, the name may derive from "Gwenhwy-mawr" or Gwenhwy the Great, contrasting the character to "Gwenhwy-fach" or Gwenhwy the less; Gwenhwyfach appears in Welsh literature as a sister of Gwenhwyfar, but in her scholarly edition of the Welsh Triads, Rachel Bromwich suggests this is a less likely etymology. Geoffrey of Monmouth renders her name Guanhumara in Latin.

Guinevere is most famous for her love affair with Arthur's chief knight Lancelot, which first appears in Chrétien de Troyes' Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. This motif was picked up in all the cyclical Arthurian literature, starting with the Lancelot-Grail Cycle of the early 13th century and carrying through the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Their betrayal of Arthur leads to the downfall of the kingdom.

The earliest mention of Guinevere is in the Welsh tale Culhwch ap Olwen, where she appears as Arthur's queen, but little more is said about her. Caradoc of Llancarfan, who wrote his Life of Gildas before 1136, recounts how she was kidnapped by Melwas, king of the "Summer Country" (Aestiva Regio, perhaps meaning Somerset), and held prisoner at his stronghold at Glastonbury. The story states that Arthur spent a year searching for her, found her, and had assembled an army to storm Melwas' fort when Saint Gildas negotiated a peaceful resolution and reunited husband and wife. This is the earliest written account of Guinevere's abduction, one of the earliest and most common episodes in Arthurian legend.

Why the history you ask? I don't particularly like Guinevere in these stories, as my friend Chris says, "other then getting rescued or causing the downfall of knights women didn't get much written about them." Though I have to say she gets a bad rap, from what little was said of her. So, the reason. The peregrine falcon you see here, 'tis her name. According to her handler, she is his Queen. She is lovely, a true royal ambassador from the skies.



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