Lot of Orkney

Lot of Orkney , also Loth , is a legend of the Arthurian novels , he is especially mentioned as the father of Gawain , the knight of the round table .

Early narratives

The Lots family is composed differently in the traditions. Lot is referred to alternately in the stories as the king of the Orkneys , Lothian and Norway . He is either the husband of Morgause , a half-sister of Arthur's maternal side, or of Anna, Arthur's sister. His sons are Gawain, Gareth , Gaheris and Agravain , and another son, Gwalchavad, is only mentioned in a modern grail cycle by Stephen Lawhead . Lot's foster son is said to be Mordred , a son of Arthur and Morgause, who is adopted and raised by Lot. In another version, Mordred is the son of Lot and his wife Morgause.

Geoffrey of Monmouth calls in the Historia Regum Britanniae ("History of the British Kings") Loth King of Lothian, Arthur's brother-in-law and comrade in arms. He traces the names Loth and Lothian back to the Latinized form Lodonesia , which corresponded to the common name alignment of rulers and rulers at the time. Loth is already mentioned as a loyal follower of Arthur's father Uther Pendragon . Here Anna is Loth's wife and mother of Gawain and Mordred. As the nephew of the Norwegian king Sichelm, he conquered this land after his death as his heir against the usurper Riculf.

Matière de bretagne

In the novels of the Matière de Bretagne , Lot is usually only mentioned as the father of Gawain, as in Chrétien de Troyes . In the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate cycle , for example in Thomas Malory's work Le Morte d'Arthur , he has with Morgause the five sons Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, Gareth and Mordred, whose natural father Arthur is also named here. First Arthur's opponent, later his ally, he helps him against the Saxons in Britain.

See also

• Collected works from Wales and Britain

literature

• Helmut Birkhan : Post-ancient Celtic reception. Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-7069-0541-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Nachantike Keltenrezeption. P. 290 f.
2. ↑ Geoffrey of Monmouth: Historia Regum Britanniae , Book 8, Chapter 21.
3. ↑ Geoffrey of Monmouth: Historia Regum Britanniae , Book 10, Chapter 6.
4. ↑ Thomas Malory: Le Morte D'Arthur (King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table VOL. I). BompaCrazy.com, 1976, pp. XXVIII ff.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.