Mordred

Mordred, illustration by Henry Justice Ford

Mordred ( Welsh Medrawd ) is a figure from the legendary circle around King Arthur . According to various sources, he is either a nephew or the son of Arthur.

overview

The earliest mention of Mordred is in the Annales Cambriae , a chronicle that is part of a revised version of the Historia Brittonum . This chronicle mentions the two adversaries Arthur and Mordred in connection with the Battle of Camlann , in which Mordred falls after he has mortally wounded Arthur.

Mordred is also mentioned in the Welsh Triads : In a triad based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae , his betrayal of Arthur is mentioned. In another, he is accused of being the author of one of the "three unrestrained devastations of the island of Britain ". He comes to the court of King Arthur at Kelliwic in Cornwall , devours all food and drink and even drags Gwenhwyfar ( Guinevere ) from her throne and mistreats her.

There are three versions of Mordred's ancestry: The first reports that he was a son of Lot Luwddoc, King of Gododdin (in later versions of the Orkney Islands ), and his wife Morgause , a half-sister of Arthur's mother's side (i.e. his nephew ). In the second, Mordred is a son of Arthur and Morgause who was adopted and raised by Lot. In the third variant, Arthur and his second half-sister Morgan le Fay (the fairy) are Mordred's parents. Since Morgan Le Fay remains unmarried, her sister Morgause and her husband Lot adopt the child and raise it as their own.

In one of the legends, the magician Merlin prophesies “that one day Mordred will sit on Arthur's throne”. Mordred later becomes one of the Knights of Arthur's Round Table and comes into conflict with Lancelot . The reasons for this differ in the different versions of the saga: On the one hand, Lancelot, as Arthur's best knight and closest friend, and Mordred, as his son or nephew, are competitors for the king's successor. On the other hand, as the (alleged) lover of Queen Guinevere, Lancelot is an ideal means of dividing Arthur and his knights. In a lesser-known variant, Lancelot and Mordred are rivals for Queen Guinevere's favor.

Mordred is said to have been married two or three times: first to Guinevak (Welsh: Gwenhwyvach ), a younger sister of Guinevere (Welsh: Gwenhwyfar), then to Cwyllogm , a princess of Gwynedd , and the third to Guinevere himself. With one of his wives he is said to have fathered the twin sons Melehan and Melou .

The dramatic climax of the Arthurian legend is Mordred's betrayal of the king. Here, too, there are several variants of the narrative: In one, Arthur crosses over to Gaul ( France ) to support allies there or to move to Rome . In another, he wages war against Lancelot to avenge his (alleged) adultery with Guinevere. Mordred is installed by Arthur as governor in Britain; he uses this position and Arthur's absence to expand his power. Finally he declares Arthur dead and ascends the throne himself. The reason is supposed to be a severe defeat of Arthur in Gaul, which is partly reported. In one of the many varieties of the story, Mordred then marries Queen Guinevere.

The betrayal or defeat in Gaul compel King Arthur to return to Britain. There it comes to the battle of Camlann between the armies of the adversaries, in the course of which Arthur is mortally wounded by Mordred and the latter is killed by Arthur. Mordred's two sons, Melehan and Melou, try to usurp the throne, but are slain by Lancelot and Bors .

Mordred as a modern fictional character

Mordred is a fictional character by Stephen King from his fantasy work The Dark Tower . Mordred, a hybrid of man and giant spider, has two biological fathers: the novel hero Roland (who comes from the lineage of Arthur Eld, a counterpart to King Arthur, which further illustrates the approximation of Mordred's role from the Arthurian saga in King's novel series) and at the same time his main antagonist, the so-called Scarlet King, a human-like being with glowing red eyes.

In the trilogy about the Arthurian legend by Gillian Bradshaw , which includes the novels "Falcon of Light", "Kingdom of Summer" and "The Crown of Camelot", Mordred appears under the name Medraut. In this cycle of novels, Medraut is incited to hate Arthur by his mother Morgawse and works blindly to implement his mother's plans to destroy Arthur's empire, so that he even betrays his love for his half-brother Gawain .

The character of Mordred also appears in children's and young adult literature: In the fantasy novel Der Winterprinz by Elisabeth E. Wein , Mordred Medraut is called and has all the qualities to become a great king like his father Arthur. But his incestuous origins with Arthur's half-sister Morgause stand in his way; there is a great rivalry between him and his half-brother Lleu , the son of Arthur and Guinevere.

In the Camelot novel Mordred, son of Arthur by Nancy Springer , Mordred is on the search for his identity and does not want to become the cruel regicide as fate demands. He seeks the love and approval of his royal father as his mother Morgause despises him.

In the fantasy trilogy " Mordred, Bastard Son " by Douglas Clegg , Mordred is a homosexual antihero and tells the story of his life to a young monk as a price for his freedom.

Tad Williams processes the motif Mordred in his four-part science fiction novel “ Otherland ” in the form of the antagonist “John Dread”, who is nicknamed “More Dread” and betrays his supposed grandfather and this thus released from his ruling position in order to take over the scepter himself.

Bernard Cornwell also works Mordred into his Arthurian series. There Mordred is a grandson of Uther Pendragon and thus Arthus' nephew.

In his saga Merlin - The New Adventures, Johnny Capps first introduced Mordred as a little druid boy who is neither related nor known to Uther or Arthus Pendragron, but rather seems to be connected to Merlin himself.

Web links

Commons : Mordred - collection of images, videos and audio files

Mordred in the Camelot Project at the University of Rochester (English)