Bors ( /ˈbɔːrz/ ; French: Bohort) is the name of two knights in Arthurian legend, an elder and a younger. The two first appear in the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail romance prose cycle. Bors the Elder is the King of Gaunnes (Gannes/Gaunes/Ganis) during the early period of King Arthur's reign, and is the brother of King Ban of Benoic and the father of Bors the Younger and Lionel. His son Bors the Younger later becomes one of the best Knights of the Round Table and participates in the achievement of the Holy Grail.
Bors the Elder is the brother of King Ban and the uncle of Hector de Maris and Lancelot. He marries Evaine, the sister of Ban's wife Elaine. He has two sons: Bors the Younger and Lionel.
Ban and Bors become King Arthur's early allies in his fight against eleven rebel kings in Britain, including Lot, Urien, and Caradoc, Arthur vows in return to help them against their Frankish enemy, King Claudas, who has been threatening their lands back in the continent. Arthur is late on his promise, though, and Claudas succeeds in his invasion, resulting in both kings' deaths. Ban's son Lancelot is taken by the Lady of the Lake, but Bors's children are raised in captivity by Claudas's retainers.
Sir Bors the Younger is better known than King Bors throughout Arthurian studies [ citation needed ]. Sir Bors and Lionel live for several years at Claudas's court, but they eventually rebel against him and even slay his cruel son Dorin. Before Claudas can retaliate, the boys are rescued by a servant of the Lady of the Lake and are spirited off to be raised with their cousin Lancelot. They all grow up to be excellent knights and go to Camelot to join King Arthur's retinue. Bors is recognisable by a distinctive scar on his forehead, and participates in most of the King's conflicts, including the eventual battle with Claudas which liberates his father's lands. Bors fathers Elyan the White when the beautiful daughter of King Brandegoris, Claire, tricks him into sleeping with her by way of a magic ring; he later introduces his son into the Round Table.
Sir Bors is always portrayed as one of the Round Table's finest, but his real glory comes on the Grail Quest, where he proves himself worthy enough to witness the Grail's mysteries alongside Galahad and Percival. Several episodes display his virtuous character; in one, a lady approaches Bors vowing to commit suicide unless he sleeps with her. He refuses to break his vow of celibacy; the lady and her maidens threaten to throw themselves off the castle battlements. As the ladies jump off, they reveal themselves to be demons set on deceiving him by playing to his sense of compassion. In another, Bors faces a dilemma where he must choose between rescuing his brother Lionel, being whipped with thorns by villains in one direction, and saving a young girl who has been abducted by a rogue knight in the other. Bors chooses to help the maiden, but prays for his brother's safety. Lionel escapes his tormentors and tries to murder Bors, and Bors does not defend himself, refusing to raise a weapon against his kinsman. Fellow Knight of the Round Table Calogrenant and a hermit try to intervene, but Lionel slays them both when they get in the way. Before he can kill his brother, however, God strikes him down with an immobilising column of fire. Bors, Galahad, and Percival go on to achieve the Holy Grail and accompany it to Sarras, a mystical island in the Holy Land, where then Galahad and Percival pass away while there. Bors is the only one to return, and the text of the Vulgate Queste is presented as a purported written record of Bors telling the full story of the quest back in Camelot. [1] At the end of the entire Vulgate Cycle, Bors further emerges as the only surviving main character and a successor to Arthur after the King's death. [2]
In Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur , based on the French prose romance tradition, Sir Bors reluctantly agrees to fight as Queen Guinevere's champion in a trial by combat after she is accused of poisoning a cousin of Sir Mador de la Porte. Refusing at first, as her usual champion Lancelot had left Camelot earlier because of her, Bors relents after the desperate Guinevere kneels before him. He is about to joust with Mador for her sake when Lancelot arrives to take his place incognito. Along with the rest of their family, Bors later takes Lancelot's side after Lancelot's affair with Guinevere is exposed and Arthur sentenced her to death. He helps to rescue the Queen from her execution at the stake and is one of Lancelot's kinsmen who then accompany him into exile from England. Together with his brother Lionel, Bors becomes one of Lancelot's most valorous and trusted aides in the ensuing war, during which he barely survives his horseback duel with Arthur's second-in-command Gawain. On another occasion, Bors has an opportunity to kill the dehorsed Arthur himself, but is stopped by Lancelot. In return for his service, Lancelot crowns Lionel the King of France, while Sir Bors becomes the ruler of King Claudas' lands. While the factions are still fighting, Mordred betrays Arthur and takes the throne. Lancelot hears of this and goes to aid Arthur, but arrives too late. Lancelot searches for Guinevere; after some time without news, Lionel goes looking for him and is killed. Sir Bors sends most of the army home, and goes to look for Lancelot with a few other of their kinsmen. They eventually find him living as a priest and decide to join him.
In the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Mort d'Artu, Lancelot and his men return to Britain to fight Mordred's sons, who have taken over. In the battle, Mordred's elder son, Meleon or Melehan, mortally wounds Lionel. Bors kills Melehan with one blow, avenging his brother. Lancelot kills Mordred's second, unnamed son.
Guinevere, also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in popular literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. Many records of the legend also feature the variably recounted story of her abduction and rescue as a major part of the tale.
Idylls of the King, published between 1859 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom.
Lancelot du Lac, also written as Launcelot and other variants, is a character in some versions of Arthurian legend where he is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table. In the French-inspired Arthurian chivalric romance tradition, Lancelot is an orphaned son of King Ban of the lost kingdom of Benoic, raised in a fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, despite suffering from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of madness. But when his adulterous affair with Guinevere is discovered, it causes a civil war that, once exploited by Mordred, brings an end to Arthur's kingdom.
Mordred or Modred is a major figure in the legend of King Arthur. The earliest known mention of a possibly historical Medraut is in the Welsh chronicle Annales Cambriae, wherein he and Arthur are ambiguously associated with the Battle of Camlann in a brief entry for the year 537. Medraut's figure seemed to have been regarded positively in the early Welsh tradition and may have been related to that of Arthur's son. As Modredus, Mordred was depicted as Arthur's traitorous nephew and a legitimate son of King Lot in the pseudo-historical work Historia Regum Britanniae, which then served as the basis for the following evolution of the legend from the 12th century. Later variants most often characterised Mordred as Arthur's villainous bastard son, born of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, the queen of Lothian or Orkney named either Anna, Orcades, or Morgause. The accounts presented in the Historia and most other versions include Mordred's death at Camlann, typically in a final duel, during which he manages to mortally wound his own slayer, Arthur. Mordred is usually a brother or half-brother to Gawain; however, his other family relations, as well as his relationships with Arthur's wife Guinevere, vary greatly.
Galahad, sometimes referred to as Galeas or Galath, among other versions of his name, is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot du Lac and Lady Elaine of Corbenic and is renowned for his gallantry and purity as the most perfect of all knights. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, Sir Galahad first appears in the Lancelot–Grail cycle, and his story is taken up in later works, such as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In Arthurian literature, he replaced Percival as the hero in the quest for the Holy Grail.
The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are an order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.
Lancelot du Lac is a 1974 French fantasy drama film written and directed by Robert Bresson. It retells the story of Lancelot and Guinevere's love as Camelot and the Round Table fall apart. It is based on Arthurian legend and medieval romances, especially the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and the works of Chrétien de Troyes.
Percival's sister is a role of two similar but distinct characters in the Holy Grail stories within the Arthurian legend featuring the Grail hero Percival (Perceval). The first of them is named Dindrane, the second is usually unnamed and is known today as the Grail heroine.
Gareth is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He is the youngest son of King Lot and Queen Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Agravain and Gaheris, and either a brother or half-brother of Mordred. Gareth is particularly notable in Le Morte d'Arthur, where one of its eight books is named after and largely dedicated to him, and in which he is also known by his nickname Beaumains.
King Arthur is a 2004 historical adventure film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Franzoni. It features an ensemble cast with Clive Owen as the title character, Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot and Keira Knightley as Guinevere, along with Mads Mikkelsen, Joel Edgerton, Hugh Dancy, Ray Winstone, Ray Stevenson, Stephen Dillane, Stellan Skarsgård and Til Schweiger.
Ban of Benoic is a character in Arthurian legend. King Ban first appeared by this name in the Lancelot propre part of the 13th-century French Vulgate Cycle as the ruler of the realm in France named Benoic and father of Sir Lancelot and Sir Hector de Maris, as well as brother of King Bors. Ban of Benoic largely corresponds to the other versions of the father of Lancelot, including Pant of Gen[n]ewis in the German Lanzelet, Haud of Schuwake in the English Sir Lancelot du Lake, and Domolot of Lokva in the Belarusian Povest' o Tryshchane.
The Ill-Made Knight is a fantasy novel by British writer T. H. White, the third book in the series The Once and Future King. It was first published in 1940, but is usually found today only in collected editions of all four books of the novel.
Gaheris is a Knight of the Round Table in the chivalric romance tradition of Arthurian legend. A nephew of King Arthur, Gaheris is the third son of Arthur's sister or half-sister Morgause and her husband Lot, King of Orkney and Lothian. He is the younger brother of Gawain and Agravain, the older brother of Gareth, and half-brother of Mordred. His figure may have been originally derived from that of a brother of Gawain in the early Welsh tradition, and then later split into a separate character of another brother, today best known as Gareth. German poetry also described him as Gawain's cousin instead of brother.
Agravain is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, whose first known appearance is in the works of Chrétien de Troyes. He is the second eldest son of King Lot of Orkney with one of King Arthur's sisters known as Anna or Morgause, thus nephew of King Arthur, and brother to Sir Gawain, Gaheris, and Gareth, as well as half-brother to Mordred. Agravain secretly makes attempts on the life of his hated brother Gaheris starting in the Vulgate Cycle, participates in the slayings of Lamorak and Palamedes in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and murders Dinadan in the Prose Tristan. In the French prose cycle tradition included in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, together with Mordred, he then plays a leading role by exposing his aunt Guinevere's affair with Lancelot, which leads to his death at Lancelot's hand.
Lionel is a character in Arthurian legend. He is the younger son of King Bors of Gaunnes and Evaine and brother of Bors the Younger. First recorded in the Lancelot-Grail cycle, he is a double cousin of Lancelot and cousin of Lancelot's younger half-brother Hector de Maris. He is also the subject of a traditional ballad.
King Claudas is a fictional king who is an opponent to King Arthur, Lancelot, and Bors in Arthurian literature. His kingdom is situated in the Berry and is named "Terre Deserte", or "Land Laid Waste", so called because of the destruction Uther Pendragon had wrought there.
In Arthurian legend, Ywain, also known as Yvain and Owain among other spellings, is a Knight of the Round Table. Tradition often portrays him as the son of King Urien of Gorre and of either the enchantress Modron or the sorceress Morgan le Fay. The historical Owain mab Urien, the basis of the literary character, ruled as the king of Rheged in Britain during the late-6th century.
Sagramore, also known as Sagramor and other variations of this name, is a knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He appears in many standalone and cyclical chivalric romances and other works, including some where he is the titular protagonist. Sagramore's characterisation varies from story to story, but generally he is characterised as a virtuous but hot-tempered knight who fights fiercely and ragefully.
Adventures of Sir Galahad is the 41st serial released in 1949 by Columbia Pictures. Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet, it stars George Reeves, Nelson Leigh, William Fawcett, Hugh Prosser, and Lois Hall. It was based on Arthurian legend, one of the very few serials of the time with a period setting that was not a western.
Bagdemagus, also known as Bademagu, Bademagus, Bademaguz, Bagdemagu, Bagomedés, Baldemagu, Baldemagus, Bandemagu, Bandemagus, Bangdemagew, Baudemagu, Baudemagus, and other variants, is a character in the Arthurian legend, usually depicted as king of the land of Gorre and a Knight of the Round Table. He originally figures in literature the father of the knight Maleagant, who abducts King Arthur's wife Queen Guinevere in several versions of a popular episode. Bagdemagus first appears in French sources, but the character may have developed out of the earlier Welsh traditions of Guinevere's abduction, an evolution suggested by the distinctively otherworldly portrayal of his realm. He is portrayed as a kinsman and ally of Arthur and a wise and virtuous king, despite the actions of his son. In later versions, his connection to Maleagant disappears altogether.