Lady of the Lake

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Lady of the Lake

Lady of the Lake in Arthurian legend , a misty, supernatural figure endowed with magic powers, who gave the sword Excalibur to King Arthur. She inhabited a castle in an underwater kingdom. According to one legend she kidnapped the infant Launcelot and brought him to her castle where he lived until manhood. She has been identified variously with Morgan le Fay and Vivien. The poem The Lady of the Lake, by Sir Walter Scott, is based on a totally different legend.

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"Lady of the Lake." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

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Lady of the Lake

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | | Â© The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature 2003, originally published by Oxford University Press 2003. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Lady of the Lake, in the Arthurian legends, a rather shifting supernatural character. In Malory's Morte D'Arthur she gives Arthur the sword Excalibur, but when she asks for the head of Balyn as payment Balyn strikes off her head. Also called the Lady of the Lake (in Malory) is Nimiane (Nimue, and, probably by scribal misreading, Vivien), the wife of Pelleas, who loves Merlin whom she tricks into revealing his magic arts and then imprisons in a tower of air in the forest of Broceliande from which he never escapes. In Malory she is said to have accompanied the three queens who bore Arthur away by ship after his death. In Celtic origin she may derive from Morgan, the archetypal lake lady.

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Lady of the Lake." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 10 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Lady of the Lake." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (November 10, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-LadyoftheLake.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Lady of the Lake." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved November 10, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-LadyoftheLake.html

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