Gaheris

by Brian Edward Rise

 
A son of Lot and Morgause and younger brother to Gawain. He is not always distinguished from his brother Gareth in the romances, the possible result of the splitting of a single character. Gareth marries Lyones and Gaheris marries her sister Lynet in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Gaheris also slays his mother when he discovers her with Lamorak, the son of Sir Pellinore. Gaheris and Gareth are killed in the fighting that follows Lancelot’s rescue of Guinevere from the stake.

Excalibur

by Brian Edward Rise

 
The magical sword of Arthur in the romances. Its name is derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “Caliburn” which itself mimics the Latin chalybs, or “steel.” Sometimes identified as the Sword in the Stone, usually it is not. One account states that it belonged to Gawain first. The most familiar version has Arthur break the sword drawn from the stone and Merlin arranges its replacement with a weapon of supernatural power.

Camlann

by Brian Edward Rise

 
The location of Arthur’s final battle with Merdraut (Mordred). It is not mentioned in the Historia Brittonum but rather appears first in the Annales Cambriae (10th century). The entry for a year that may be 539 reads, “the strife of Camlann in which Arthur and Merdraut fell.” No mention of villainy or opposition between the two is made. In the triads, Camlann is one of the “Three Futile Battles,” the result of a tragic, bloody feud. Merdraut is the attacker here in what appears to be more a conflict of equals rather than that of king versus usurper. That theme is a later addition by Geoffrey and he may have been trying to combine the Welsh tradition with an alternate story of Arthur’s betrayal and very different end. In the romances, the treason is kept but the location is moved from Camlann to near Salisbury.