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Thanks for reading.

10/29/05

Anyway. On the secret origin of Sir Lancelot du Lac.

Le Morte d'Arthur doesn't describe Lancelot's arrival at Camelot; suddenly when the war with Rome comes up he's just there. In the Old French Vulgate cycle (one of Malory's sources) Lancelot's birth and youth are described after Arthur and Guenevere are married and Nimue has learned all Merlin's magic and trapped him in the cave. (Which suggests that Lancelot is considerably younger than Arthur and Guenevere. In The Once and Future King Arthur is about eight years older than Guenevere and Lancelot, which "at the age of twenty two [when Guenevere and Lancelot meet] ... seems the verge of senility". Here in AKOTAS they're all three within less than a year of each other.)

In the Vulgate after his parents die and his father's lands are invaded Lancelot is fostered by the Lady of the Lake (I'm unclear whether this is Nimue or a different Lady), who then brings him to Camelot and is one of two major ennablers in his relationship with the Queen (if she's Nimue, that'll be because she now has Merlin's gift of prophecy). In Le Morte d'Arthur and The Once and Future King, Lancelot's father King Ban is still alive after Lancelot comes to Camelot: sometime after the Roman war Ban calls on Arthur to war on Ban's enemies as Ban did for Arthur at Bedegraine. In The Mists of Avalon the Lady of the Lake - not Nimue, the one who is killed by Balin - is Lancelot's mother, conceiving him during an Old Religion king-marries-the-land ritual. In none of these does Lancelot ever ascend to his father's throne.

Webcomics I read mornings: The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge,
Peanuts, General Protection Fault, Achewood, Scary Go Round,
Todd and Penguin, The Adventures of Brigadier General John Stark,
Tux & Bunny, College Roommates from Hell!!!, Kevin & Kell, Real Life
Webcomics I read middays: Calvin & Hobbes, Least I Could Do, User Friendly,
Questionable Content, Starslip Crisis, Dandy and Company, Queen of Wands, Narbonic
Webcomics I read evenings: LuAnn, Count Your Sheep, Goats,
Pearls Before Swine, For Better Or For Worse, Help Desk, Schlock Mercenary, Sinfest, Irregular Comic
Webcomics I read bedtimes: B.C., Something Positive,
The Angriest Rice Cooker In The World,
Dinosaur Comics, Wapsi Square, Medium Large, Alice!, Sluggy Freelance, PvP
Webcomics I read M-W-F mornings: El Goonish Shive, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Nukees,
Tweep, Checkerboard Nightmare, Gossamer Commons
Webcomics I read M-W-F evenings: Reasoned Cognition, Two Lumps,
Theater Hopper, Shortpacked, Girl Genius, Megatokyo
Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa mornings: Digger, Taking Up Space,
Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break, AppleGeeks, Orneryboy, Striptease, Penny Arcade
Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa evenings: Casey & Andy,
Extra Life, The Noob, As If!, Get Out of My Head, Order of the Stick
Webcomics I read Sundays: The Whovian Observer, Nemesis, Journey Into History, Butternut Squash,
Dr. Devious vs Lincoln High, Loserz, Syntax Errors, Goobs,
Ctrl+Alt+Del, Her: Girl Vs Pig, 13 Seconds, Pibgorn, Perry Bible Fellowship, Boxjam's Doodle
See also Talk About Comics, The Belfry Comics Index, The Webcomic List,
Nth Degree, 100% Originality Theatre, Comixpedia, The Living Comic and Websnark.

Arthuriana sources I use or recommend:
Arthurian Legend
Arthuriana - the Journal of Arthurian Studies; the website of the quarterly journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society.
The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester.
Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics
Mystical-WWW - The Arthurian A2Z knowledge Bank which has encyclopedically-arranged entries on the characters of the Arthurian legends.
Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, Volume 1 and Volume 2.