Guinevere is traditionally seen as being King Arthur’s Queen. She is fascinating in her own right, and is an important part of Arthurian legends.

Many of our perceptions today of Guinevere come from Alfred  Tennyson, who created in her a symbol of queenly purity and goodness. This is in keeping with many of the ancient legends about her, though, of course, the legends themselves speak of a much more complex character.

Within a wide range of stories from the 7^th Century to Thomas Malory, she is remembered as King Arthur’s Queen, but she is also an interesting legend in her own right. There are many ancient legends that tell us who this fascinating woman really was.

Guinevere lived as a ward at the court of Duke Cador of Cornwall, according to the earliest legends. She came from a noble Roman family, residing as a sort of lady in waiting, when she met the young King Arthur. Love blossoms, and soon the two are man and wife … and king and queen.

In the ancient Welsh Mabinogion (called Culhwch and Olwen), Guinevere is called ‘Gwenhwyfar’ or ‘Gwenhwyvar’. Her name may mean The White Phantom. Guinevere was the daughter of Gogrfan or Gogrvan or Ocvran. She is the wife of King Arthur. The tale also mentions that Guinevere had a sister, named Gwenhwyach.

The Mabinogion says that King Arthur had three sons: Gwydre, Llacheu, and Amhar. But there is nothing in the legend to indicate that they were Guinevere's sons, too. Either King Arthur had another wife or partner, or, more likely, we can probably assume that they were her sons.

However, in most of the earlier legends, they were married but had no children. In the Grail Romance, Perlesvaus, their son is named Lohot (also known elsewhere as Loholt). According to this unhappy ending, Sir Kay murders Lohot, and Guinevere is so grief-stricken with the loss of her son that she herself could not be consoled, and died from broken heart.

In the poem known as the Welsh Triad, King Arthur has three queens … and all three wives are named Guinevere or Gwenhwyfar. The first is called Gwenhwyfar, the daughter of Gwent (Cywryd); the second is called Gwenhwyfar, the daughter of Gwythyr son of Greidiawl; and the third wife is Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Gogfran or Gogrvan the Giant.

This must have made for complex marital relations in Camelot, or perhaps this story tells us something about the near universal (British and Irish) Celtic love for the number three. Such ancient British or Welsh legends may suggest that the three wives of King Arthur (the three Gwenhwyfars) form a sort of female trinity which encompasses the personification of Britain as a Lady, the Land of Britain as a Mother, and the Sovereignty of Britain as a Queen.

Guinevere or Gwenhwyfar, if this reading of the ancient legends is true, is more than simply a queen, she is also a triple goddess. And thus her marriage to King Arthur is necessary in that she bestows blessings upon him, through their sacred marriage.

For King Arthur to become The King of Britain, perhaps he himself must wed the three goddesses and bring forth life through to her to ensure the blessing of the peace and prosperity of the Kingdom and the fertility and abundance of the Land.

There are many other interesting legends about Guinevere in which she is portrayed as a real woman, desired by men, and we learn that she was not always perfectly chase herself.

Guinevere, we are told, was the most beautiful women in the world. Her beauty was such that she was desired by all men. The consequence for her beauty was that she was abducted a few times by rival kings, and, in true romantic style, she had to be rescued by King Arthur.

According to The Life of Gildas, Caradoc of Llangarfan wrote that Melvas, king of the Summer Country or Somerset, abducted and raped Guinevere or Gwenhwyfar.

The outraged King Arthur sought his Queen, and  pursued Melvas with a vengeance. Melvas retreats to Glastonbury.

But King Arthur's forces find Melvas on a hill, possibly Brent Knoll, near Glastonbury. St Gildas, in the story, hates King Arthur because the king had killed his brothers. But out of Christian desire for peace he becomes the intermediary. St Gildas begs the two warring kings to make peace, and Melvas returns Guinevere back to King Arthur.

This story was the source for the French and Breton Romance of Chrétien de Troyes entitled Le Chevalier à la charrette, or The Knight of the Chariot. In this version of the story, Melvas is called Meleagant, the son of King Baudemagus of Gorre. We read that Meleagant had abducted Guinevere and later challenged the hero Lancelot to a duel, for the hand of Guinevere. Lancelot accepted the challenge, but lost. So, to restore honour, Lancelot fought him again. This time we see Lancelot's true metal for he kills Meleagant, and rescues Guinevere.

This interesting variation on the same story is also important from a literary point of view. While Lancelot had appeared in earlier works of Chrétien de Troyes, in a minor role, it is in The Knight of the Chariot that Lancelot's first takes the stage as hero. This story is also particularly significant because it is the first time that he appears as Guinevere's lover.

In the Vulgate Cycle and after, Guinevere is often cast as betraying King Arthur by committing adultery with the greatest knight of them all: Lancelot of the Lake.

We learn in such French romance that all Lancelot's heroic deeds were performed because of his love for Guinevere. Lancelot, inspired by his love for her, sought to win her favour as her champion and protector.

The legends are clear that as adultery divides a house and splits a kingdom, Guinevere yet had some cause for her act of adultery with Lancelot. For King Arthur was not entirely guiltless himself.

In the Vulgate text of Lancelot, on the night Lancelot first sneaked Guinevere away to the woods, King Arthur was away in the arms of Saxon sorceress and enemy of his kingdom. From now on, everything that had been good, would start to go wrong.

For it was this act of betrayal that would cause Lancelot to fail in his Quest for the Grail. Once their guilt was uncovered, it meant that Lancelot had to leave the kingdom. It led to rivalry and doubt and suspicion amongst the erstwhile fellowship of the Knights that would bring about the destruction of the Round Table. It signalled the end of Guinevere. And finally, it would set in motion the chain of events that would lead to the mortal wounding of King Arthur in his final battle with Mordred. For in the Arthurian legendry world, everything is linked, and every act has an impact upon everything and everyone else.

When King Arthur married Guinevere he was given the Round Table and a hundred knights, by her father, as part of her dowry. So when King Arthur tried Guinevere for unfaithfulness, and sought to execute her, the fellowship of the Round Table was broken.

When war broke out between Lancelot and King Arthur, the Round Table and all it stood for was broken. For now the two strongest supporters of King Arthur became two factions at war: the House of Ban, who supported Lancelot, was the deadly enemy of the House of Orkney, led by the loyal Sir Gawain.

Though the war ended without either side winning outright victory, and Guinevere was returned quietly to King Arthur, the bond of Round Table was forever weakened without the presence and support of Lancelot and his kinsmen. Later, when King Arthur was away from his kingdom fighting in Europe, Mordred betrayed the king and seized the kingdom, and Lancelot's men were not there to resist. And Mordred sought Guinevere, and his chance to have her.

In the Vulgate Cycle and later authors, Guinevere prevents Mordred, now ruling in the place of King Arthur, from marrying her by gathering loyal men who hide her inside the walls of Tower of London.

As King Arthur fought Mordred, Guinevere had fled to abbey at Caerleon or to one in the City of Legion (or outside of London, according to Mort Artu). Here, Guinevere took the vow to become a nun, even before the battle was decided.

But in other legends, her relationship with Mordred is far more complicated.

In the early British legends, taken from the Welsh texts, we learn that Guinevere was taken by Mordred, though the terms of her capture differ to the previously described legends in the Second or False Guinevere, and compare in an interesting way with her relationship with Lancelot.

We learn from some of the Welsh legends that Mordred, King Arthur's nephew, desired Guinevere, too. And, when chance arose, he took her for his own during King Arthur's long absence from his kingdom while on his campaign in Europe against the Romans.

Mordred, acting as King Arthur's regent, seized power in Britain while King Arthur's back was turned. To add salt to King Arthur's wound of being usurped by his nephew, Mordred married Guinevere. But did she go quietly? Mordred may have forced Guinevere to marry him, but many legends say that she was an accomplice in the treason, and may have in fact seduced Mordred, and later, according to the Morte Arthure, had two sons by him.

The difference between Mordred and Lancelot was that while Lancelot loved Guinevere, he did not seek to rule in King Arthur's place. Lancelot loved King Arthur as his king, and was willing to carry this secret relationship to his grave. This secret loyalty to King Arthur actually made King Arthur's kingship even stronger because it meant that Lancelot had to stay on King Arthur's side so that he could stay in Guinevere's presence at the Royal Court. But this could not last.

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There is another interesting short story, written by a poetess named Marie de France in the late 12th Century, entitled Lanval. Marie claimed she had translated an ancient Breton song, known as the Lai. Her story tell of how the hero Lanval was in love with a beautiful fairy, who met with him, though he must not reveal her presence to anyone. When Guinevere tried unsuccessful to seduce the handsome younger man, Lanval spurned her by boasting that his fairy's beauty surpassed even the Queen's. Guinevere was enraged, then falsely accused Lanval of making unwanted advances to her and of bragging of loving a woman more beautiful than she.

Soon news reached King Arthur's ears. King Arthur was unhappy with Lanval for pursuing his wife, and for acting ungallantly with regards to her beauty. In judgment, King Arthur said he would not punish he young man, if Lanval could prove his boast. Of course, Lanval could not make the fairy appear. So he was about to be executed. Just then the fairy saved his life with her sudden appearance. To escape, Lanval and the fairy then left the mortal world together, to dwell in Avalon. Here, reading between the lines, Guinevere is clearly portrayed as the calculating adulteress, who tried to seduce the young knight.

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According to the Vulgate Cycle there were two Guineveres. In Merlin, the second Guinevere was the daughter of King Leodegan and his seneschal's wife. While his seneschal, named Cleodalis, was fighting for his king against the Irish, Leodegan ravished her. The first Guinevere was her mother, the Queen's, child.

The two Guineveres that were born were half-sisters. As they were conceived on the same night, were born on the same day and they looked exactly alike, they were given the same name. Leodegan and his Queen's daughter became King Arthur's Queen.

The other Guinevere was frequently known as the False Guinevere or the Second Guinevere. It was said that the only means of identifying the real Guinevere from the false one, was that she had a birthmark of a king's crown on her back, while the Second Guinevere had none.

The False Guinevere would later cause the separation of King Arthur and his Queen, when she posed as the real Queen and tried to trick King Arthur to execute the real Guinevere. This plan was foiled when Lancelot challenged three of her knights in a trial by combat. Even though, Lancelot won the contest, King Arthur was still in love with the impostor, because she had given him a love potion. The False Guinevere and her accomplice Bertholai confessed to their crime when they were both struck down by mysterious illness, and the impostor died.