Others have linked the name "Nymenche" with the Irish mythology's figure Niamh (an otherworldly woman from the legend of Tír na nÓg), and the name "Niniane" with the Welsh mythology's figure Rhiannon (another otherworldly woman of a Celtic myth), or, as a feminine form of "Ninian", with the likes of the 5th-century saint Ninian and the river Ninian. Due to the relative obscurity of the word, it was misunderstood as "fair wanton maiden" and taken to be the name of Myrddin's female captor. Jarman, following suggestions first made by scholars of the 19th century, proposed that the name "Viviane" used in French Arthurian romances were ultimately derived from (and a corruption of) the Welsh word chwyfleian (also spelled hwimleian and chwibleian in medieval Welsh sources), meaning "a wanderer of pallid countenance", which was originally applied as an epithet to the famous prophetic "wild man" figure of Myrddin Wyllt (a prototype of Merlin) in medieval Welsh poetry. Viviane with Merlin in Witches' Tree by Edward Burne-Jones (1905)Īrthurian scholar A. Even though "Nymue", with the m, appears only in the Caxton text, Nimue is perhaps the most common form of the name of the character as this was the only version of Le Morte d'Arthur published until 1947. The form Nimue, in which the letter e can be written as ë or é, has been popularized by Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and itself has several variations: in William Caxton's edition, her name appears as Nymue, Nyneue, Nyneve and Nynyue, but it had been rather Nynyve (predominantly ) and Nenyve in Malory's original Winchester Manuscript. According to Lucy Paton, the most primitive French form might have been Niniane. Nimiane / Niniame and Vivian / Vivien in Arthour and Merlin and Henry Lovelich's Merlin.įurther variations of these include alternate spellings with the letter i written as y, such as in the cases of Nymanne ( Nimanne) and Nynyane (Niniane).Nin eve / Niv en e / Niviène and Vivienne in the Post-Vulgate Merlin ( Niviana in the Spanish Baladro del Sage Merlin).Nim ane and Ui ane (in addition to Viviane) in the Vulgate Merlin ( Niniane in the version Livre d'Artus).Nymenche (in addition to Ninianne / Ninienne) in the Vulgate Lancelot.Medieval authors and copyists produced various forms of the latter, including: Today, the Lady of the Lake is best known as either Nimue (sometimes written Nimuë since Tennyson's poem by the same title), or several scribal variants of Ninianne and Viviane.
Nimue in Howard Pyle's illustration for The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903) Different sorceresses known as the Lady of the Lake appear concurrently as separate characters in some versions of the legend since at least the Post-Vulgate Cycle and consequently the seminal Le Morte d'Arthur, with the latter describing them as a hierarchical group, while some texts also give this title to either Morgan or her sister. They play pivotal roles in many stories, including providing Arthur with the sword Excalibur, eliminating Merlin, raising Lancelot after the death of his father, and helping to take the dying Arthur to Avalon. The Lady of the Lake ( French: Dame du Lac, Demoiselle du Lac, Welsh: Arglwyddes y Llyn, Cornish: Arloedhes an Lynn, Breton: Itron al Lenn, Italian: Dama del Lago) is a name or a title used by several either fairy or fairy-like but human enchantresses in the Matter of Britain, the body of medieval literature and mythology associated with the legend of King Arthur. The Lady of the Lake in Lancelot Speed's illustration for James Thomas Knowles' The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1912)
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