dlowan wrote:I thought Arthur's fate was because he slept with his (half) sister - thus producing Mordred?
In the mo'om pikcher
Camelot, Mordred was played by David Hemmings--brilliant casting for a key role in an otherwise lackluster and rather sad stab at the greatest literary cycle of western Europe.
Uther Pendragon invited the Duke of Cornwall to regale him, and his new wife. Uther fell in lust with the Duke's Wife of Cornwall, but she in her virtue repulsed him, and told her Lord and Master. Then they hied them into Cornwall, and there he garnished and garisoned his two powerful towers at Tintagal and Terribel, to withstand the seige of the King. So Pendragon turned to the powerful mage, Merlin, to find a way to slake his lust. And Merlin secured from him his bond that the child of such a union would be given to him, Merlin. Pendragon agreed, and Merlin made him seeming the Duke of Cornwall himself. Uther rode to Tintagal, and there entered, and received by the Duke's Wife of Cornwall who knew him not as Pendragon but as her Lord and Master. They betook them to bed, and then the Duke's Wife of Cornwall knew him not who lay with her, and Pendragon away in the night back to the seige of Terribel. Now while Uther was gone to Tintagal, the Duke of Cornwall sortied with his men, and wreaked terrible slaughter among the King's Men, who wavered, leaderless. But Merlin rallied them, and a quarrel from one of Uther's crossbowmen entered between the gorget and the helmet of the Duke of Cornwall, and doing him down to the ground, he gave up the ghost.
Then it came to pass that the Duke's Wife of Cornwall was known to be with child, and Uther had leifer not see her then, as his lust slaked, his merry regard waned. And then the Queen list to know what of the Duke's Wife of Cornwall, and Uther had her put away. When she was delivered of a Boy in Tintagal, the King went by night and swift, but found Merlin waiting at the postern gate. And as Pendragon looked on in longing, Merlin took him the Boy, and, calling him Arthur, stole away, never again the Boy to be seen by Pendragon . . .
I doubt not that we all know the story of Arthur, placed with Pendragon's Senechel, Sir Kay, and of his upbringing, and the Sword in Stone . . . and then . . .
Now Arthur had put away, and put down, all the Kings of Britain who had come against him in league, and all had fallen on knees to place their hands within his, and to swear their fealty. And now Arthur bethought him it would be merry to go erring, and chevaucing about the forest, and took himself off from his fellows. It was in this time that he received from the Lady of the Lake, the scabbard to Excalibur which would heal his wounds and staunch his blood for so long as he weilded the sword and wore the scabbard upon his girdle. And there came to Arthur his three half-sisters, daughters of Pendargon, but the Lady of the Lake made him so he knew them not. They all hight him Arthur, but he knew not whereof they knew him. They were Margawse, King Lot's Wife of Orkney, and Anne, and Morgan La Faye . . . and Elain. Arthur and Elain they lay together, and he knew her not, and then the fair-seeming vanished, and he knew her, and he fled in his shame. In her time, Elain was delivered of a Boy, and the Boy was named Mordred . . .
