Chapter CLV: Section III: Gwenever

The staunchest supporters of Arthur’s existence give him three wives. One of them was she who was stolen by Maelwas, the origin of Lancelot, and she it is who is the dame of romance.

Gwen, the commencement of her name, is used in Welsh, in the double sense of the colour, white, and of a woman, perhaps for the same reason that ‘the fair’ so often stands for a lady in poetry. The word is closely related to the _finn_ and _ban_, both meaning white in the other branch of the Keltic tongue, and, save for the fulness of interest belonging to both, all might have been treated of together. Gwen, the feminine of Gwyn, white, becomes _wen_ in composition, and as such we have already met it at the end of words.

Gwendolen is made by the Brut, and by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the daughter of Corineus, Duke of Cornwall, and wife of Locrine, son of the original Brutus. He deserted her for the sake of Estrild, a fair German captive, and she made war upon him, in the course of which he was killed, and Estrild and her daughter Sabrina, or Avern, made prisoners; whereupon, the jealous and revengeful queen caused both to be drowned in the river, thenceforth called Sabrina or Severn; in Welsh, Hafreu, where we may hope that the damsel became the lovely nymph who “listened and saved” the lady from Comus and his crew. Estrild is Essylt (or Iseulte) in the Welsh which Geoffrey copied.

The Welsh saints give us St. Gwendolen or Gwen as the mother of Caradog Vreichfras, the excellent Sir Cradocke of the Round Table. In the _Triads_ and the _Mabinogion_, Gwendolen is a beauty of Arthur’s court, and in the bardic enumeration of the thirteen wonders of Britain appears the gold chess-board of Gwendolen, on which, when the silver men were placed, they would play of themselves. Gwendolen, Gwen, and Gwyn have never been disused in Wales. The first was the daughter of the last native prince, and her name is increasingly in favour with the lovers of archaisms.

Gwenhwyfar is the swelling white wave; but the ocean names of the Britons are worth noting, when we remember that they also had Llyr, with Bronwen and Creirdydlydd, all certainly mythical.

Without consigning Queen Gwenhwyfar to the regions of Regan, it is likely that hers was a hereditary name descended from some part of the ancient faith. A Welsh couplet describes her as—

“Gwenhwyfar, daughter of Gogyrfan the Great,
Bad when little, worse when great.”

And the various early tales in the _Mabinogion_, as well as the metrical romances, always give the same character of the beautiful queen of light conduct. In the _Morte d'Arthur_, guilty love for her paralyzes Lancelot’s eyes when the San-grail passes before him, the same passion drives him to his rebellion, and finally the repentant queen takes refuge in the convent at Ambresbury, where Tennyson has described the parting between her and Arthur in the most noble and beautiful of all his poetry.

Guenever was her full English name, contracted into Ganivre, or Ganore, a form that occurs in old Welsh registers. Jennifer, as they have it in Cornwall, is still frequent there; but nowhere else in our island has the name been followed. Scotland has a tradition of her crimes that calls her Queen Wanders, or Vanora, and Boece actually imprisons her in the great old fort on Barra Hill, in Perthshire; but abroad she met with more favour, as Génièvre in France, and in Italy as Ginevra, or Zinevra.

Observing that the French call Gwenhwyfar, Génièvre, we can hardly doubt that either this, or Gwenfrewi, holy calm or fair peace, must have been the origin of their own Généviève, though the German etymologists try to construe her as _gan_, magic, _vaips_, a crown. But Généviève was a Gaul, born at Nanterre in 422, and could hardly have borne anything but either a Keltic or a Roman name; and the whole family of Gwens were, as has been shown, dear to the Cymric race, whose religion was the same in Gaul and Britain. A shepherd-maid, like Joan of Arc, Généviève anticipated her deeds of patriotism, though she wore no armour and carried no sword. When Paris was besieged by the Franks, she, unarmed, and strong only in her pious confidence, walked forth as the escort of the citizens in search of provisions, and when the city was taken, her heroic holiness so impressed the heathen Franks, Hlodwig and Hilderik, that her entreaties in behalf of their prisoners were always granted. When she died, in her 90th year, she was erected into the primary patron saint of Paris, and has so continued ever since, leaving Généviève in high esteem among Parisiennes of all degrees down from Anne Généviève de Bourbon, the sister of Condé. The numerous contractions testify to the popularity of the gentle patriot. Some of the German forms may, however, be ascribed to the apocryphal Saint Genovefa, of Brabant, to whom has attached the story, of suspicious universality, of the wife who was driven by malicious accusations to the woods, there to give birth to an infant, and to be nourished by a white doe until the final discovery of her innocence. From whatever cause the name is widely used on the Continent.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ French. │ Breton. │ Italian. │
│Winifred │Généviève │Jenovefa │Genoveffa │
│Jennifer │Javotte │Fa-ik │ │
│ │Genevion │ │ │
│ │Vevette │ │ │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ German. │ Russian. │ Illyrian. │ │
│Genovefa │Zenevieva │Genovefa │ │
│Vevay │ │Genovefica │ │
│Vefele │ │Veva │ │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

Gwenfrewi was the Welsh nun whose head was cut off by a furious prince called Caradoc, because she refused his addresses; whereupon, in the usual fashion of Welsh saints, she caused a well to spring up on the spot of her martyrdom. But unlike other such wells, it is intermitting, and sufficiently impregnated with mineral substances to support its high character to miraculous powers, and, in addition, the stones are marked with red veins, which represent the blood of St. Wenefred, as our Anglo-Saxon tongues have long since made her. Such undoubted wonders made Winifred a most flourishing name in Wales, and it is occasionally found in England, though usually through a Welsh connection, and so spelt as to confuse it with the true Saxon masculine Winfrith, or friend of peace. The Irish take Winny as the equivalent of Una.

In Breton, Guennolé, also called Wingallok, in Cornish, Gunwallo, was a celebrated saint, and was the counsellor who saved King Gradlon in the inundation. Guennola is the feminine, and is used, very correctly, to translate the French Candide, as is Guennéan, the white spirit, for angel, both the being and the name.

Dwynwen, or the white wave, was invoked as the patroness of lovers, and became a Welsh name. It is just possible that an echo of this, on the other side of the water, may be Damhnait, or Devnet, Latinized as Dymphna, or Dympna, though the more obvious likeness in sound is _damhna_, a reason. An Irish princess, so called, was obliged, about the year 600, to fly from the persecutions of her father, protected by a priest, a jester, and his wife, until near Antwerp her father overtook her and cut off her head. Hanmer adds, “the Irish in the county of Lowth do honour her; belike her father dwelt there:” and Dympna, or Demmy, is not wholly extinct as a name.

This same _wen_, the poetical form of a woman, or fair one, enters into the composition of two other saintly Keltic names. The first, St. Mawdwen, or Modwen, was one of St. Patrick’s Irish nuns; and another later Modwen, also Irish, came to England in 840, educated Edith, daughter of King Ethelwolf, and founded an abbey at Polsworth. She was rather a favourite saint; her name is traceable in various places; and Modwenna continued in Cornwall. Perhaps it comes from _modh_, manners.

Cainwen is said to be Cain, the virgin. The first half means splendid or beautiful things or jewels, and is connected with the Latin Candalus. The Welsh declare that she was of princely birth; but being determined to live a holy life, she travelled on foot beyond the Severn, and there found a solitary place where no one had ever lived, because it was infested with snakes and vipers, which she forthwith, by her prayers, turned to stone, and they may still be picked up in a petrified state in the fields. Keynsham, in Somersetshire, is, in fact, famous for ammonites, which thus have given rise to another legend like those of St. Cuthbert and St. Hilda. Camden himself saw one of these stones, and was somewhat perplexed thereby.

She afterwards repaired to St. Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall, where she met her nephew, St. Cadoc, and there her name became attached to a well, in the parish of St. Neots, arched over by four trees—oak, ash, elm, and withy, all apparently growing from one root. The water was further supposed to endow whichever of a married pair first tasted it with the mastery for life. No one can forget that best of all Southey’s humorous ballads, where the Cornishman confesses,—

“I hastened, as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But, i' faith, she had been wiser than I,
For she took a bottle to church.”

Cornishmen, apparently, never forgave St. Keyne for the properties of her well; for Carew, in his _Survey of Cornwall_, terms her “no over holy saint;” and Norden thus vituperates her: “this Kayne is sayde to be a woman saynte, of whom it (the well) taketh name; but it better resembleth Kayne, the devil, who had the shape of a man, the name of an apostle, and the qualitie of a traitor.” Gwenllian, white linen, is still sometimes used.

Gwyn also signifies blessed or happy, and this _gwynnedd_ is an epithet of some of the favourite kings. Gwynaeth, a state of bliss, is a female name still in use, and often written Gyneth, though it gets translated into Venetia, and, in the latter form, named the lady whom Sir Kenelm Digby rendered famous.