Glossary for Merlin

The terms below occur in Merlin, the English translation beside this page, and in the Old French text it was made from: Robert de Boron's Merlin, from the Huth manuscript (London, British Library, Additional MS 38117), as Gaston Paris and Jacob Ulrich edited it (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1886), volume 1, pages 1 to 146. The people and places come from Paris and Ulrich's name index and the old words from their word list, both in volume 2, cut to the entries these pages meet; the meanings are written in English from Paris and Ulrich's French glosses. A name is headed by the form a modern English reader knows, never by Malory's spelling, or by the 1886 edition's own form where there's no modern one, and every spelling the French uses is under Also, so a name underlines in both texts. Character notes say who somebody is when the story first meets them, not what later happens to them.

Read in: UK English

Translated with machine assistance by Ryan Allen¹ for Leaftext, more than 2 million new tokens so far on this book; a working translation, not a scholarly edition.

How it was made: built by Ryan Allen¹, who read and edited every line², all checks passed³, readable first⁴, plain speech⁵, shaped for English⁶, every link said⁷, nothing said twice⁸, the right word each time⁹, no word worn out¹⁰, modern idiom¹¹, US English¹², English word order, natural tenses¹³, contractions, neutral tone¹⁴, gender neutral¹⁵, no false echoes¹⁶, prose and verse read aloud; source lines and stanzas kept¹⁷, scenes read for movement¹⁸, checked against the scan, sources named¹⁹, honest where unsure²⁰, no borrowed wording²¹, source over Malory²², translated by manifest, every choice logged, changes carried everywhere, story headings²³, matching outlines, laid out for screens²⁴, pages linked to scans, endnotes, Malory cross-referenced²⁵, additions marked, sourced glossary, modern names, places located from sources, no guessed identities²⁶, no common words glossed²⁷, free with credit²⁸.

Ryan Allen's translation and original notes are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Anyone may copy, change, print or sell them if they credit Ryan Allen, link to the license and indicate changes. The medieval source text remains in the public domain.

New in this translation

An entry marked with an asterisk was written for this translation, not taken from Paris and Ulrich's lists of 1886.

a bandon

Freely, holding nothing back: Uther's riders throw themselves between the Saxons' ships and their tents.^*

abielir

To please.

accomplissable

Also: acomplissables

One who carries something out.

acorde

An agreement, a settlement.

acoustumeement

As was the custom, regularly.

acreanter

Also: acreanté

To promise, to guarantee.

Adam and Eve

Also: Adan, Evain

The first man and woman, who Christ takes out of hell.

adeser

To touch.

adrechement

Guidance, direction.

adrechier

Also: adrecha

To provide for, to settle in life.

affaitier

Also: afaitier, affaitie

To mend or make ready; affaitie, well brought up.

Agravain

Also: Agrevains

A son of King Lot of Orkney, Gawain's brother.

aiole

A grandmother.

ajorner

Also: ajornerent

To summon someone by letter to appear on a fixed day; the judges summon Merlin's mother to be put to death in forty days.^*

Alain

A kinsman of Joseph of Arimathea who led a company of his own; his story goes into Blaise's book.

alegier

Also: aliege

To grow lighter.

aler

To go; of a person, to pass away.

amentevoir

Also: amenteues, ramentevés

To call to mind, to speak of.

ams

Also: ambes

Both; d'ambes pars, on both sides.

amuir

Also: amui

To lose one's speech.

anemi

Also: anemis

The devil, and the devils as a host, said in the English as the devil: the French names them by it as often as by dyable, and the devil who fathers a child with the older sister is l'anemi.^*

Anglois

The English, the people of England.

anvel

Also: anveus

Yearly.

apenser

To make someone think.

apert

Also: en apert

Open; en apert, openly, in front of everyone.

ardoir

Also: ardera

To burn; burning is the death the law gives Merlin's mother if she can't name the child's father.^*

Arthur

Also: Artus, Artu

The son of Uther and Igraine.

assenement

Advice, guidance.

asseoir

Also: assist le duc

To lay siege to.

astronomie

Also: astrenomie

The art of reading the future in the stars; the seven clerks who know it read there that a child born with no earthly father will be their death.^*

atargier

To delay.

au Noel

Also: al Noel, dou Noel

At Christmas, one of the great feasts at which a king held court; Uther summons his barons and their wives to Carduel for it.^*

auctorité

Authority: the standing of a writing that may be cited as true, as the apostles' writings are; Merlin says Blaise's book won't have it, since Blaise isn't an apostle and writes what Merlin tells him, not what he's seen.^*

aumosne

Charity, a good thing done for God's sake; Merlin tells Blaise that writing the book will be a great one.^*

Aurelius Ambrosius

Also: Aurelius Ambroisius

Pendragon's baptismal name, which the English called him by.

avoutire

Adultery.

baceler

A young man not yet settled in life; the one the devil uses to seduce the first of the three daughters.^*

baissiele

A maidservant.

baptisier

Also: baptisiés

To baptize; the devils complain that the washing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit takes men out of their power, and the holy man tells the mother to have her child baptized as soon as it's born.^*

behourder

Also: behourde, behourdis, behourdé

To joust for sport with heavy lances that have no iron heads.

Blaise

Also: Blaises

The holy man who hears the confession of Merlin's mother and stands by her, and who writes down in a book what Merlin tells him.

boine fin

Also: bonne fin

A good death: dying repentant and at peace with God, having given one's goods away for him. Merlin tells the dying Uther that a good death outweighs all the honors of a life, and that a bad one can lose all the good a life has done.^*

boskillon

Also: boskillons

A woodcutter.

Bretel

Also: Bretiaus

A knight of the Duke of Tintagel's who the duke trusts.

Brons

A brother-in-law of Joseph of Arimathea, who catches the fish laid on Joseph's table beside the vessel.^*

Candeler

Also: Chandeler

Candlemas, the Church's feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple on February 2; the barons ask for the sword to stay in the stone until then.^*

Carduel

A town of the Arthurian stories, which this one places in Wales, where Uther holds court. It's often identified with Carlisle, in northwest England, but the text doesn't tie it to a modern town.

chainne

The Last Supper.

chenu

White-haired; Merlin takes the shape of an old white-haired man to warn Uther.^*

chouller

Also: choulloient

To play soule, a ball game played with crooked sticks.

clarté

Light; the holy man tells the older sister always to sleep where there's light, because the devil hates light above all things.^*

clergie

Learning, the knowledge of clerks, men schooled in letters; Vortigern's advisers say only clerks can learn by it why the tower falls.^*

confanons

Banners carried on lances; the royal ones show the men on shore that the old king's sons have come.^*

confessour

Also: confessours

A confessor, the one who hears a person's sins, sets their penance and advises them; the holy man who stands by the older sister is hers.^*

congié de court

Leave to depart from a lord's court; the duke goes home without it, and Uther calls that a shame done to his court and summons him to answer for it.^*

consillier

To advise; also, to speak together in low voices.

Constans

Also: Constant

A king of England, the father of Moine, Pendragon and Uther.

contrait

Also: contrais

A cripple, a man who can't walk; Merlin sits by the road in that shape and begs of Uther.^*

cotelle

Also: cotele

A short tunic.

couvine

The way someone lives, what they do.

creance

Also: creanche

Belief, faith; the Christian faith in which the holy man teaches the older sister.^*

croche

The crooked stick soule is played with.

cuingnie

An axe; Merlin comes as a woodcutter with one on his shoulder.^*

Damedieu

The Lord God.^*

damoisiele

Also: damoisele, demoisiele

A young woman of good family, not yet married; the story's word for the older sister.^*

dangier

Danger; the woman tells the younger sister that a woman given to all men is out of dangier, out of danger from the law that puts to death a woman taken in adultery.^*

defensable

Able to hold out against an attack.

dehait

Ill luck to, a curse on: Igraine answers Ulfin, who says she'll keep quiet, Dehait qui s'en gardera!, "a curse on whoever keeps quiet about it!"^*

dementer

To mourn aloud.

desconneue

A mistake, taking one person for another.

descouper

To clear of blame.

desfier

Also: desfions

To defy: to declare openly that one owes a lord no more faith and will make war on him; the kin of Moine's murderers defy Vortigern.^*

despaner

Also: despanee

To tear; despanee, torn to rags.

detraire

To tear apart.

deus dragons

Also: doi dragon

The two dragons, one white and one red, that Merlin says lie under the water beneath Vortigern's tower. The older History of the Britons tells of a fatherless boy, a fortress that won't stand, and a red and a white serpent under a pool, and makes the red the Britons and the white the Saxons.^*

devier

Also: devia

To die.

devin

Also: devins

A soothsayer, one who tells what's hidden or the future; what people call Merlin.^*

Dieu tonant

God thundering: the noise of the battle at Salisbury is so great that nobody could have heard God thunder.^*

dist li contes

Also: dit li contes, se taist atant li contes

The story says: the storyteller's words for taking up a thread, Chi endroit dist li contes, "the story says here", set under a large initial, and se taist atant li contes, "here the story falls silent", for setting one down. The parts of this translation begin where the first stands.^*

dormant

Sleeping; en son dormant, in one's sleep.

doulouser

Also: dolousoit

To mourn, to be upset.

dragon vermoil

The red dragon Merlin foretells, which flies through the air over the battle at Salisbury breathing fire, as the sign that the Britons will win; from it Uther takes the name Pendragon. Geoffrey of Monmouth tells instead of a star with a ray shaped like a dragon, and says Pendragon is "a dragon's head" in the British tongue.^*

Ector

Also: Auctor

A worthy knight of Uther's, Kay's father, who Merlin brings the newborn Arthur to raise as his own.

edefis

Also: edefiemens

Buildings.

Ekupedes

A kind of devil that lives in the air, the kind that fathered Merlin; Paris and Ulrich guess the word comes from centaurs.

embarnir

Also: enbarni

To grow strong, properly to come to a man's strength.

embatre

Also: embatirent

To drive in; s'embatre, to come upon a place unawares.

en conseil

In private, in secret.

enchargier

Also: encarchier, encarka

To conceive a child.

enche

Ink; Merlin sends Blaise for ink and parchment to write his book.^*

encuser

Also: encuserai

To accuse.

endementiers

Meanwhile; endementiers que, while.

endroit de

Also: d'endroit

As for, as regards.

engenreure

The fathering of a child.

engien

A trick, a device of cunning: Merlin's word for the deceit by which he gave Uther the duke's shape.^*

England

Also: Engleterre, Engletere

The southern and largest part of Great Britain, where most of this story takes place; the romance doesn't draw its modern borders.

englume

An anvil: the one of iron set on the block of stone, with the sword driven through it to the hilt.^*

ensement

Likewise, in the same way.

ensiant

Knowledge; a son ensiant, as far as he knows.

entechié

Also: entechie

Endowed with good qualities.

entruesque

Also: entrues

While.

erraument

At once.

escommouvoir

To stir, to move.

esmaiier

Also: esmaiiés

To dismay; to lose heart.

esperir

To wake up.

estavoir

Also: estavoirs

What one needs, necessities.

estore

A fleet.

fie

Also: fies

A time, as in once or three times.

fisike

Medicine, the learned art of healing and of the nature of things; for her knowledge of it Morgue is called Morgan le Fay.^*

forche d'art

By force of art: Merlin's skill, by which he brings over from Ireland the stones the king's men couldn't move.^*

gabés

Also: se gabe

To mock, to make fun of: Ulfin tells Igraine she may be mocking him.^*

Gahariès

A son of King Lot of Orkney, Gawain's brother.

galilee

A porch or chapel at the entrance to a church; the block of stone appears before the church door, in front of it.^*

garandir

Also: garandi, warandir

To protect, to keep from harm or death.^*

garce

A girl, a woman of low birth; Kay was nursed on the milk of one so that Arthur could have his mother's. It carries none of the insult of the modern French word.^*

garchon

Also: garchons

A low fellow, a thug; the younger sister brings a crowd of them to her sister's house, and they beat her.^*

garsoil

A word that a passage Paris and Ulrich added says Hengist's daughter was the first to say in England. Geoffrey of Monmouth tells of a daughter of Hengist who greets Vortigern at a feast with a cup of wine and an Old English wish of health, and dates from it the drinking greeting of Britain.^*

gastine

A waste, a wilderness: the deserte gastine where Joseph's people go hungry after Christ's death.^*

Gawain

Also: Gauvain, Gauvains

A son of King Lot of Orkney.

genvre

Young; a child.

guenchir

Also: guenchi

To turn aside, to wheel about.

Guerrehès

A son of King Lot of Orkney, Gawain's brother.

harnas

Baggage and gear: the duke's knights leave theirs behind and keep only their arms and horses, to ride away by night unseen.^*

Hengist

Also: Hangus, Hanguis, Hangu

The leader of the Saxons.

herbegier

To take lodging for the night.^*

heudure

The guard of a sword, the crosspiece between blade and grip; Arthur takes the sword from the stone by it.

heut

The hilt of a sword.

hoir

An heir; Merlin tells Uther he's gained one and must give it up to Merlin, and at Uther's death the land is left without one.^*

Holy Grail

Also: saint graal, graal

The holy vessel of Joseph of Arimathea's story; Merlin tells Blaise he'll go to live among the people who keep it.^*

homme sauvage

A wild man, one who lives in the woods apart from other people; Merlin comes as a woodcutter so shaggy and long-bearded that he looks like one.^*

hosel

Also: housiaus

A legging that covers the leg from ankle to knee.

houmages

Homage, the vow by which a vassal became a lord's man and held land from him; Arthur will take none until he's crowned.^*

hounours

Honors: worldly rank, and the lands and offices that go with it, which a vassal holds from a lord; the barons ask Arthur to give them back theirs to hold from him.^*

huge

A chest, a coffer.

hurepé

Also: hurepés

With hair in disorder, shaggy.

Igraine

Also: Ygerne, Igerne

The Duke of Tintagel's wife.

Ireland

Also: Irlande

The large island west of Great Britain, across the Irish Sea.

iretage

An inheritance, the lands and wealth a person holds from their family; the older sister's from her dead father.^*

jehir

To confess, to own up.

Jesus Christ

Also: Jesucrist, Jesucris, Jhesucrist, Jesus

Christ, whose coming to hell takes from the devils the souls they held.

Jordain

Also: Jourdain, Jourdains

A knight of the Duke of Tintagel's.

jornee

Also: jornees

A day's journey; to go by one's jornees is to travel by day's stages.^*

Joseph of Arimathea

Also: Joseph

The man given Christ's body from the cross, whose story of the Grail Blaise writes into his book.

jovle

Young.

Judas

The apostle who betrayed Christ; the empty place at Joseph's table stands for the one he left at the Last Supper.^*

jungnet

July, "little June": Merlin tells the brothers the Saxons will land on its eleventh day.^*

justiche

Justice in its hard sense, punishment by law; to do justiche of someone is to put them to death.^*

Kay

Also: Ké, Kés

Ector's son, brought up alongside Arthur.

laidengier

To insult, to abuse.

liges

Liege, bound to a lord before all others; Uther calls the respected man who'll raise the child his liege man.^*

lignage

Also: lingnage

A person's kin, their whole family; the kin of Moine's murderers take up the wrong done to them and make war on Vortigern.^*

litiere

A stretcher, a bed on two poles carried by men or slung between two horses; Merlin tells the sick Uther to have himself carried on one to the battle.^*

liue

A measure of road, about three miles; the peasant goes no more than half of one, a mile and a half, before he falls dead.^*

livre des prophecies

The Book of the Prophecies of Merlin, begun when the king and his people resolve to write down whatever Merlin foretells; it holds only what he says, not who he is or where he came from. Geoffrey of Monmouth put a Prophecies of Merlin into his history of the kings of Britain.^*

Logres

The Britons' legendary kingdom, which Uther rules, and in this story also its chief city, where he holds court and dies; neither is on a modern map.

loiier

A reward, a fee paid for a service; the old man asks what reward the king will give.^*

London

Also: Londres

The city on the Thames in southeastern England where Uther is crowned after the battle of Salisbury.^*

los

Advice.

Lot

Also: Loth

King of Orkney, who marries a daughter of Igraine's.

maistre eglise

The chief church of the city, where Arthur keeps his vigil and is crowned.^*

mar

What a pity; to one's cost.

martyre

Also: day of her execution

Martyrdom: a death suffered for one's faith, as the saints suffered theirs; the women and the judges give the name to the burning Merlin's mother is sentenced to, a death she's to suffer innocent, and the English says it as her execution.^*

Mary

Also: sainte Marie

The mother of Christ, who the older sister calls on when she wakes.^*

menistres

Also: menistre

The clergy, who the devils say Christ left on earth to save sinners who repent and do as the clergy tell them.^*

Merlin

Also: Merlins, Mierlin, Mierlins

A child fathered by a devil with a devout woman, who knows what's past from his father and the future from God.

mesaesmer

Also: mesaesmeroit

To look down on, to despise.

mescheoir

Also: meskeu

To go badly for someone.

meserrer

Also: meserra

To go astray.

Moine

King Constans's eldest son, a monk, made king after his father.

monter

Also: monte

To matter, to amount to; also, to climb.

Mordred

Also: Mordrès

A son born to King Lot's wife, named first among Gawain's brothers.

Morgan le Fay

Also: Morgue

A daughter of Igraine's who Uther sends to a house of religion to learn to read and write, where she learns the seven arts, astronomy and medicine.

Morgans

A daughter born out of wedlock, the one King Neutres of Sorhaut marries. Paris and Ulrich's name index runs her and Morgue together, but the French text names them apart.^*

mostres

A portent, a sign shown in the sky: the red dragon is the one Merlin promised.^*

moustier

A church; Pendragon is coming back from one when the next stranger comes to him.^*

Neutres

King of Sorhaut, who marries another of Igraine's daughters.

nonains

Nuns; Merlin takes the messengers to the house of nuns where he's had his mother take the veil.^*

norriche

A nurse who suckles another woman's child. Ector blames Kay's faults on the nurse whose milk he drank in Arthur's place, since a child was thought to take its nature from the milk it sucked.^*

Northumberland

Also: Norhomberlande

The far north of Britain, where Merlin sends Blaise to write his book, a wild country thick with great forests. The name means the land north of the Humber; the romance gives it no modern borders.

nueches

A wedding; Uther and Igraine's is held on the thirteenth day after the meeting that made the peace.^*

ochoison

A cause, a reason.

oes

Use, behalf; a son oes, for himself.

oirre

A road, a journey.

Orkney

Also: Orkenie, Orkanie

The islands north of mainland Scotland, made King Lot's kingdom in this story.

ostoiier

To make war.

palefrois

Riding horses, rather than horses for war; the Saxons offer a hundred a year as tribute with knights, young women, falcons and greyhounds, and the baron who tests Merlin rides one.^*

pavillon

Also: paveillon

A large tent, a king's or a lord's lodging in camp; Hengist comes alone by night to Uther's to kill him.^*

pelerinage

A pilgrimage, a journey to a holy place; the peasant has bought leather to mend his shoes for one.^*

Pendragon

Also: Pandragon, Pandragons

King Constans's second son, Uther's older brother.

penitanche

Also: penitance

Penance, what a confessor sets a sinner who has confessed to make amends; the holy man sets the older sister one for all her life.^*

Penthecouste

Pentecost, the Church's feast of the Holy Spirit's coming to the apostles, one of the great feasts at which a king held court; the brothers hold court at it by the river as the Saxons come, and Uther founds his table at it.^*

perron

A great block of stone, four-sided and thought to be marble, that appears before the church on Christmas morning with an anvil on it and a sword through the anvil.^*

pierres d'Irlande

Also: chimentiere de Salesbieres

The great stones Merlin has brought from Ireland by his art and sets upright over the dead of Salisbury in the burial ground, where the story says they still stand. Geoffrey of Monmouth calls them the Dance of the Giants and has them fetched from Mount Killaraus in Ireland, and says the ring of stones near Salisbury is called Stonehenge in English.^*

plege

Also: plegerons, plegié

Someone who vouches for another's promise with their own life or goods; the messengers vouch for Merlin with their lives, and he calls them the men who vouched for him.^*

pourcach

Contriving, scheming.

pourcachier

Also: pourcacha, porcache, porchacié, pourcache, pourcachiés, pourcachoit, porcachier, pourcacier

To work at, to contrive; to get for someone.

prendre samblance

Also: pris samblanche, pris le samblance, prist la samblance

To take on a shape or a likeness not one's own, as the devils say one of them can take a man's.^*

preudefeme

Also: preudefemes

A decent woman, upright and respected; the French says it of Igraine as it says preudom of a holy or respected man.^*

prevoire

Also: prouvoire, prestre

A priest; the judge's mother's priest, who Merlin says is the judge's true father.^*

privés

Those closest to a lord, the people he trusts with his secrets; Uther tells two of his how he longs for Igraine.^*

prophete

The prophets of the Old Testament, who foretold that the Son of God would come to earth; the devils say they took them for it and held them in hell.^*

puciele

Also: pucieles

A girl not yet married.^*

quinsainne

Two weeks; the day fifteen days off that Merlin and the judge set for the judge's mother to come.^*

raplegier

To vouch for someone with your own life or goods.

regnavle

Also: regnaule

Fitting, right.

reponre

Also: reposte

To hide.

reveler

Also: revelerent

To rebel.

Rome

Also: Romme

The city in central Italy where the pope is based; the story's "law of Rome" means the faith of the Church.

Round Table

Also: table reonde, tierche table

The third table, which Merlin bids Uther found in the name of the Trinity after the table of the Last Supper and Joseph's table; he makes it at Carduel and seats fifty of the worthiest men of the land at it, with one place left empty.^*

sacre

The crowning of a king and his anointing by the archbishop; until it's done, Arthur won't call himself lord of the realm.^*

saint esperit

Also: Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are named together in the washing of baptism and in the sign of the cross.^*

saint Martin

Saint Martin's Day, the feast of Saint Martin of Tours on November 11; Uther dies in the two weeks after it.^*

Salisbury

Also: Salesbieres

The plain around Salisbury, in Wiltshire in southern England, where this story sets the Britons' battle with the Saxons.

Satan

Also: Sathanas

The devil by name; the judge's mother swears by him.^*

saudees

Wages, pay; Merlin speaks of the glorious reward Joseph had for the body of Christ.^*

sauve s'ounour

So long as it's honorable: the one limit set on the gift Uther swears to give Merlin before he knows what it is.^*

Saxons

Also: Saisnes, Saisne

The heathen people from over the sea who come to win England.

segnier

Also: sainne, sainna, sainnierent, saingnierent

To make the sign of the cross on oneself; the holy man tells the older sister to do it every time she lies down and gets up, so that the devil can't trick her.^*

semonre

To summon one's people to arms; Vortigern summons his to meet the brothers' landing.^*

senefiance

Also: senefiances, senefianche, senehances

A meaning, what a sign stands for; Merlin says the dragons' fight has a great one.^*

senescal

Also: senescaus

A steward, the officer who ran a king's household and lands for him, the greatest officer of the court; Vortigern is King Constans's and then King Moine's.^*

seri

Also: serie

Calm, still.

serjans

Also: serjant

A servant who does someone's errands; the older sister sends hers for two women, and the herdsman in the forest calls himself one.^*

set ars

The seven liberal arts, the course of learning of the medieval schools: grammar, rhetoric and logic, then arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. Morgue learns all seven.^*

sollers

Also: saullers

Shoes.^*

sor sains

On relics, the remains of saints; Vortigern makes his messengers swear on them that they'll kill the fatherless child.^*

Sorhaut

King Neutres's kingdom in this story; the text gives no secure place for it on a modern map.

sortir

Also: sorti, sortirent

To foretell by divination; in this story, the clerks reading the stars, the art the text calls astronomy.

sourconsillier

Also: sourconsilla

To give bad advice.

Te Deum laudamus

Latin, "We praise you, God": the hymn of thanks the clergy sing when the sword is found and again when Arthur draws it.^*

teche

Also: teches

A quality, a trait.

Tintagel

Also: Teintaguel, Tintaguel, Tintageul

The coastal headland in Cornwall where this story places the castle of the duke whose wife is Igraine. The castle visible there today was built centuries later.

toises

A measure of length, about six and a half feet; Vortigern's tower stands three or four of them, twenty feet or so, above the ground before it falls each time.^*

Toussains

All Saints' Day, November 1; Ector makes Kay a knight on it.^*

trinité

Also: trinités

The Trinity, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the heathen Saxons don't believe in it, and Merlin bids Uther found the third table in its name.^*

trives

A truce: the king's men ask the Saxons in their castle for one of three months.^*

Ulfin

Also: Urfin, Urfins

An adviser of Uther's.

Ursin

Also: Ursins

An adviser of Pendragon's, sent with two others to ask the Saxons for a truce.^*

Uther

Also: Uther Pendragon, Uter, Uters, Uter Pandragon, Uters Pandragons

King Constans's youngest son, Pendragon's brother, who takes his brother's name when he becomes king.

vaissiel

A vessel; the holy vessel of Joseph's story, the word Merlin uses for his mother, the vessel the devils put him in, and a ship, as the ships Pendragon and Uther bring home.^*

vallet

Also: vallès, varlès

A young man; also a young servant, as the older sister's is.^*

veilla

Kept vigil: the night after the archbishop makes him a knight, Arthur stays awake in prayer in the chief church until day.^*

viers orient

Toward the east, where Pendragon's and Uther's guardians take them, because their forebears came from there. Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, an older telling, sends them over the sea to Brittany.^*

viespres

Also: viespre

Evening, the hour of vespers; Pendragon waits for Merlin until it's past.^*

vieut

Empty.

vilain

Also: vilains

A peasant, a man of low birth who works the land.^*

Vortigern

Also: Vertigier, Vertigiers

King Moine's steward, the most powerful man in the land.

Wales

Also: Gales

The country on the western side of Great Britain where this story places Carduel.

Winchester

Also: Wincestre

A city in Hampshire, inland in southern England, which this story makes a seaport where Pendragon and Uther land.