Erec
Erec, son of King Lac, is a knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is most famous as the protagonist in Chrétien de Troyes' first romance, Erec and Enide, which was later retold in Erec, Erex saga, and other versions. Because of Erec and Enide's connection to the Welsh tale Geraint and Enid, Erec is conflated in the latter with the Welsh folklore hero Geraint.
Names
[edit]Variants of his name include the Old French forms Érec,[1] Erés,[2] Eret, Herec, Heret;[3] the Middle German Êrec; the Italian Arecco, Arech, Erecche, Ereccho;[4] the Middle English Errake;[5] and the Norse Erex. Often attached to his name is the moniker "son of [King] Lac" (examples: le fils Lac,[6] le filz Lac,[3] fil de roi Lac,[7] fils du roi Lac,[6] le filz au Roy Lac[3]).
Origins
[edit]According to a popular theory by Roger Sherman Loomis and others, Erec's name is derived from that of Guerec, the Breton version of Gweir,[8] the Welsh name of one of King Arthur's warrior and relative in their early, native Arthurian tradition and possibly the prototype of both Gaheris and Gareth.[9] According to John T. Koch and other including Loomis and Dan Merkur, Gweir may be a variant of Gwri, another name of Pryderi in the Welsh tale Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed.[10] The father of Gweir in Kilhwch is named Llwch, the Welsh word that means 'lake', just like does the French name of Erec's father, Lac.[11]
Joseph Loth and others also connected Erec/Guerec to the historical figure of Guerec (Guerech), the count of Nantes who co-ruled with his brother Hoel (Hoël).[12][13] Rachel Bromwich identified Erec with the historical Gwerec (Werec, Waroch), the 6th-century Breton count of Vannes; in their theory of Sarmatian roots of the Arthurian legend, C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor proposed that this Gwerec (Gueréc) of Vannes may have been an Alan if his name was indeed the same as that of the "unquestionably Alan" Goeric.[14]
In Crestien's Erec Lac is the father of one whose name has developed through natural processes from that of Curoi. For Curoi as we have seen became Gwri, and Loth has pointed out that the original form of the name of Lac's son was Guerec. Guerec was a historic figure famous in Brittany, and the eternal urge to lend familiarity to the strange Welsh names (...) very naturally led the Bretons to substitute the familiar name Guerec for the unfamiliar Gwri. Guerec in French degenerated into Erec, the name under which Crestien introduces us to Lac's son. Guerec also found its way back to Welsh ears, and not being recognized as a corruption of Gwri, suggested in turn the name of a Welsh hero, Geraint, familiar as the son of Erbin. Thus Geraint the son of Erbin and Erec the son of Lac are both derived from Gwri the son of Llwch.
Legend
[edit]In Chrétien's story, Erec meets his future wife, Enide, while on a quest to defeat a knight who had mistreated one of Queen Guinevere's servants. The two fall in love and marry, but rumours spread that Erec no longer cares for knighthood or anything else besides his domestic life. Enide cries about these rumours, causing Erec to prove his abilities, both to himself and to his wife, through a test of Enide's love for him. Erec has her accompany him on a long, tortuous trip where she is forbidden to speak to him, after which they reconcile. When Erec's father Lac dies, Erec inherits his kingdom. The Norse version Erex saga gives him two sons, named Llac and Odus, who later both become kings. The story of Erec and Enide is also retold within the Prose Tristan.
Enide is entirely absent from the Prose Erec segment of the Post-Vulgate Cycle (beginning in La Folie Lancelot and concluded in the P-V Queste[16]), in which Erec's mother's enchantment makes him immune to magic. His acts include saving Bors from the enchanter Mabon; he also has a cousin named Driadam, whose death begins Erec's feud with the young Mordred. In the Post-Vulgate Quest of the Holy Grail, Erec unwillingly murders his sister[17] on behalf of an evil lady and is later slain by Gawain in revenge for the death of Yvain of the White Hands, and does not regain his father's kingdom; his seat at the Round Table is taken by his friend Meraugis, who had buried him. In the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Erec dies during the final battle between the forces of Arthur and Mordred.
In Lanzelet, Erec and Gawain agree to be delivered as prisoners to the great wizard Malduc (whose father was killed by Erec), so that Guinevere can be rescued from King Valerin's castle; they are then tortured and almost starved to death in Malduc's dungeon, until they are eventually themselves rescued. In Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a knight called Sir Harry le Fise du Lake (Malory's corruption of the French [H]erec le fils Lac) participates in Lancelot's rescue of Guinevere from the stake due to Malory associating "Lac" with "Lancelot du Lac".[18]
References
[edit]- ↑ De Troyes, Chrétien (1977). Érec et Énide: roman (in French). Champion. ISBN 978-2-85203-009-1.
- ↑ West, G. D. (1969). An Index of Proper Names in French Arthurian Verse Romances, 1150-1300. University of Toronto P. ISBN 978-0-8020-5226-1.
- 1 2 3 Bogdanow, Fanni (2015-11-13). La folie Lancelot: A hitherto unidentified portion of the Suite du Merlin contained in MSS B.N. fr. 112 and 12599 (in French). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-132803-4.
- ↑ Gardner, Edmund G. (1930). The Arthurian Legend in Italian Literature. J.M. Dent & Sons Limited.
- ↑ Turville-Petre, Thorlac (2019-06-26). Alliterative Poetry of the Later Middle Ages: An Anthology. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-57543-3.
- 1 2 Nickel, Helmut (2025-02-15). Arthur's Miscellany: Aspects of King Arthur, From Shields of Power to the Questing Beast. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-3981-2440-0.
- ↑ Verbeke, Werner (1987). Arturus Rex: Acta Conventus lovaniensis 1987. Leuven University Press. ISBN 978-90-6186-461-5.
- ↑ Loomis, Roger Sherman (1961). "Arthurian Tradition & Chrétien de Troyes".
- ↑ Bruce, Christopher W. (1999). The Arthurian Name Dictionary. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-8153-2865-0.
- ↑ Melrose, Robin (2014-01-10). The Druids and King Arthur: A New View of Early Britain. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-6005-2.
- ↑ Grant, Kenneth; Webster, Tremayne (1951). Lanzelet: A Romance of Lancelot. Columbia University Press.
- ↑ Loomis, Roger Sherman (1926). Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-90576-3.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - ↑ Hopkins, Annette Brown (1913). The Influence of Wace on the Arthurian Romances of Crestian de Troies. George Banta Publishing Company.
- ↑ Littleton, C. Scott; Malcor, Linda A. (2013-10-23). From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-77771-7.
- ↑ Loomis, Roger Sherman (2014-09-01). Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance. Academy Chicago Publishers. ISBN 978-1-61373-211-3.
- ↑ Dover, Carol (2003). A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. DS Brewer. ISBN 978-0-85991-783-4.
- ↑ Lacy, Norris J. (2010). Lancelot-Grail: The post-Vulgate Quest for the Holy Grail & the post-Vulgate Death of Arthur. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-84384-233-0.
- ↑ Karr, Phyllis Ann (1997). The Arthurian Companion: The Legendary World of Camelot and the Round Table. Chaosium. p. 227. ISBN 978-1-56882-096-5.