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 The Lady of the Lake
was the foster-mother of
Sir Lancelot and it was she who raised him beneath the murky
waters of her Lake. She is, however, best known for presenting the
wondrous sword Excalibur to
King Arthur, at the behest of
Merlin or Myrddin who knew that the young king would need such
powers as the sword would give him if he were to prevail in his mission.
But before
King Arthur was born, Merlin had met the
Lady at the Fountain of Barenton or Brittany and fallen so deeply in love
with her that he agreed to teach her all his mystical powers.
The lady
became Merlin's scribe, who recorded his prophecies, and finally she
beguiled him and he became her
lover. But, with time, the Lady's magical skills grew ever more powerful
till she outshone even her teacher, so and she
imprisoned him in Glass Tower or dungeon.
At King Arthur's Court, she
came to take Merlin's position. And yet it soon became clear that Merlin's
absence contributed considerably to the great king's loss of good fortune. The
Lady of the Lake was eventually obliged to received her sword back when
King Arthur
was fatally wounded at the
Battle of Camlann. Excalibur was hurled
back to misty waters by Sir Bedivere. She was later one of the three Queens who escorted
the King to Avalon.
 The three Queens who arrived with
Morgan Le Fay
were the Queen of Northgales, the Queen of the Waste Land, and Nimue or
Niniane the Lady of the Lake. They took King Arthur to the
Isle of Avalon
where Morgan Le Fay healed his wounds.
The Lady of the Lake
is usually referred to by various spellings of the names Nimue, Niniane or
Vivienne. Nimue may be related to Mneme, the shortened form of Mnemosyne, one of the nine
water-nymph Muses of Roman and Greek Mythology who gave weapons, not
unlike King Arthur's sword, to the heroic Perseus.
 The name Vivienne suggests
that the
Celtic word for the Lady's name would have been Vi-Vianna. This
might suggest a derivation from Co-Vianna, which is a
variant of the widespread Celtic water-goddess, Coventina.
Thus the
Romans may well have identified the Celtic water
 goddess with their own
Mnemosyne. She was celebrated for her impressive shrine at Brocolitia or
Carrawburgh on Habrian's Wall. Here a square temple surrounded a central
pool fed by a spring. Jewellery, coins and small bronze figurine
offerings have been excavated. Her name may also relate to Merlin's original
partner in early poetry, his wife Gwendoloena.
Since the Lady of the
Lake's place as Merlin's student and lover was largely overtaken by
Morgan Le Fay, a lady whose very name in Breton indicates a water-nymph,
it seems that two may have been aspects of the same character or
different names for the same character. Indeed, as
both appear among the three queens who escort King Arthur to the
Isle of Avalon, she may
have had a third aspect making up the well-known recently popular theme of a Celtic
triple-goddess.
Water deities were ever present amongst the ancient
British for it was they who controlled life itself, and were living as
they moved. The moving
water of springs, rivers and lakes showed that
the supernatural powers of the goddesses who lived within. Offerings of
weapons and other valuables were commonly made into such watery places.
Rivers and waters may have also held a symbolic position as a threshold
between the living and the dead.
Casting swords into the water was a
gift to the Otherworld. The practice continues today when people throw
coins
 into wishing wells and into rivers waters under bridges, as an
invocation of good luck or when they make a wish.
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