Sir Yvain

In Arthurian legend, Ywain , also known as Yvain and Owain among other spellings (''Ewaine'', ''Ivain'', ''Ivan'', ''Iwain'', ''Iwein'', ''Uwain'', ''Uwaine'', ''Ywan'', etc.), is a Knight of the Round Table. Tradition often portrays him as the son of King Urien of Gorre and of either the enchantress Modron or the sorceress Morgan le Fay. The historical Owain mab Urien, the basis of the literary character, ruled as the king of Rheged in Britain during the late-6th century.

Yvain was one of the earliest characters associated with King Arthur. He was also one of the most popular, starring as the eponymous hero in Chrétien de Troyes' late-12th-century ''Yvain, the Knight of the Lion'' and appearing prominently in many later accounts, often accompanied by his fierce pet lion. He remains Urien's son in virtually all literature in which he appears, whereas other Arthurian-legend characters based on historical figures usually lost their original familial connections in romance literature.

Medieval literature

Ywain (Yvain) takes his name from Owain mab Urien (Owain son of Urien), a historical figure of the 6th-century Brythonic kingdom of Rheged (in today's northern England and southern Scotland) at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. His name was recorded in the bardic tradition of Taliesin and became a legendary character in the Welsh Triads, where his father, sister, horse and personal bard are all acclaimed but his wife Penarwan is named one of the "Three Faithless Wives of Britain", along with her sister Esyllt (Iseult, Tristan's love). In Geoffrey of Monmouth's ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' c. 1136, he is only mentioned in passing, as succeeding his uncle, Auguselus (Angusel), King of Albany (northern Scotland).

The settlers of Brittany brought much of their insular British culture when they came to the continent, and in the 12th century, updated versions of Breton lais and stories became popular with French audiences. The French poet Chrétien de Troyes wrote the romance ''Yvain, the Knight of the Lion'' at the same time he was working on ''Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart'' during the 1170s. In it, the eponymous hero Yvain seeks to avenge his cousin Calogrenant who had been defeated by an otherworldly knight beside a magical storm-making fountain in the forest of Brocéliande. Yvain defeats the knight, Esclados, and falls in love with his widow Laudine. With the aid of Laudine's servant Lunete, Yvain wins his lady and marries her, but his cousin Gawain convinces him to embark on chivalric adventure. Yvain's wife assents but demands he return after a set period of time, but he becomes so enthralled in his knightly exploits that he forgets his lady, and she bars him from returning. Yvain goes mad with grief and lives naked in the woods (probably the earliest instance of a hero's mental illness in French literature, which later became a popular motif), but eventually is cured by Morgan and decides to win back his love. A lion he rescues from a dragon proves to be a loyal companion and a symbol of knightly virtue, and helps him complete his quest, which includes defeating the giant Harpins and two demons. In the end, Laudine, rescued from the stake, allows him and his lion to return to her fortress.

Chrétien's ''Yvain'' had a huge impact on the literary world; German poet Hartmann von Aue used it as the basis for his Middle High German court epic ''Iwein'', while the author of '' Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain'', one of the Welsh Romances included in the ''Mabinogion'', tells essentially the same story, recasting the work in a Welsh setting. The story exists in several further versions in different languages, including the Middle English ''Ywain and Gawain''. However, the mysterious 14th-century so-called Prose ''Yvain'' is a mostly unrelated text and not an actual prosification of Chrétien's poem. It contains only one Yvain episode, telling of his rescue of the lion, followed by several more unrelated episodes in which Yvain is no longer main character. Yvain appears also in numerous other romances. In some of them he has alternate family relations, for example his father in '' Sir Perceval of Galles'' is named Asoure and in ''Claris et Laris'' (where Yvain kills the king of Turkey, Corsabrin) he has a sister named Marine.

As Yvain the Great or Yvain the Tall (''Yvain le Grand''), also known as Yvain the Valiant (''Yvain le Preux''), he appears in all the 13th-century prose accounts of the Vulgate Cycle and the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and consequently in Thomas Malory's ''Le Morte d'Arthur''. Yvain's mother is often said to be King Arthur's half-sister, making him Arthur's nephew. This sister is Morgan in the Post-Vulgate Cycle and ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' (causing Yvain to be banished from the court of Camelot after Morgan's attempts on Arthur's life), but other works name another of their siblings, such as Queen Brimesent in the Vulgate ''Merlin''. Yvain is nephew of Morgause and King Lot, and thus cousin to Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris, Gareth and Mordred. He has a half-brother (with whom he is often confused) named Yvain the Bastard, son of Urien and his seneschal's wife (and also another half-brother named Galeguinant in the Prose ''Lancelot''). In his version, Malory merged Yvain the Great with the character of Yvain of the White Hands, previously an unrelated Knight of the Round Table, and also made him father of Yder.

In the cyclical prose tradition, Yvain fights in Arthur's war against the Saxons (Saracens in the English versions), Lucius

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