King Arthur’s Companions

It could take an entire day to list the various knights and companions named and renamed in Arthurian legend, but how many, if any, were real persons? Other than a few minor figures, the only characters who make any sort of appearance in the earlier tales are Guinevere, Kay, Bedivere, Gawain, and Mordred.

Guinevere is Arthur’s wife, and it’s logical to presume he had at least one. But it’s unlikely that a Celtic Arthur would’ve considered a woman to be anything more than valuable property. Her Celtic name, Gwenhwyfar, means “white shadow.” However, in the earliest documents, Gwenhwyfar is neither male nor female, but rather the cause of the strife at Camlann. Later writers took this to mean that she had an affair with Mordred thus sparking the civil war between him and Arthur. However, at least one medieval writer supposed that Gwyn Hyvar was a warrior who brought about the civil war through treachery.

Kay, or Cei as it should be spelled, was probably Arthur’s steward. And Cei bears special mention because his name is actually a shortening of the popular Roman names, Caius and Cato, and provides some proof that vestiges of Roman culture persisted into Arthur’s time. Bedivere is a medieval form of the Celtic Bedwyr, and he’s named as Arthur’s closest friend. Bedwyr seems to be the original prototype for Lancelot. The likelihood that either of these men existed, however, is slim given that they appear superhuman in every story. Kay could be the same as Cato, a real fifth and sixth century petty king, but this is mere speculation.

Gawain makes an appearance in a tenth century Welsh tale, Culhwch and Olwen, as Gwalchmai. In the romances, Gawain is the son of Loth, one of Arthur’s chief enemies, but in the Welsh tale mentioned above, Gwalchmai is the son of Gwyar, evidence that Gawain and Gwalchmai weren’t the same, and that one or both were invented long after Arthur’s time. Based on linguistic evidence, Gwalchmai might actually have evolved into more than one Arthurian character, namely Gawain, Agravaine, Gareth, and Gaheris, incidentally, all sons of Loth in later tales. Gawain is initially a virtuous character, able to resist the temptations of seductive women who appear in such tales as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. But by the time of Sir Thomas Malory, the noble Sir Galahad replaces Gawain as the hero in such stories, and the once great warrior becomes a brawler, a drunkard, and a liar.

Mordred gets a fleeting mention in The Annals of Wales, but doesn’t show up again until the romances. Mordred could be the same as the Celtic king Medrawd, a warrior king who lived in the generation after Arthur supposedly did, and who was in the frontlines of the continuing wars against the Saxons. He is a hero rather than a villain. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, he is merely the nephew of King Arthur. In later romances, his deeds become increasingly vile, and his behavior is explained by making him the bastard son of Arthur, the evil spawn of an incestuous seduction.

Ostensibly, the idea of the Knights of the Round Table is yet another medieval invention, a symbol for egalitarianism in a world where inequality prevailed. In fact, Arthur came to represent an idyllic world of fantastic possibilities where one could escape from day-to-day drudgery and hardships.