Gore

Goirre, Gor, Gorre, Gors, Gourre

A kingdom which is primarily associated with the medieval French romances and tales. Gore is often depicted as a distant land, sometimes located across the sea from the realm of Camelot. The exact location and characteristics of Gore can vary depending on the specific version of the legend.

Gore is frequently portrayed as an enchanted and otherwordly land. It is often depicted as a place where magical happenings and supernatural events take place. In some Arthurian tales, particularly those connected with the quest for the Grail, Gore is linked to the Grail Castle.

The Fisher King, who is often associated with the Grail, may be found in Gore, also known as Gorre, and knights embark on quests to heal the wounded king and restore the land ot its former glory. The concept of Gore is sometimes connected to the Waste Land motif, a theme in Arthurian legend where a once-prosperoous land becomes barren and desolate due to a spiritual or moral ailment. The healing of the Waste Land is often tied to the successful completion of the Grail Quest.

Gore appears in various medieval romances and Arthurian literature, including the works of French poets such as Chrétien de Troyes and Robert de Boron. These poets played a significant role in shaping the Arthurian legend during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Gore is sometimes linked to other realms in the Arthurian legend, such as Logres, Camelot, and Avalon. The relationships between these lands contribute to the complex and interconnected nature of Arthurian mythology.

One of the most famous appearances of Gore is in the Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, which is a series of medieval French prose romances that forms a comprehensive account of the Arthurian legend. In this cycle, Gore is often depicted as a mysterious and perilous land, sometimes ruled by a king or lord who opposes Arthur and his knights. The significance of Gore within the Arthurian legend can vary. In some versions, it’s simply a place that knights must venture to as part of their quests, while in others, it may be a center of conflict or a symbol of the challenges and adversaries that the Arthurian knights face.

From the Vulgate we learn that this important though apparently small kingdom, the strongest of its size in Great Britain, borders on Sugales and is surrounded by water, the Tembre (Dark River) being its boundary toward Logres. It’s bordering Scotland from which it was separated by the River Tember. By the dictionairy, a gore can be a triangular peice of land, a promontory, or a wedge-shaped portion of a field.

We are almost certainly safe in assuming Sugales to be South Wales. In southwest Wales is a peninsula, the one including the city of Pembroke, which as a city named Tenby near where it connects with the mainland. I would make this peninsula the kingdom of Gore, or Gore could be the whole southwestern tip, comprising more or less the present-day county of Pembroke, with the city of Pembroke as Gaihom.

The above were Phyllis Ann Karr’s thoughts in 1982. Chrétien de Troyes, however, describes it as a wild northern kingdom, first featured in Lancelot. He clearly names Bath as one of King Bademagu’s court cities. This would place his land of Gore in the Bristol area, south of the Cotswolds, on the southern shore of the Bristol Channel, which would be the “arm of the sea” mentioned in the Lancelot. In the tales, it borders on North Wales or Scotland, and is surrounded by water.

Chrétien actually calls Gore “the kingdom from which no stranger returns.” Its bridges – the Water Bridge and the Sword Bridge – resemble the bridges to the Christian afterlife as described in such medieval eschatological romances as the widespread accounts of Saint Patrick’s Purgatory. Chrétien’s translator D.D.R. Owen cites an explanation of the name “Gorre” as a corruption of Old French voirre (“glass,” suggesting an identification of Gore with Glastonbury – which is also commonly recognized as Avalon, where Arthur was taken after his last battle.

If one of Arthur’s knights entered it, only Lancelot could rescue him. How so many strangers managed to stray into a land accessible only by the Water Bridge and the Sword Bridge – the first has as much water over as under it, and no man before Lancelot ever crossed the latter and lived – remains unexplained, although we find many prisoners living in the marches of Gore, on the Logres (England) side of the perilous bridges. (Do the marches of Gore equate with Purgatory?) It also remains a mystery how the natives of Gore can exercise their right to come and go freely: by which bridge, for instance, does Meliagrant cross fully armed, on horseback, and later bring Guenevere and Kay, the latter on a litter, back to his father’s castle on the far side of the bridges? Lancelot’s success made Gore open for anyone, including the former prisoners, to come and go freely – again, how and by what (new?) bridges? Although it has otherwordly features, it may preserve a memory of the Celtic kingdom of Rheged.

Christopher W. Bruce writes in his “Arthurian Name Dictionary:”

In the tales, it borders on North Wales or Scotland, and is surrounded by water. It could only be entered by two perilous bridges: the Sword Bridge and the Underwater Bridge. Its inaccesibility lends it an otherwordly aura. Chrétien’s geography suggest an identification with Anglesey or the Isle of Man.
. . .
Attempts have been made to identify Gorre with the peninsula of Gower in Wales. It is more likely a corruption of “Glass”, either through the Welsh ‘gutr’ or the French ‘voire’. The Island of Glass is the realm of King Melwas, Meleagant’s counterpart in Welsh legend.

All in all, Lancelot’s rescue of Guenevere and the other prisoners looks very much like a secularized pastiche of Christ’s “Harrowing of Hell.” This is no way precludes the strong likelihood that it also derives from Pagan views of the Otherworld. This could help explain the strange atmosphere pervading Chrétien’s recounting of the episode, which may be a late version of a Pagan myth, but at the same time provides our first known account with Lancelot as hero and thus may well have been the springboard for later Arthurian retellings.

The Vulgate Lancelot gives a further rationalized and secularized history of Gore. Uther Pendragon warred against Gore’s first king, Uriens, hoping to subjugate the land, captured him, and threatened to hang him. Uriens’ nephew Baudemagus (or Bagdemagus) surrendered the land in order to save Uriens’ life. Uriens later reconquered Gore and gave it to Bagdemagus as a reward for his loyalty. After Bagdemagus’ coronation, Uriens retired into a hermitage. (Possibly that explains his wife Morgan’s independent castles and various lovers. Malory, however, has Uriens becoming a knight of the Round Table.)

Bagdemagus, in order to repopulate his war-wasted kingdom, established the custom of two bridges, the pont desouz ewe (bridge under water) of one beam, and the pont despee (sword bridge) of a single plank of steel. Each bridge had a knight guardian; everyone – knights, ladies, and others – who crossed either bridge was made to swear to stay in Gore until a strong champion arrived who could deliver them. Escades, the guardian of the pont despee, was succeeded by Bagdemagus’ son Meliagrant, a proud and evil-disposed knight who thought himself as good as Lancelot. Almost needless to say, Lancelot was the champion who eventually delivered the prisoners.

Elsewhere in the Vulgate, it appears that these prisoners were not confined in the territory on the Gore side of the bridge, but also resided in a largish area called the Terre Foraine (Strange Land) before the bridges were reached (in Chrétien’s account, we find “foreign” prisoners living on both sides of the bridges). Except that they could not move away until freed by their champion, and that they wore a distinctive type of dress, the prisoners seemed to live comfortably and under no restraint save their parole. The Terre Foraine of Gore would be its marches, or borders.

Gore and Gorre

In Arthurian legends and romances, “Gore” and “Gorre” are similar-sounding names, but they often refer to different places or settings in the various versions of the Arthurian stories. However, the distinction between the two can vary depending on the specific tale and the interpretation of Arthurian lore by different authors and sources. Here’s a general overview of each:

Gore
“Gore” is sometimes referred to as “Gore” or “Gorre,” and it is typically associated with the mystical and enchanted realm in Arthurian legends. In some Arthurian tales, Gore is depicted as a wondrous, otherwordly place inhabited by magical beings, and it is often considered one of the lands of adventure and mystery associated with the Arthurian knights.

It is sometimes linked to the Grail Quest, with knights like Sir Percival or Sir Galahad embarking on quests to reach the Grail Castle in Gore.

Gorre
“Gorre” is a term that has been used to refer to a geographical location, but its precise location and nature can differ in different Arthurian stories. In some versions of the legend, Gorre is described as a kingdom or land, and it may be associated with the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table.

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Goirre, Gor, Gorre, Gors, Gourre

Gore and Gorre

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