Listeneise

Lands of the Two Marches, Listinoise

Malory gives Pellam as King of Listeneise and Pelles as King of the Waste Lands. Phyllis Ann Karr belive Pelles and Pellam to be one and the same. Therefore she feels justified in identifying Listeneise with "The Waste Lands", "The Lands of the Two Marches", and "The Foreign Country" of the Grail Adventures. It is the country of the Grail, which the maimed Fisher King keeps at Carbonek Castle; "three countries" were laid waste by the Dolorous Stroke. Listeneise seems also, however, sometimes to play the role of a more normal country, with Pellam carrying out the usual political functions of a king.

For various reasons, Listeneise is placed in the present-day Lake District, which is in Cumberland and Westmoreland Counties, due east of the Isle of Man, and includes the Cumbrian Mountains, Windermere, Derwentwater, and Skiddaw Peak. One of Karr's reasons is that Rosemary Sutcliff points out that the Lake land remains unmentioned in the Domesday book, which ends abruptly at the Cumberland fells. Remaining unincorporated and Norse-Saxon in Norman England, the Lake District may have acquired an aura of mystery which carried over into Malorian legend. Also, the Isle of Man makes a very handy Sarras.