Waste


    1. Waste Castle
      Poor Castle

      A manor inhabited by the impoverished Poor Knight and his two maiden daughters. It served as lodging for Gawain and Lancelot on one occasion. It was also called the Poor Castle.


    2. Waste Chapel
      Gaste Capiele

      The location of the tomb of Canaan, a follower of Joseph of Arimathea who slew his twelve brothers. The brothers were all buried with their swords on their tombs. After the burial, the swords unexpectedly stood upright and Canaan’s tomb became engulfed in flames.

      Gawain and Hector visited the Chapel, but were driven back by the swords. It was Lancelot’s noble presence that finally caused the fire to be extinguished.


    3. Waste Chapel
      Gaste Capiele

      A perilous chapel near the city of Cardigan.

      It was surrounded by all kinds of supernatural perils, beasts, and brambles. King Ris of Outre-Ombre, an enemy of Arthur, braved the chapel and left a cloth on the altar. Later, he offered to grant any favor to the knight who would brave the Waste Chapel by taking a pair of shackles (intended for Arthur when Ris conquered him) to the altar. None of Ris’s knights would brave the chapel, but Lady Lore of Cardigan, whose city Ris had conquered, saw a chance to reclaim her sovereignty.

      She took the shackles to the chapel. Lore saw two dark men in flames tossing around a decapitated head on the way. When she got to the chapel, she was followed by a knight who buried the body of the slain Bleheri, who turned out to be the father of Meriadeuc, the knight Lore eventually married. Lore took a sword from Bleheri’s body and later gave it to Meriadeuc. Meriadeuc eventually visited the Waste Chapel and paid homage to his father’s body.

      See also
      Perilous Cemetery | The Legend of King Arthur


    4. Waste Chapel
      Perilous Chapel

      Another name for the Perilous Chapel in the Perilous Cemetery in Perlesvaus. It shares many characteristics with the Waste Chapel of Meriadeuc.


    5. Waste City
      Gaste Citié

      A supernatural, ruined city in Perlesvaus. Lancelot visited the Waste City and was challenged to a Beheading Game by one of the residents. By honoring his pledge to return in a year and face death, Lancelot ended a curse and saved the Waste City and its people.

      In the Fourth Continuation of Chrétien's Perceval, the king of the Waste City attacks Gornemant of Gohort, but is driven away by Perceval.


    6. Waste Forest
      Desolate Forest, Gaste Forest

      The forest where Perceval was born and raised by his mother in Chrétien’s Perceval.

      One day he encountered some knights, which prompted him to leave the Forest and travel to Arthur’s court to become a knight himself, causing his mother to die of grief. In the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, it is also the home of Perceval’s aunt, who Perceval visits during the Grail Quest. It was situated on the edge of the Waste Land and contained the river Morcoise (Marcoisa).

      Wolfram von Eschenbach calls this region Soltane.


      See also
      Edyope | The Legend of King Arthur


    7. Waste Fountain

      Knights from the Waste Fountain participated in the tournament in which Bliocadran, Perceval’s father, was killed.


    8. Waste Land
      Desert, Deserted Land, Land Laid Waste, Strange Land, Terre Gaste, Terre Gastee

      Also known as the Strange Land, the Waste Land was the kingdom destroyed in holy retribution for the Dolorous Stroke (or, in one version, for Perceval’s failure to ask the Grail Question). To those stories that include it, it is identical to the Grail Kingdom, sometimes called Listeonis. The Vulgate Estoire del Saint Graal says that it also included Wales. (The country of Dyfed in Wales, interestingly, is laid waste by an enchantment under different circumstances in the early non-Arthurian tale of Manawydan.) In the Didot-Perceval, the Waste Land encompasses all of Great Britain. The Waste Land’s ruler was the Grail King or Fisher King.

      The Waste Land is first found in the First Continuation of Chrétien’s Perceval, where the sickness of the land is linked to the illness and infertility of the Maimed King. (This link forms the most cogent argument of scholars who propose an agrarian ritual origin for the Grail legend.) The Waste Land resulted from use, in combat, of the Grail Sword. Neither the land nor the king could be healed until some knight asked the Fisher King to explain the marvels of the Grail. After Perceval failed to ask the question during his visit to the Fisher King’s castle, Gawain partially healed the land and king by inquiring about the Bleeding Lance. The theme of a land under a spell which a question will undo is pervasive in fairy tales and folklore, and the idea that the health of the land and the ruler were one is common in Celtic folktale. We find a particularly relevant example in the Welsh story of Branwen, in which Bran, King of Britain, is wounded in the foot by a poisoned spear during an expedition to Ireland. As a result, Britain falls waste. Bran has been viewed by many as the progenitor of the Fisher King.

      In the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, Perceval’s aunt is called the "Queen of the Waste Land" (see her entry below). She instructs Perceval during the Grail Quest. Malory names her as one of the four queens who takes Arthur’s body from the battlefield of Salisbury to the island of Avalon. A "Knight of the Waste Land" is defeated by Arthur in Le Chevalier du Papegau.


    9. Waste Land
      Land Laid Waste, Terre Desert, Terre Gaste

      The region of France ruled by Claudas, the mortal enemy of Lancelot and his family. Orignally called Berry, the land was renamed after Uther Pendragon and Aramont of Brittany destroyed it and turned it into a desert as part of their campaign against Claudas.


    10. Waste Lands, Queen of the

      While on the Grail Quest, Galahad encountered Lancelot and Percivale in a "waste forest", before the hermitage of a female recluse. When Galahad had unhorsed Lancelot and Percivale, the recluse hailed him, saying,

      An yonder two knights had known thee as well as I do they would not have encountered with thee.

      At this, Galahad departed hastily, lest she reveal his identity. Lancelot also rode off on his own, but Percivale, returning to the hermitess, learned that she was his aunt.

      For some called me sometime the Queen of the Waste Lands, and I was called the queen of most riches in the world; and it pleased me never my riches so much as doth my poverty.

      She revealed to Percivale that his mother had died, explained to him certain matters concerning the significance of the Round Table and the Sangreal, and counseled him to find Galahad again, beginning at Goothe Castle,

      where he hath a cousin-germain, and there may ye be lodged this night.

      Goothe must have been in the vicinity of the queen's hermitage. If unsuccessful in getting news of Galahad at Goothe, Percivale was to ride on straight to Carbonek.

      Lancelot also, later in the Grail Quest, received sound counsel and advice, as well as dinner, from a recluse. Lancelot's recluse might have been the Queen of the Waste Lands again, or she might have been an entirely different holy woman. She seems to have lived in a deep valley, near a mountain difficult of ascent, with a river in the vicinity - I would hazard a guess that the site might conceivably be somewhere in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire.

      Presumably the Queen of the Waste Lands who comes with Morgan, Nimue, and the Queen of Norgales to carry Arthur away after the last battle is the same Queen of the Wastle Lands who appears in the Grail Adventures. If so, the presence of a Christian mystic and holy woman with two queens who have generally, up to now, been characterized as wicked enchantresses is very interesting.

      From Malory alone, the Queen of the Waste Lands appears to have been Pellam's wife, the couple living apart for greater purity. Tennyson, though skimming over Elaine of Carbonek and giving his own unsympathetic interpretation of Pellam, seems obliquely to second this theory in the idyll Balin and Balan:

      Pellam ... hath pushed aside his faithful wife.

      The Vulgate, however, makes her the widow of a man killed in an earlier war - possibly King Lambor, Pellam's grandfather. This would make her Percivale's great-great-aunt and quite a venerable, aged dame. Here too she has a son, Dables (Orabiax, Dyabel, etc.) who goes to Pellam to be knighted.

      There may also be some connection or confusion between the Queen of the Waste Lands and la Veuve Dame de la Gast Forest Soutaine.


    11. Waste Manor

      An evil residence in Arthur’s kingdom. Lancelot killed its lord, so its occupants were prone to attack Arthur’s knights. Its prince, Meliant, joined Brian of the Isles in a war against Arthur.