17 Facts About Mordred

The name Mordred, found as the Latinised Modredus in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, comes from Old Welsh Medraut.

The earliest surviving mention of Mordred is found in an entry for the year 537 in the chronicle Annales Cambriae, which references his name in an association with the Battle of Camlann.

However, the angry Mordred kills the monk before he can finish.

The Prose Lancelot indicates Mordred was about 22 years old at the time, as well as just two years into his knighthood.

The Alliterative Morte Arthure is a unique text in which Mordred is reluctant to be left by Arthur in charge of Britain.

In Henry of Huntingdon's retelling of Geoffrey's Historia, Mordred is beheaded at Camlann in a lone charge against him and his entire host by Arthur himself, who suffers many injuries in the process.

Conversely, Margam Abbey's chronicle Annales de Margan claims Arthur had been buried alongside Mordred, here described as his nephew, in another tomb purportedly exhumed in the "real Avalon" at Glastonbury Abbey.

In Ly Myreur des Histors by Belgian writer Jean d'Outremeuse, Mordred survives the great battle and rules with the traitorous Guinevere until they are defeated and captured by Lancelot and King Carados in London.

Guinevere is then executed by Lancelot and Mordred is entombed alive with her body, which he consumes before dying of starvation.

In early literature derived from Geoffrey's Historia, Mordred was considered the legitimate son of Arthur's sister or half-sister queen named Anna or Gwyar and her husband Lot, the king of either Lothian or Orkney.

The 14th-century Scottish chronicler John of Fordun claimed that Mordred was the rightful heir to the throne of Britain, as Arthur was an illegitimate child.

In John Mair's Scottish Historia Maioris Britanniae, Arthurus, Modred and Valvanus were all said to be underage and thus unfit to rule, with Arthur described as a bastard, though Mordred is not being depicted heroically, as he seizes both the throne and Guanora with help from mercenaries.

Willing adultery is still tied to her role in these later romances, but Mordred has been replaced as her lover by Lancelot.

Since Geoffrey, Mordred is often said to be succeeded by his sons.

Guinevere had been asked by Mordred to flee with them to Ireland, but she instead returns to Arthur's Caerleon without care or concern for the children's safety.

The elder of Mordred's sons is named Melehan or Melian, but he the younger one in the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle.

Virtually everywhere Mordred appears, his name is synonymous with treason.