A rose left on a graveA truth told about a marriageThe first cup at a feastA candle for a queen who was blamedA garland of may flowers
Invocation Approach
Tone
Dignified grieving lucid
Address
GuinevereGwenhwyfarMy QueenLady of Camelot
Relationship
A queen who paid for a love she did not invent
Warning
The story blames her for a war that was made by men
Resonance
Those who have been the reason given for a collapse women in hard marriages
Symbols
The crownThe may garlandThe veilThe abbeyThe throne beside the king
Mythology Summary
Guinevere is already Arthur's queen in the earliest Welsh prose, Culhwch and Olwen, and in the twelfth-century Life of Gildas by Caradoc of Llancarfan she is abducted by Melwas of the Summer Country and rescued by Arthur. Chretien de Troyes' Chevalier de la charrette (c. 1177-81) writes Lancelot's love as the queen's service, and the Vulgate Lancelot-Grail (c. 1215-35) makes that love the crack that breaks the fellowship. Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1485) has her condemned to the stake, taken by Lancelot, and ended in a nunnery, and his image of her is the May ride with the court.
Modern Practice
There is no cult. Modern devotional use is a literary memorial: a rose at a grave, a plain statement about a marriage that failed, a candle for a woman remembered mainly for other people's decisions. It is worth doing precisely because the sources are so unkind to her.