This slap was recorded in the Bardic Triads as one of the Three Fatal Slaps

Gwenhwyfach ( wlm, Gwenhwyvach, wlm, Gwenhwywach, or wlm, Gwenhwyach; sometimes

anglicized Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

to ''Guinevak'') was a sister of

Gwenhwyfar Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First ment ...

(Guinevere) in

medieval Welsh Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen ...

Arthurian legend The Matter of Britain is the body of medieval literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and Brittany and the legendary kings and heroes associated with it, particularly King Arthur. It was one of the three great Wester ...

. The tradition surrounding her is preserved in fragmentary form in two

Welsh Triads The Welsh Triads ( cy, Trioedd Ynys Prydein, "Triads of the Island of Britain") are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a ...

and the ''

Mabinogi The ''Mabinogion'' () are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, create ...

'' tale of ''

Culhwch and Olwen ''Culhwch and Olwen'' ( cy, Culhwch ac Olwen) is a Welsh tale that survives in only two manuscripts about a hero connected with Arthur and his warriors: a complete version in the Red Book of Hergest, c. 1400, and a fragmented version in the Whit ...

''.

Gwenhwywach

This relatively obscure figure is first mentioned in ''

'', where her name (spelled ''Gwenhwyach'') is among those 200 men, women, dogs, and horses invoked by the hero

Culhwch Culhwch (, with the final consonant sounding like Scottish "loch"), in Welsh mythology, is the son of Cilydd son of Celyddon and Goleuddydd, a cousin of Arthur and the protagonist of the story '' Culhwch and Olwen'' (the earliest of the medie ...

to punctuate his request that

King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...

help him find his love

Olwen In Welsh mythology, Olwen (or Olwyn) is the daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden and cousin of Goreu. She is the heroine of the story ''Culhwch and Olwen'' in the Mabinogion. Her father is fated to die if she ever marries, so when Culhwch (sometimes ...

. Both of the Triads that mention Gwenhwyfach refer to the enmity between her and her sister that led to the Battle of Camlann. Triad 53 lists as one of the "Three Harmful Blows of the Island of Britain" the slap that Gwenhwyvach gave her sister that caused the Strife of Camlann. Identifying Camlann as one of Britain's "Three Futile Battles", Triad 84 mentions it was started because of a dispute between the sisters. Some have suggested that "Gwenhwyfach" in Triad 53 is a mistake for " Medrawd" (Mordred), since Triad 54 describes Medrawd raiding Arthur's court and throwing Gwenhwyfar to the ground and beating her; this interpretation does not explain Triad 84, however.

Rachel Bromwich Rachel Bromwich (30 July 1915 – 15 December 2010) born Rachel Sheldon Amos, was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and she taught Celtic Languages and Literature in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at ...

notes, citing the spelling found in ''Culhwch and Olwen'' and Triad 84, that ''Gwenhwyach'' may in fact be the original spelling of the name. Melville Richards and Bromwich previously suggested that the alternate spelling of her name in medieval Welsh sources, Gwenhwywach, could have been understood as ''Gwenhwy-fach'', or "Gwenhwy the Lesser", a

back-formation In etymology, back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via inflection, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the c ...

based on a

false etymology A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...

of her sister's name as ''Gwenhwy- fawr'', meaning "Gwenhwy the Great". It is possible that Gwenhwyfach was once thought of as a darker aspect of Gwenhwyfar.

False Guinevere

The

Lancelot-Grail The ''Lancelot-Grail'', also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance in Old French. The cycle of unknown author ...

cycle introduced a possibly related character known as "the False Guinevere" or "Guinevere the False". Named Genievre, she is the real Guinevere's identical but evil half-sister by a different mother. Also known as the Lady of Camelide (''Dame de Camelide''), she bewitches Arthur and turns him against the real Guinevere. She later dies of disease, confessing on death bed. (In the non-cyclical ''Lancelot'', she confesses and is then burned after

Lancelot Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), also written as Launcelot and other variants (such as early German ''Lanzelet'', early French ''Lanselos'', early Welsh ''Lanslod Lak'', Italian ''Lancillotto'', Spanish ''Lanzarote del Lago' ...

wins a

trial by combat Trial by combat (also wager of battle, trial by battle or judicial duel) was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the ...

against her three champions.)

Modern stories

Some modern writers associate Gwenhwyfach with Mordred, presumably due to her association with Camlann; she appears as the traitor's wife in

Thomas Love Peacock Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 – 23 January 1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. He was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work. Peacock wrote satirical novels, ...

's novel '' The Misfortunes of Elphin'' (1829), for example. In

Bernard Cornwell Bernard Cornwell (born 23 February 1944) is an English-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written ''The Saxon ...

's '' Enemy of God'' (1996), she is Guinevere's delusional and dim-witted fat sister who aids Arthur in his supposed "rescue" of Guinevere from Lancelot's castle and later becomes completely insane while living all alone.

References

{{Arthurian Legend Arthurian characters Mabinogion Welsh mythology King Arthur's family