Astolat (; French: Escalot) is a legendary castle and town of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

named in

Arthurian 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 ...

legends. It is the home of Elaine, "the lily maid of Astolat", as well of her father Sir Bernard and her brothers Lavaine and Tirre. It is known as Shalott in many modern cultural references, derived from

Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

's poem "

The Lady of Shalott "The Lady of Shalott" is a lyrical ballad by the 19th-century English poet Alfred Tennyson and one of his best-known works. Inspired by the 13th-century Italian short prose text '' Donna di Scalotta'', the poem tells the tragic story of Elain ...

". In 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 ...

it was said to be upstream of Camelot. Hb-chevalier-descalot

It is also called Ascolat in the Winchester Manuscript of

Thomas Malory Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'Ar ...

's English compilation '' Le Morte d'Arthur''. Malory identified the legendary location with his contemporary castle and town of Guildford in England.Book XIII, Chapter IX: ''And so upon the morn early Sir Launcelot heard mass and brake his fast, and so took his leave of the queen and departed. And then he rode so much until he came to Astolat, that is Guildford; and there it happed him in the eventide he came to an old baron’s place.''

References

Sources

Sir Thomas Malory - Le Morte d'Arthur
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Michael Fulford Michael Gordon Fulford, (born October 1948) is a British archaeologist and academic, specialising in the British Iron Age, Roman Britain and landscape archaeology. He has been Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading since 1993. E ...

, ''City of the Dead: the Roman Town of Calleva Atrebatum'' Locations associated with Arthurian legend {{Fict-location-stub