Ettard
Lady in Le Morte d'Arthur whose hatred of Sir Pelleas was reversed by the Damosel of the Lake.
The Lady Ettard appears in Le Morte d'Arthur as the object of Sir Pelleas's devotion and, ultimately, a figure whose feelings are reversed by enchantment. Pelleas allowed himself to be taken prisoner repeatedly just for a glimpse of her, and a knight promised "the Lady Ettard to follow her into this country, and never to leave her till she loved him" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IV, Chapter XXI). When Sir Gawaine arrived at her court claiming to have defeated Pelleas, Ettard demanded he remove his helm so she could see his face, then granted him her favour: "I may not choose, said the Lady Ettard, but if I should be forsworn; and so she granted him to fulfil all his desire" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IV, Chapter XXII).
The Damosel of the Lake intervened, riding to the Lady Ettard and bringing her to the sleeping Pelleas within two hours (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IV, Chapter XXII). Upon seeing him, Ettard's feelings underwent a dramatic reversal through enchantment: "O Lord Jesu, said the Lady Ettard, how is it befallen unto me that I love now him that I have most hated of any man alive?" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IV, Chapter XXII).
The six citations trace a compact arc from rejection to enchanted love. Ettard's initial resistance to Pelleas is absolute — he must resort to prisoner-taking as a strategy merely to see her. Her interaction with Gawaine reveals a pragmatic streak: she yields to him not from desire but from obligation, noting she would be forsworn otherwise (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IV, Chapter XXII). The Damosel of the Lake's intervention then strips Ettard of her agency entirely, reversing her hatred into love through supernatural means. Her final exclamation captures the disorientation of one whose emotions have been externally rewritten — she recognizes the reversal but cannot account for it (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book IV, Chapter XXII). The narrative treats this transformation without irony, presenting it as a resolution to Pelleas's suffering rather than a violation of Ettard's will.
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Le Morte d'Arthur, British Tradition