Igraine
Mother of Arthur and Morgan le Fay, wife of the Duke of Cornwall and later Queen to Uther Pendragon.
Igraine is a central figure in the British Arthurian tradition, attested through Le Morte d'Arthur across five chapters of Book I. She is the wife of the Duke of Cornwall and later Queen to Uther Pendragon, and the mother of Arthur. When the Duke placed her in the castle of Tintagil for protection, Uther "fell sick" with "pure anger and for great love of fair Igraine" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter I). Merlin's intervention enabled Uther to reach her, and the barons later "by one assent prayed the king of accord betwixt the lady Igraine and him" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter II). Ulfius proposed the match, declaring that "our king is a lusty knight and wifeless, and my lady Igraine is a passing fair lady" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter II). After Uther's death, "the queen, fair Igraine, made great sorrow, and all the barons" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter IV).
Arthur's parentage is later confirmed when "they told him Uther Pendragon was his father and Queen Igraine his mother" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter XX). Igraine is summoned and brought to court with "Morgan le Fay, her daughter, that was as fair a lady as any might be" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter XX). Ulfius then publicly accused Igraine, declaring before the court that "this Queen Igraine is causer of your great damage, and of your great war" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter XXI). In her defense, Igraine responded: "I am a woman and I may not fight, but rather than I should be dishonoured, there would some good man take my quarrel" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book I, Chapter XXI).
Le Morte d'Arthur constructs Igraine through a pattern of passive centrality — she is the object of desire, the subject of political negotiation, and finally the target of accusation, yet at each stage the narrative pivots around her. Uther's lovesickness drives the opening plot, but the text frames Igraine not as an agent of seduction but as a figure to whom things are done: placed in a castle by her husband, pursued by the king, married by baronial consensus. The epithet "fair Igraine" recurs across chapters, functioning less as physical description than as narrative formula.
The accusation scene in Chapter XXI reveals a different Igraine. Where earlier she is spoken about, here she speaks — and her response, claiming the right to a champion rather than submitting to Ulfius's charge, asserts dignity within the constraints of her position. The tension between Ulfius's claim that she caused "great damage" and "great war" and the narrative's own presentation of her as a figure acted upon rather than acting creates an unresolved ambiguity that Malory does not settle.
Her role as mother connects two generational arcs: she produces both Arthur and Morgan le Fay, though the text gives Morgan her own introduction at the moment of Igraine's summons to court rather than within the earlier narrative of Igraine's marriage to Uther.
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Le Morte d'Arthur, British Tradition