page_title: Morvarc'h
section_title: The City of Ys
hierarchical_section_title: Morvarc'h / In Breton legends / The City of Ys
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Gravure de la légende Keris dans le recueil d'Emile Souvestre, Le foyer breton, 1844.
context_page_description: Morvarc'h is the name of a fabulous horse of Breton legend found in two folktales reworked in the 19th and 20th centuries. Though its name appears in older sources, it was invented or reinterpreted by Charles Guyot, who named it Morvark in his version of the legend of the city of Ys in 1926. It belongs to the "Queen of the North" Malgven, who gives it to her husband King Gradlon. Endowed with the ability to gallop on the waves, Morvarc'h is described as having a black coat and as breathing flames through its nostrils. It also appears in a Breton folktale about King Marc'h of Cornouaille. In the course of a deer hunt it is killed by its own rider's arrow, which has been turned around by the spell of Dahud, the daughter of Malgven. She then puts the ears of the horse Morvarc'h on the head of King Marc'h, who seeks in vain to hide them.
  The legend of Morvarc'h being from Cornouaille in Brittany, it is the subject of equestrian statues in the town of Argol and in Saint Corentin's Cathedral in Quimper. Folklore connects it with the village of Pouldreuzic.
context_section_description: Morvarc'h also figures in recent versions of the legend of the city of Ys, featuring King Gradlon, his wife Queen Malgven, their daughter Dahut and the evangelist Saint Guénolé, who is trying to persuade Gradlon to put an end to the pagan machinations of his daughter.
caption: Gradlon on his horse, after an illustration of the story "Keris" by Émile Souvestre (1844).
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