page_title: Brocéliande
section_title: Arthurian legend
hierarchical_section_title: Brocéliande / Arthurian legend
caption_attribution_description: English: F. A. Fraser's illustration for King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Henry Frith.
context_page_description: Brocéliande, earlier known as Brécheliant and Brécilien, is a legendary enchanted forest that had a reputation in the medieval European imagination as a place of magic and mystery. Brocéliande is featured in several medieval texts, mostly related to the Arthurian legend and the characters of Merlin, Morgan le Fay, Lady of the Lake, and some of the Knights of the Round Table. It first appeared in literature in the Roman de Rou chronicle by Wace in 1160 and today is most commonly identified as Paimpont forest in Brittany, France.
  Brocéliande is a place of legend due to its uncertain location, unusual weather, and its ties with Arthurian mythology, most notably the tomb of the legendary figure of Merlin. According to these accounts, the forest sheltered Morgan's magical Vale of No Return, the faery fountain of Barenton, and the place of Merlin's retirement, imprisonment or death.
context_section_description: In the 1170s, Chrétien de Troyes mentions the forest of Brocéliande in his Arthurian romance, Le Chevalier au lion. While in Brocéliande, Yvain pours water from a spring into a stone, causing a violent storm to erupt. This in turn summons the knight Esclados le Ros who defends the forest. 
  In the late 12th or early 13th century, Robert de Boron first associates the figure of Merlin with Brocéliande in his poem Merlin. It is also featured in several episodes of the prose adaptations and continuations of the poem, the Vulgate Cycle (Lancelot-Grail), notably in the stories of Merlin and Viviane. Later, Morgan le Fay traps many unfaithful knights in her Vale of No Return within Brocéliande until they are freed by Lancelot.
  In Jaufré, the Arthurian romance of unknown authorship composed in Catalonia, the forest of Brocéliande is near King Arthur's palace and the site of a mill where Arthur battles a strange bull-like animal, really a shapeshifting mage knight. The dating of Jaufré is debated and may have been written as early as 1183 or as late as 1225-1228. Later, Brocéliande also appears in context of Arthurian knights in Huon de Méry's allegorical poem Tournoiement Antecrist as well as in other texts such as Claris et Laris, where it is the site of Morgan's fairy castle, and Brun de la Montagne.
caption: The Damsels at the Fountain, F. A. Fraser's illustration for King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (1912)
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