page_title: Hellawes (sorceress)
section_title: In Le Morte d'Arthur
hierarchical_section_title: Hellawes (sorceress) / In Le Morte d'Arthur
context_page_description: Hellawes the sorceress is a character in Thomas Malory's 15th-century compilation of Arthurian legends Le Morte d'Arthur. She is lady of the Castle Nygurmous, associated with the chapel perilous in one of the quests of Lancelot.
context_section_description: Hellawes is a treacherous enchantress whom Sir Lancelot encounters in his pursuit of a holy sword and special cloth to heal his wounded liegeman, Sir Meliot of Logres. Hellawes is the widow Sir Gilbert the Bastard, recently slain by Meliot, and she had magically cursed Meliot so his wounds from the fight would not heal. In the story, she manages to lure the questing knight into her fearsome chapel perilous but Lancelot—who has been the object of her obsessive and unrequited love for seven years—successfully escapes with the items he needed to heal Meliot:
  Lancelot braved the chapel to retrieve a sword and discovered that its terrifying properties were simply illusions. Hellawes appeared before him and asked him for a kiss in exchange for the sword, but Lancelot refused. It turned out that Lancelot would have perished from the kiss had he consented. Hellawes had tendencies toward necrophilia, and she would have rather had Lancelot as a dead lover than to have lived without him. Lancelot hurried away, and Hellawes died a few weeks later from sorrow. [Christopher W. Bruce, "The Arthurian Name Dictionary," 1999]
  A similarly named but different character, also appearing in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, is Lady Annowre of Perilous Forest. Annowre is an evil sorceress who plotted to kill Arthur out of her love of him after being scorned.
caption: Sir Launcelot and the Witch Hellawes by Aubrey Beardsley (1870)
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