Elaine (legend)

Queen Elaine of Benoic (Old French: Élaine de Bénoïc; alternative forms including Elainne, Elene, Helaine, Helainne, Helayne and Helene; also known as Provida or Perevida) is wife of King Ban and birth mother of Lancelot.

Following the conquest of their kingdom of Benoic (known as Benwick in English) by King Claudas, the death of her husband, and the taking of the infant Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake, Elaine becomes known as the Queen of Great Sorrows, living as a nun along with her sister Evaine, the widowed wife of King Bors and mother of Sir Lionel and Sir Bors.

[2] In an alternate version from the Italian rewrite Tavola Ritonda, the queen is named Gostanza and she dies of distress just few days after Ban's death and Lancelot's premature birth.

The early and even more distinctive German book Lanzelet calls its eponymous hero's mother Clarine and makes her a sister of Arthur.

The form Elaine (Elayne) was invented by Le Morte d'Arthur author Thomas Malory and without an identifying moniker "of Galot[h]" which he only used for her husband.