Who is most like gareth a knight at king arthur's court and gawain's brother?

Question

Sir Gareth was a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian Legend. He was the son of Lot and of Morgause, King Arthur's sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Gaheris, Agravaine, and half brother of Mordred. He is the subject of Book VII in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which tells how he became a knight.

According to Malory's tale, Gareth came to Camelot in disguise as a kitchen boy and was set to work by Kay, who always gave him difficult work, teased him as being a lowly kitchen boy, and nicknamed him "Beaumains" or "Good Hands" (alternatively "White Hands", or "Beautiful Hands"). The meaning of this was that Gareth's hands were white or soft, showing he was not used to hard work. In the tale Gareth goes to the aid of Lynette (sometimes Lyonet or Lyonette), to save her sister Lyonesse (or Lyonorr), from the Red Knight of the Red Lands. He is accompanied by the dwarf Melot who knew his true identity.

However, Lynette thought Gareth to be a mere kitchen boy and constantly derides him. On the way he defeats the impressive Sir Perarde, Black Knight, and takes his armor and horse. He then meets Sir Pertolope, the Green Knight, who mistakes him for his brother, the Black Knight. Lynette tells the Green Knight that he is Beaumains, a kitchen boy, and not his brother the Black Knight and begs him to rid her of him. However, Gareth overcomes the Green Knight, and spares his life in return for the knight's swearing to serve him. He then sets out and in much the same fashion defeats Sir Perymones, the Puce Knight (sometimes the Red Knight, not to be confused with the one of the Red Lands), and Sir Persaunte (Persant of Inde), the Indigo Knight, both of whom also swear to serve him. Lynette finally sees that Gareth's calm acceptance of her abuse is very knightly, and that he must be a very good knight indeed and no mere kitchen boy.

He finally arrives at Lyonesse's castle, where she is besieged by the Sir Ironside, Red Knight of the Red Lands. He fights him, which takes all day, and finally prevails, although the Red Knight had the strength of seven men. He originally intends to kill him, as the Red Knight slaughtered all the other knights who came to save the lady Lyonesse. However, the Red Knight explains that he was doing so because the lady he loved made him swear to kill Lancelot, and the only way to get his attention was to kill the knights. And so Gareth spares him, making him swear to serve him and also go to Arthur's castle and apologize to Lancelot. Afterwards, and despite some difficulties, Gareth marries Lyonesse. Gareth also kills King Datis of Tuscany. Unfortunately, he is later killed accidentally by Lancelot during a rescue of Guinevere.

The legend has been reinterpreted by many writers and poets, the most renowned being Alfred Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the King, wherein the colored knights are replaced by knights associated with various times of day. The final knight is known as Night or Death, and he is the most feared of the three, though ultimately the weakest. In this version, it is not clear whether Gareth marries Lynette or Lyonesse, though Tennyson writes that Gareth claimed to have married Lynette when recounting his own life. Theodore Goodridge Roberts authored the short story "For To Achieve Your Adventure", in which Lynette knows she is sending Gareth into an ambush, and her derision is an attempt to make him give up for his own protection. Vera Chapman's novel The King's Damosel gives a complete version of Lynette's life.

Answer 1

Um, I know the story, but what exactly are you asking? "Who" in what category?

I just saw your question about Gawain. Do you mean in real life here too?

Answer 2

Gawain’s youngest brother is named Gaheriet in the French romances. Gawain also has a brother named Guerrehet who is less prominent. “Gareth” would seem more likely to be an English version of “Gaheriet” then an English version of “Guerrehet”.

The story of Sir Gareth in Sir Thomas Malory's “Le Morte d’Arthur” is of unknown origin, but similar tales are told of other knights. The basic plot is called the Fair Unknown plot.  It is found in a reasonably full version in Renaut de Beaujeau’s “Li Biaus Desconneus” where Gawain’s son Guinglain is the hero. An English version of this is “Lebeaus Desconnus” sometimes thought to be by Thomas Chestre. A version which differs more is the German poem “Wigalois” by Wirnt von Grafenberg. In this version the battles between a number of knights one after the other is replaced by  battle with a small troop of knights, all at once.

In another closely related romance, “Le Chevalier du Papegeau" (“The Knight of the Parrot') the hero is Arthur himself. In an Italian version called “Carduino”, the hero is the son of Arthur’s knight Dodinel the Wild. We have some fragments of another similar story about a hero called La Cote Mal Taillie, and a full version appears in the “Prose Tristan” and from that source in Malory. Here Lancelot shares the adventure with the hero.

Gawain is the hero of a similar tale in the “Livre d’Artus”, and Gawain and Lancelot’s brother Ector share the hero rule in a another similar tale in the “Prose Lancelot”. The second half of the non-Arthurian romance “Ipomedon” is also similar.

The kitchen boy motif doesn’t appear in any of these except for the “Sir Gareth” variant. It is found in the “Chançun de William” about a French an historical hero William of Orange who was active during the reign of Charlesmagne's son Louis.  Reneward, a man from the kitchen, joins William. Reneward is immensely strong but not very intelligent. He fights with an enormous club, reminding one of the classical Heracles. He is finally revealed to be the long-lost brother of William’s wife. In the Hindu epic “Mahabharata”, the club-man Bhima, who resembles both Heracles and the Nose god Thor, spends a year in disguise as a cook, before revealing his prowess in battle.

No other surviving Arthurian tale gives even a hint that the author knows anything of Malory’s account of Gareth’s initial feats. Linet and Dame Liones are not mentioned elsewhere, at least by those names. And Gaheriet is never provided with a wife or ladylove, except for one mention in the “Prosw Tristan” of Gaheriet taking a maiden from another knight and the knight going mad in consequence.

In the “Vulgate Merlin”, Gawain and his three brothers Agravain, Guerreht, and Gaheriet, ride secretly to Arthur’s court to be knighted, for they would rather serve Arthur than their father King Lot. Gaheriet is by far the best of the brothers. Eventually all four are knighted by Arthur on the same day.

In the “Post-Vulgate Merlin'', the order of birth of the knights is first given as Gaheriet, Agravain, Guerrehet, but later we are told that Gaheriet is the youngest. Gawain has vanished, and one of Merlin’s prophecies states that Gawain will never be freed from the Maidens’ Rock until Gaheriet is knighted; and then Gaheriet will free him. The envious Agravain insists that he must therefore also be knighted before Gaheriet. However a madman who has never before spoken, now speaks and says that according to Merlin, Gaheriet should be knighted first, and that Agravain and Guerrehet and other candidates for knighthood should then be knighted by Gaheriet, if they will allow it, for Gaheriet is worthy of this honor. So it comes to pass, save that Agravain refuses to be knighted by Gaheriet, and insists that Arthur knight him. Gaheriet eventually, after defeating Agravain in battle, rescues his brother Gawain.

Such variant and contradictory accounts are quite normal in Arthurian legend.

That Gareth/Gaheriet was knighted by Lancelot only appears in Malory in surviving medieval texts.

Malory uses an incomplete version of the “Post-Vulgate Merlin” in the early part of his work, and apparently accepts the order of the birth of the brothers that there appears. Therefore he translates “Gaheriet'' as Gaheris and “Guerrehet” as Gareth, since Gareth ought to be the youngest.  Malory continues this translation of “Gaheriet” as “Gaherys” up until the beginning of the Tournament of Lonazap in his rendering of the “Prose Tristan”. From that point forward, Malory reverses his translations, and renders French “Guerrehes” as “Gaherys” and French “Gaheriet” as “Gareth”. This new translation is quite correct, as in all but one French accounts where both Gaheriet and Guerrehes appear, and where there is any comparison between them, Gaheriet is the better of the two. The one exception is a comparison of the four brothers in the “Prose Lancelot'' which seems to confuse the two G brothers. But elsewhere in the “Prose Lancelot'' Gaheriet is the best of the brothers. Also, in general, Gaheriet is mentioned far more often.

This means that Malory loses the idea that it is Gaheriet/Gareth, the best of Gawain's brothers, who behead his own mother. This appears to be a late idea in any case, perhaps an invention of the author of the “Post-Vulgate Arthurian Cycle” who delights in tales of kin-strife and kin-murder.

Mostly Gaheriet is a younger and more innocent version of Gawain, but equal or even possibly superior in valor. Some texts claim that because Gaheriet was very close-mouthed about his deeds, while Gawain was not, Gaheriet ’s deeds were less known and therefore Gaheriet was less honored

Compare Giselher in the Nibeglungen tales, who is also the youngest of the brothers and in some versions the only brother who is entirely innocent in the matter of Siegfried’s death, as he was only a young child at the time. But he still finds himself sucked into Kriemhild’s vengeance.

Giselher was likely to be an historic character. At least he appears as Gislaharus along with Gebicca, Gundomar, and Gundaharius (Gunther) in the Lex Bugundia. But it is doubtful that anything of the true Gislaharus survives in the medieval tales.

And Gareth/Gaheriet (all variant versions of him) is very much a romance character. His adventures can’t be paralleled from history.