Lady of the Bleeding Heart, Ellen Douglas. The cognizance of the Douglas family is a “bleeding heart.”—Sir W. Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810).
Lady of the Lake (A), a harlot. (Anglo-Saxon, lác, “a present.”) A “guinea-fowl” or “guinea-hen” is a similar term.
But for the difference marriage makes
’Twixt wives and “ladies of the lake.”
S. Butler, Hudibras, iii. 1 (1668)
Lady of the Lake (The), Nimue [sic], one of the damsels of the lake, that King Pellinore took to his court. Merlin, in his dotage, fell in love with her, when she wheedled him out of all his secrets, and enclosed him in a rock, where he died. Subsequently, Nimue married Sir Pelleas.
⁂ Tennyson, in his Idylls of the King (“Merlin and Vivien”), makes Vivien the enchantress who wheedled old Merlin out of his secrets; and then, “in a hollow oak,” she shut him fast, and there “he lay as dead, and lost to life and use, and name, and fame.”
Tennyson takes a poet’s privilege, and varies the old legend at pleasure.
Lady of the Lake (The), Nineve. The name of the Lady of the Lake is variously spelled in the old editions of the Mort d’ Arthur. We find: 1, Nimue; 2, Nineve; 3, Vivien; 4, Vivienne. 4 is the French of 3; 1 is probably a misprint for Ninve; and 1, 2, 3 are probably anagrams.
Lady of the Lake (The). Vivienne (3 syl.) is called La Dame du Lac, and dwelt en la marche de la petite Bretaigne. She stole Lancelot in his infancy, and plunged with him into her home lake; hence was Lancelot called du Lac. When her protégé was grown to manhood, she presented him to King Arthur.