*** The wife of Lot is called “Anne” by Geoffrey, of Monmouth (British History, viii. 20, 21); and “Bellicent” by Tennyson, in Gareth and Lynette.
This tale is so very different from those of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Tennyson, that all three are given. (See [Modred].)
Mor´dure (2 syl.), son of the emperor of Germany. He was guilty of illicit love with the mother of Sir Bevis, of Southampton, who murdered her husband and then married Sir Mordure. Sir Bevis, when a mere lad, reproved his mother for the murder of his father, and she employed Saber to kill him; but the murder was not committed, and young Bevis was brought up as a shepherd. One day, entering the hall where Mordure sat with his bride, Bevis struck at him with his axe. Mordure slipped aside, and the chair was “split to shivers.” Bevis was then sold to an Armenian, and was presented to the king, who knighted him and gave him his daughter Josian in marriage.—M. Drayton, Polyolbion, ii. (1612).
Mordure (2 syl.), Arthur’s sword, made by Merlin. No enchantment had power over it, no stone or steel was proof against it, and it would neither break nor bend. (The word means “hard biter.”)—Spenser, Faëry Queen, ii. 8 (1590).
More (Margareta), the heroine and feigned authoress of Household of Sir Thomas More, by Miss Manning (1851).
More of More Hall, a legendary hero, who armed himself with armor full of spikes, and, concealing himself in the cave where the dragon of Wantley dwelt, slew the monster by kicking it in the mouth, where alone it was mortal.
*** In the burlesque of H. Carey, entitled The Dragon of Wantley, the hero is called “Moore of Moore Hall,” and he is made to be in love with Gubbins’s daughter, Margery, of Roth’ram Green (1696-1743).
Morecraft, at first a miser, but after losing most of his money he became a spendthrift.—Beaumont and Fletcher, The Scornful Lady (1616).
*** “Luke,” in Massinger’s City Madam, is the exact opposite. He was at first a poor spendthrift, but coming into a fortune he turned miser.
Morell (Sir Charles), the pseudonym of the Rev. James Ridley, affixed to some of the early editions of The Tales of the Genii, from 1764.