Dame Lionesse

Also known as: Dame Lionesse of the Castle Perilous / Lady Lionesse / Lionesse · Role: lady · First appears: Book VII, Chapter XIII

In Book VII, Chapter XVI, Beaumains declared his love for Dame Lionesse and vowed to rescue her or die, while Red Knight called her his lady and fought for her. She returned Beaumains’s attention with an encouraging look from her window, but in Chapter XIX withheld her whole love until he was counted among worthy knights, promising, “I shall be true to you, and never to betray you, but to my death I shall love you and none other.” She also asked her brother Sir Gringamore to seize Beaumains’s dwarf so that Linet, her sister, could learn his kindred and name.

When the dwarf revealed that Beaumains was Sir Gareth of Orkney, Dame Lionesse arranged for him to sojourn with Sir Gringamore and herself. At Castle Perilous she told Sir Gareth that she was its lady and had caused his dwarf to be taken, then promised to love him and none other. They pledged themselves to one another, and she declared that Sir Gareth was her lord and must be her husband.

Dame Lionesse concealed Sir Gareth’s whereabouts from King Arthur, announced a tournament before her castle whose victor would receive her and all her land, and joined her party with many knights, including Sir Epinogrus, Sir Palamides, Sir Tristram, Sir Dinas, and Sir Ironside. She lent Sir Gareth a ring that concealed his appearance and kept him from losing blood; when he later sent it back with a request for her faithfulness, she came with Linet, Sir Gringamore, and forty knights to King Arthur’s gathering. There, she and Sir Gareth chose marriage, exchanged rings, and, at Michaelmas, were married with great solemnity by the Bishop of Canterbury.