Queens: C

Cundry, Kundry (Hideous Damsel of the Mule, Dark Goddess of Knowledge, The Crone) Doltanagh (Initiator) Dol’maren, Maidheann Dubh, Macabra (The Black Maiden) Magdalena Crouch (The Bent Maiden) Laudine, Ondine, Geala Maidheann, Geile Maidheann (Moon Maiden) Almedha, Alaida, Saraide, Laithche (Best Noble) Peri’el (Delicious Fruit, Raven, Black Diamond)

Undine, liebes Bildeben du,
Seit ich zuerst aus alten Kunden
Dein seltsam Leuchten aufgefunden,
Wie sangst du oft mein Herz in Ruh!
– De La Motte Fouqué

The White Bride & the Black One
Choose three things for yourself, and I will grant them to you: ‘I should like to be as beautiful and fair as the sun’ and instantly she was white and fair as day. ‘Then I should like to have a purse of money which would never grow empty and after my death, to inhabit the eternal kingdom of Heaven.’
When the step-mother came home with her daughter, they saw that they were both as black as coal and ugly, but that the step-daughter was white and beautiful. Reginer came to marry the White Bride to the King. The angry black maiden said to her mother, ‘Of what use are all your arts to us now when you cannot procure such a piece of luck for me?’ ‘Be quiet,’ said the old woman, ‘I will soon divert it to you,’ and by her arts of witchcraft, she so troubled the eyes of Reginer that he was half-blind. She stopped the ears of the white maiden so that she was half-deaf.
He took the black maiden to the King. When the King saw the boundless ugliness of his intended bride, he was very angry, and ordered him into a pit full of adders and snakes. The old witch, however, knew so well how to flatter the King and deceive his eyes by her arts, that he kept her and her daughter until she appeared quite endurable to him, and he really married her. One evening when the Black Bride was sitting on the King’s knee, a white duck came swimming up the gutter to the kitchen. ...The King took his sword and cut through her neck, and suddenly she changed into a most beautiful maiden. – Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884), 2:189-192

Sisters: Argante, Dindraine , Eluned , Enid, Guinevere, Igraine, Morgana, & Raghnell.

(pron. SAW-rit, SAHR-ich, LA-hee) Nine-fold goddess of fate who is the sister of Merlin-Myrddin: Sea Fortress and guardian of the Holy Grail. She lives at the Castle of Wonders on a lofty mountain. She is learned in star lore, astronomy, languages, and geometry. Inside is a chessboard that plays itself. As the Black Maiden she is a beautiful woman who wears a velvet gown and a cloak embroidered with turtledoves. She has long, dark raven hair, jet-black eyebrows, red cheeks, skin as white as crystal-snow, and blood-red lips. She was held captive/guards Castle Perilous, the Court of the Wounded King, with a spear that drips blood, severed head on a plate and was rescued by Owen. Her ceremonial singing: ograth smo’kku’par: hands together is a duet accompanied by a five stringed harp called a khumary: breath journey. She can take the form of The Black Oppressor, a one-eyed man with three identical daughters whose eye was blinded by the Black Serpent of the Gravestone at the Mound of Mourning. [Whoever holds this stone will have as much gold as they desire], one-horned stag with a golden collar, or a black wraith on a bony horse.

Her consort is Lischoise a.k.a Parsifal. Others say she has no mate. In her crone aspect she has black-skin, black-curly hair, one green eye, one black eye, yellow tusks, and claw-like hands She rode to Arthur’s court on a yellow mule to tell Peredur: Steel Arms the spell was not broken because he was supposed to ask about the spear and plate. She is Queen of the Undines, water spirits with long green hair who live in the blue, silvery lake floating with white waterlilies. Purple and gold irises grow on its banks. Her father is Kchleborn. (71, 207)

The Maiden Fair & the Fountain Fairy – Now, there was a wee old man in the wood of Cuthilldorie beside the Black Well. He was an ugly goblin, not more than two and a half feet high. He had been seen only three times in fifteen years, for he always flew up out of sight when anybody came near him. The miller’s daughter wandered into the wood alone to the well. He grabbed her, made her drink three double handfuls of witched [salted] water, and away they flew on a flash of lightning. She was in a palace, all gold and silver and diamonds, and full of fairies.

The King and Queen gave her twelve drops of liquid in a little green bottle, three drops for oatmeal, three for oatcakes, three for butter and three for Black Well water. Suddenly it was dark. She was flying through the air to her own doorstep.

Next morning, before the sun was up, there came a rap, rap, rap, three times at the door. She made a bowl of oatmeal for the beggar, not forgetting the three drops of water from the green bottle. The old beggar vanished, and there in his place was the big Highlander who had lent silver to her father. She baked fresh oatcakes with drops for him, he vanished, and there in his place was a woodcock. She gave him butter with three drops. He flapped his wings, vanished, and there was the goblin. He had scarcely drunk the witched water when he vanished, and there was a fine young Prince. ‘I was a goblin for so many years because the fairies were scared away. They made me play many tricks before they would let me go and return to my father, the King of France, and make the bonniest lass in all the world my bride.’ That night they were married – Tales of Wonder

[French Ministry of Education Site: Centre national de documentation pédagogique]