Archetypal woman who transforms from ugly to beautiful
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"Lady, I will be a true and loyal husband." Gawain and the loathly lady in W. H. Margetson's illustration for Maud Isabel Ebbutt's Hero-Myths and Legends of the British Race (1910)
The loathly lady (Welsh: dynes gas, Motif D732 in Stith Thompson's motif index), is a tale type commonly used in medieval literature, most famously in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale.[1] The motif is that of a woman who appears unattractive (ugly, loathly) but undergoes a transformation upon being approached by a man in spite of her unattractiveness, becoming extremely desirable. It is then revealed that her ugliness was the result of a curse which was broken by the hero's action.
^Garry, Jane; El-Shamy, Hasan (2005). Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature. M.E. Sharpe. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-7656-2953-1.
The loathlylady (Welsh: dynes gas, Motif D732 in Stith Thompson's motif index), is a tale type commonly used in medieval literature, most famously in...
Ragnell) is a 15th-century English poem, one of several versions of the "loathlylady" story popular during the Middle Ages. An earlier version of the story...
Some narratives of this type correspond to folk-tale motif D732, the LoathlyLady, in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index. This trope has been identified as 'one...
in Sir Walter Scott's work The Bridal of Triermain (1813) Gwendolen, loathlylady in Reginald Heber's Fragments of The Masque of Gwendolen (written 1816...
Ragnelle), his wits, virtue, and respect for women frees his wife, a loathlylady, from her curse of ugliness. The Child Ballads include a preserved legend...
of an elderly woman (contrasting from the beautiful Lady Bertilak in a role evoking the loathlylady tradition), as a test for Arthur and his knights and...
Pughe of several tales in journals in 1795, 1821, and 1829. However it was Lady Charlotte Guest in 1838–45 who first published the full collection, bilingually...
and the loathlylady, which has been preserved in fuller form in the medieval poem The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. The loathlylady episode...
of his descendants, Nath Í and Ailill Molt, will be High Kings. This "loathlylady" motif appears in myth and folklore throughout the world. Variations...
the tale, in which Childe Wynd is replaced by Kemp Owyne Lambton Worm Loathlylady The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea Westwood, Jennifer. "BBC Radio...
those of Chrétien, albeit with some significant differences: Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain is related to Chrétien's Yvain; Geraint and Enid, to Erec...
are additional variants of this common Northern European motif (see "Loathlylady"). Andersen devotes a chapter to this theory, entitled "Pagan or Medieval"...
George Clooney, Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Bill Gates and Lady Gaga have become associated with initiatives to alleviate poverty, combat...
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