In the medieval texts, Morgawse is generally a less ambiguous character than Morgaine; although the mother of Mordred and a willing adulteress, she is unwaveringly loyal to Arthur. She has no great success with her sons, but is not portrayed as anything worse than possibly foolish. She even appears briefly as the love interest of Sir Lamorak, one of the great knights and lovers of Malory’s Tale of Sir Tristram.

However, in modern texts, especially those rehabilitating Morgaine (or other female characters) Morgawse emerges as a much more problematic character. This begins in Stewart’s Merlin trilogy, where she is conflated with the woman who seduces and traps Merlin – while that character, still present in the text, is instead rehabilitated as a positive figure. It is also present in the texts by Bradley, Sampson, and Bradshaw, to mention a few.

Depictions of Morgawse as (semi-)villain, despite their often overt feminist approach to the Arthurian stories, tend to include a strong contempt for female sexuality and for those embracing a traditionally feminine gender role. Morgawse is often presented as seductive, promiscuous, and inclined to work through and for her children, rather than to realise personal ambitions. In this paper, I discuss what happens to this female character when texts rehabilitate other female characters, and how the various portrayals of Morgawse exhibit a number of problematic ideas about women and sexuality.