E X T E N S I O N THE LOATHLY LADY The loathly1 lady is a common literary device used in medieval literature, most famously in Geoffrey Chaucer s The Wife of Bath s Tale. The motif was prominent in Celtic mythology and also in Germanic mythology, where the lady often represented the sovereignty of the land. The theme became a characteristic of Arthurian literature. The loathly lady is a woman who appears to be ugly and disgusting. She asks a man to kiss or marry her, and when he agrees to do so, her appearance is transformed, and she becomes beautiful. Generally, it is revealed that her hideousness2 was the result of a curse3, now broken. In her capacity as a quest-bringer4, the loathly lady can be found in the literature of the Holy Grail, including Chrétien de Troyes Perceval, the Story of the Grail, and the Welsh Romance Peredur, son of Efrawg. A variation on this story can be found in what happened to Sir Gawain in the romances The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle and The Marriage of Sir Gawain. The loathly lady also appears in Scandinavian literature and in the Middle High German romance Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach in the character of Cundrie, the messenger of the Grail. 1. loathly: arousing aversion or disgust. 2. hideousness: repulsive ugliness. 3. curse: (here) magic formula to cause misfortune. 4. quest-bringer: someone who is involved in or contributes to the difficult search for something. A medieval depiction of a loathly woman 61