The character first appears in Chrétien's
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, where
Bademagu is the king of Gor[r]e, a mysterious land connected to
Logres only by a bridge as sharp as a sword, wand here many people from Logres are kept prisoner.
His son abducts
Guinevere, who is later rescued by the hero
Lancelot with his help. by taking the seat that had belonged to Ganor who was accidentally killed by Lancelot in a jousting tournament. He becomes a friend of Lancelot, who condemns his son's evil deeds and acknowledges that his death at the hands of Lancelot was deserved. Curiously, he is the King of Gorre at the same time as when Arthur's sister
Morgan is described as the Queen of Gorre and lives there, but the connection between their characters and their status is not explicitly explained. After his death by Gawain (not described), Arthur mourns him more than any other knight lost during the
Grail Quest. He is a very different character in the
Post-Vulgate Cycle, in which he is a companion of
Gawain and
Yvain. Previously, he had also been the one who discovered the fate of
Merlin in the course of his
knight errant adventures having left the Round Table in anger after the admission of
Tor, eventually becoming the King of Gorre. His death takes place in the Post-Vulgate
Queste, after he discovers
Mordred raping a young girl and promptly wounds him in a duel. Gawain, not knowing the identity of the knight who injured his brother, pursues him and gives him a mortal injury, but then despairs upon discovering the truth; he forgives Gawain before dying. In the
Stanzaic Morte Arthur, he survives the Grail Quest and joins Lancelot's faction against Arthur in the civil war over Guinevere. In
Thomas Malory's ''
Le Morte d'Arthur'', the link between him and 'Sir Meleagraunce' disappears (although he remains a cousin of 'Urienc reduced to a minor character, linked to Malory's version of Galehaut and likewise as a foe of Lancelot instead of his friend. He later becomes a "full good knight" and succeeds in joining the Round Table, but eventually he is somehow (without elaboration) killed by Gawain; Malory, apparently in error, then brings him back as one of Gawain's companions. ==Modern Arthuriana==