Mark of Cornwall

|alt=Mark on a light-coloured quilt In Old Welsh records, Mark is recorded as "March son of Meirchion" of Kernow (Cornwall). He is associated with governing portions of Gwynedd and Glamorgan in Wales. The distance of these areas from modern day Cornwall may indicate that Mark was in fact a ruler of the eponymous Cornovii. Mark has been identified with Conomor, a king of Domnonea and Kernev (Domnonée and Cornouaille) in Armorica. In his Life of St. Pol de Leon, Wrmonoc of Landévennec refers to a "King Marc whose other name is Quonomorus". Also rendered as Cunomorus, the name means "Hound-of-the-sea". An inscription on a sixth-century gravestone near the Cornish town of Fowey memorializes (in Latin) a "Drustanus son of Cunomorus", and it has been thought that this is the "Tristan son of Mark (alias 'Quonomorus')" of legend. The present location of the stone is at , but it was originally at Castle Dore. It has a mid-6th-century, two-line inscription which has been interpreted as DRVSTANVS HIC IACIT CVNOWORI FILIVS ("Drustan lies here, of Cunomorus the son"). A now-missing third line was described by the 16th-century antiquarian John Leland as CVM DOMINA OUSILLA ("with the lady Ousilla"). Ousilla is a Latinisation of the Cornish female name Eselt. The stone led to Mark's association with Castle Dore. ==Legend==

In most versions of the story of Tristan and Iseult, King Mark of Cornwall is Tristan's uncle. His sister is Tristan's mother, Blancheflor (also known as Elizabeth or Isabelle). In some later versions he is related to Tristan's father, Meliadus. Peter Bartrum noted "In the older versions of the Tristan legend Mark was a sympathetic character and behaved honourably in spite of much frustration." : "King Mark slew the noble knight Sir Tristram as he sat harping before his lady la Belle Isolde."|alt=Illustration of Mark preparing to kill Tristan with a sword In the Prose Tristan, Mark is the son of king Felix and his character deteriorates from a sympathetic cuckold to a villain; he rapes his niece and murders her when she produces his son, Meraugis. Mark also murders his brother, Prince Boudwin, and later kills Boudwin's vengeful teenage son Alisander (Alisuander, Alexander) the Orphan. In earlier variants of the story, Tristan dies in Brittany far from Mark; in the Prose Tristan, however, Tristan is mortally wounded by Mark while he plays the harp under a tree for Iseult. This version of Mark was popular in other medieval works, including the Romance of Palamedes and Thomas Malory's ''Le Morte d'Arthur''. In these texts, Mark usually rules Cornwall from Tintagel Castle, is often an enemy of Arthur's jester knight Dinadan, and (as in the Post-Vulgate Cycle) even destroys Camelot after the death of Arthur, allying himself with the pagan Saxons and killing the archbishop. Some Post-Vulgate variants end with the death of Mark. In Micheau Gonnot's Arthurian Compilation, he is ambushed by the sons of his baron Dinas, who tie him to a tree and leave him to be eaten alive by a bear. Malory's version says that Alisander's son eventually avenges his father and grandfather, presumably by killing Mark. Horse ears Mark has become associated with a Celtic variant of the story of Midas and his donkey ears from Greek mythology, due to a pun on marc (a Celtic word for "horse"). John Rhys recorded a Welsh tale similar to the simpler Breton version. An embellished 1905 version, collected by Yann ar Floc'h, blends the legend of Ys with the premise that Mark was condemned by Gradlon's daughter (or Dahut). ==Modern culture==

• King Mark has a gruesome role in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poetry cycle Idylls of the King. While Arthur and many of his knights are taking on the court of the Red Knight, Lancelot is called upon to judge "The Tournament of the Dead Innocence." The tournament quickly becomes a mockery, full of insults and broken rules. Tristram (Tristan) is the winner of the tournament, winning all the rubies from the necklace. He then breaks with tradition in presenting them to a woman, saying: "This day my Queen of Beauty is not here". This enrages the crowd, and many say that "All courtesy is dead," and "The glory of our Round Table is no more." Tristram, who in this version marries Isolt of the White Hands, carries his winnings to Mark's wife Queen Isolt (who is upset that Tristram married another woman). They mock each other briefly before Tristram puts the necklace around Isolt's neck and leans down to kiss her. Mark appears as his lips touch her, killing Tristram with a sword. • Mark (the German "Marke") is a character in Wagner's 1859 opera, Tristan und Isolde, where the role was first sung by the bass Ludwig Zottmayer. • In the 1954 film The Black Knight, he is depicted by Patrick Troughton as a pagan trying to overthrow Christianity and King Arthur. • In the 1970s TV show Arthur of the Britons, Mark was played by Brian Blessed. • In 1981 film Lovespell, King Mark was played by Richard Burton. • Mark (called "Marc'h of Kernow") is a character in Diana L. Paxson's 1988 novel, The White Raven. The novel is of Paxson's take on the Tristan and Iseult story from the point of view of Iseult's cousin, Branwen. • In Bernard Cornwell's 1996 novel Enemy of God (part of his The Warlord Chronicles series), King Mark is a physically- and morally-monstrous tyrant who murders his young wife every few years to marry another. • In the 2006 film Tristan & Isolde, Marke was played by Rufus Sewell as a benevolent figure. ==See also==