Elaine or Elizabeth, also known as Amite, and identified as the "Grail Maiden" or the "Grail Bearer", is a character from Arthurian legend. In the Arthurian chivalric romance tradition from the Vulgate Cycle, she is the daughter of the Fisher King, King Pelles of Corbenic, and the mother of Galahad by Lancelot, whose repeated rape by her results in his descent into madness. She should not be confused with Elaine of Astolat, a different woman who too fell in love with Lancelot.
"How at the Castle of Corbin a maiden bare in the Sangreal and foretold the achievements of Galahad" by Arthur Rackham. A 1917 illustration from The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, abridged from Le Morte d'Arthur by Alfred W. Pollard, depicting Lady Elaine carrying the Grail through the halls of King Pelles' palace
The Fisher King is a figure in Arthurian legend, the last in a long line of British kings tasked with guarding the Holy Grail. The Fisher King is both the protector and physical embodiment of his lands, but a wound renders him impotent and his kingdom barren. Unable to walk or ride a horse, he is sometimes depicted as spending his time fishing while he awaits a "chosen one" who can heal him. Versions of the story vary widely, but the Fisher King is typically depicted as being wounded in the groin, legs, or thigh. The healing of these wounds always depends upon the completion of a hero-knight's task.
Perceval arrives at the Grail Castle to be greeted by the Fisher King in an illustration for a 1330 manuscript of Perceval, the Story of the Grail.
The bloodied head on a plate in T. W. Rolleston's Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race (1910) "Peredur had been shown these things to incite him to avenge the wrong, and to prove his fitness for the task."
Sir Balin stabs Pellam in the "Dolorous Stroke" in Lancelot Speed's illustration for James Knowles' The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1912) "The castle rocked and rove throughout, and all the walls fell crashed and breaking to the earth."
