Bors

by Brian Edward Rise

In the Vulgate Cycle and Le Morte d'Arthur, the name of Lancelot's cousin. Though hindered by unchaste acts in his past, he is one of the more successful Grail-knights and travels to Sarras with Percival and Galahad where the Quest of the Sangreal is achieved. Bors is welcomed to Camelot after his return to Britain where he reports of Galahad's attainment of the Supreme Vision and subsequent death. He is made king of Claudas' lands.

He warns Lancelot in vain about Agravain and Mordred's plot to catch him alone with Guinevere, and he eventually sides with Lancelot in the scandal that splits the Round Table. He fights Mordred with the king and, according to Malory, after Arthur's death Bors takes religious orders and joins his cousin at a Glastonbury hermitage. Bors eventually dies in the Holy Land in the Crusade to Jerusalem.

❧