Queen Guinevere: Medusa, Blood-letting, and the Cult of the Severed Head

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Camelot Chat! I’m your hostess, Shannon Watson, and today, we’ll be talking about Queen Guinevere... and whether queen was really her only title.

Many strange symbols and stories are associated with the queen known as Guinevere, Gwenhwyfar, Guanhumara... and even Wanders. George R.R. Martin, author of The Song of Ice and Fire series, calls these symbols sigils; and most of the great houses in his books, some of which were based on medieval chivalry, have them.

The people of Dark Age Britain had them, too, although the forms their sigils took were more primitive, being more on the line of totems than heraldry. For instance, instead of a picture of a running wolf on a flying pennant, one might see a feral-looking warrior wearing a wolf pelt. Or, a heavily-tattooed Pict of the Orcs, or Boar Clan, might use the tusk of a wild boar in lieu of a dagger…