Character guide

King Arthur

major

Also known as Arthur, the famous King Arthur, King Arthur Constans, Arthur Chosen King Arthur, V Arthur, brave King Arthur, Shalott King Arthur

Arthur commands the loyalty of dukes, earls, and the knights of the Round Table, but his authority fractures when Launcelot fortifies himself in Joyeuse Garde with the queen's partisans. He lays siege with Gawain at his side, declaring himself Launcelot's mortal foe even as the knight refuses to strike back. His refusal to yield—and Launcelot's refusal to shame him—sets the tragedy of Camelot's unraveling in motion.

Sir Launcelot

major

Also known as Launcelot, the little Launcelot, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Launcelot du Lac, the inimitable Launcelot

Launcelot is the knight Arthur made, and the knight who will not raise his sword against his maker—even when besieged and called a mortal foe. He charges his own men to spare Arthur and Gawain, then lifts the fallen king back onto his horse and begs him to cease. His divided loyalty, and the court's growing whisper about him and Guenever, is the fault line running beneath every later adventure.

Charlemagne

major

Also known as Charles the Great, Charles, King Charles

Charlemagne rules the Franks and gathers around him the paladins whose deeds fill the legends bearing his name. His authority holds the diverse warriors together, but the passions of his knights—rivalries, forbidden loves, and the fury of Orlando—repeatedly test the order he imposes. He is the still center around which the romance of the Middle Ages turns.

Orlando

major

Also known as Roland, the paladin Orlando, the Paladin Orlando, Orlando Mad Orlando, the frantic Orlando

Orlando stands first among the paladins, his prowess the pride of Charlemagne's court. But his love for Angelica becomes an obsession that neither duty nor honor can temper, and the discovery of her union with another drives him past the edge of reason. His descent into madness is the epic's central catastrophe, transforming its greatest hero into its most pitiable figure.

Rogero

major

Also known as Bradamante, Rogero Bradamante, the fearless Rogero

Rogero rides among the Saracen host, feared for his prowess and prized by his commanders. His love for the Christian warrior Bradamante pulls him toward conversion and a future as founder of the house of Este—yet every step toward her is contested by enchantment, rivals, and his own divided allegiance. His struggle between birth and desire gives the Charlemagne legends their most romantic arc.

Geraint

supporting

Also known as Prince Geraint, VI Geraint, the Son of Erbin

Geraint, son of Erbin, is a knight whose devotion to Enid becomes the proving ground of his honor. Suspecting her constancy after a careless word, he rides out with her in silence, forbidding her to warn him of dangers ahead—a test that endangers them both. His story turns on the tension between love and pride, and on the quiet courage of the woman he means to prove.

Aeneas

major

Also known as Mezentius, Mezentius Aeneas

Aeneas belongs to the generation of heroes caught between a ruined homeland and a promised one, and Bulfinch introduces him as the son of Venus and Anchises whose wanderings the Roman poets claimed as their nation's origin. His defining tension is between the life he lost at Troy and the destiny he cannot see clearly, a conflict that makes him both dutiful and reluctant. His early voyages and encounters with storms, oracles, and underworld guides set the pattern for the whole epic arc.

Tristram

supporting

Also known as XII Tristram, the unhappy Tristram, Sir Tristram, XIV Sir Tristram

Tristram moves through the Arthurian world as a knight of unmatched versatility, equally feared in tournaments and prized at court for his music. His marriage to Isoude of the White Hands is an attempt to escape a love he knows is hopeless, but the old passion and the magic that bound it refuse to release him. His wounding and the long wait for sails from Cornwall make him the emblem of loyalty stretched past endurance.

Sir Owain

supporting

Also known as Owain

Owain's story turns on a broken promise: he wins the Lady of the Fountain, then lets his vow to return lapse while he seeks adventure, and her messenger publicly brands him a deceiver. He wanders half-mad among wild beasts until a charitable lady's ointment brings him back to himself. His later rescue of a lion from a serpent, and the lion's devotion, mark the beginning of his slow recovery of honor.

Astolpho

supporting

Also known as Bayard, Agrican, This Agrican

Astolpho stands apart from the grim warriors of the Carolingian cycle by virtue of his humor and his taste for the marvelous, and Bulfinch places him among the paladins whose adventures shade into romance and allegory. His enchanted horn, his book of spells, and his journeys to strange lands give him a freedom the other peers lack. He matters because his exploits carry the narrative into territory where chivalry meets fantasy and satire.

Rinaldo of Montalban

supporting

Also known as Rinaldo, Montalban, the illustrious Rinaldo

Rinaldo is the head of the house of Montalban, and his feud with the emperor over the horse Bayard and the grievances of his family drives some of the cycle's bitterest sieges. When starvation forces his garrison to consider killing Bayard, the horse kneels like a suppliant, and Rinaldo's heart fails him, a moment that reveals how much of his defiance is personal rather than political. His eventual submission, brokered by his mother Aya, restores him to the king's favor and sets up his later role among the peers.

Ogier the Dane

supporting

Also known as Ogier, the brave Ogier, the celebrated Ogier the Dane

Ogier enters the Carolingian court as a hostage for his father, a position that makes him vulnerable to the contempt of princes like Charlot. When Charlot sneers that a captive vassal cannot answer a challenge, Charlemagne rebukes his own son and frees Ogier on the spot, declaring that the man who saved his life is as dear to him as his heir. That scene establishes Ogier as a knight whose worth is measured by deeds rather than birth, and it launches him into the combats and adventures that made his name legendary.

Sir Perceval

supporting

Also known as Percy, Perceval, Sir Perceval de Galis

Perceval rides among Arthur's fellowship as one of the few whose innocence and unworldliness mark him for the Sangreal's mysteries. His strength lies not in cunning but in a kind of holy simplicity that the world of courtly intrigue cannot easily account for. In the Grail narrative, he stands as a counterweight to the compromised knights, showing that the quest demands something rarer than valor.

Sir Gawain

supporting

Also known as Gawain, VI Sir Gawain Sir Gawain, noble Sir Gawain

Gawain moves through the Arthurian world as a figure of immense reputation, his name invoked alongside the greatest of the fellowship. Yet the Grail quest presses against even his formidable qualities, and his resolve falters where others endure. His presence in the Sangreal narrative matters because he represents the worldly knight par excellence, against whom the spiritual demands of the quest can be measured.

Sir Bohort

supporting

Bohort rides out from Camelot into a landscape of trials that test not his sword arm but his soul. When forced to choose between saving his brother Lionel and rescuing a threatened maiden, he weeps and chooses the maiden, a decision that defines his character. His willingness to suffer and to place mercy above kinship marks him as one of the three knights whose purity earns them a place at the Grail's table.

Huon of Bordeaux

supporting

Also known as Sir Huon, Duke Huon, the brave Huon, the brave but unfortunate Huon

Huon of Bordeaux carries the weight of a great name into a world of imperial politics and supernatural tests. His courage is matched only by the misfortunes that dog his steps, earning him the epithet 'brave but unfortunate.' In the legends of Charlemagne, his quest to prove himself at the emperor's court sets in motion a series of trials that reveal both the glory and the cost of knightly ambition.

Jupiter

major

Also known as Jupiter omnipotent, Jove, Libyan Jove

Jupiter rules Olympus with a sovereignty that is absolute but far from serene, his authority constantly asserted against giants, rivals, and the consequences of his own desires. He transforms himself into a ram to escape the giants, into a bull for Europa, and into a shower of gold for Danae, each disguise a testament to his restless appetite. His interventions drive the machinery of myth, making him the axis around which the fables of gods and heroes turn.

Phoebus Apollo

major

Also known as Apollo, Phoebus, Accordingly Apollo

Apollo pursues Daphne with a passion that ends in her transformation into the laurel, a tree he claims as his own eternal emblem. His domain extends from the lyre to the healing arts, and the wise of ancient days adored one power of physic, melody, and song. In the myths, he embodies the dazzling and sometimes cruel light of civilization, whether striking down the Python or lamenting the death of Hyacinthus.

Ulysses

major

Also known as Odysseus, the Siren of Ulysses, the Suitors Ulysses, Ulysses Greek

Ulysses is the Greek captain whose fame rests less on strength than on stratagems, the man whose cleverness wins wars and then prolongs his own voyage home. His story turns on a restless hunger for experience and a wife, Penelope, waiting through years of suitors and uncertainty. Bulfinch uses him to show how myth rewards patience and wit, and how a hero's greatest battle may be against his own wandering nature.

Angelica

supporting

Also known as this Angelica, cease loving Angelica

Angelica is the elusive prize of the Orlando romances, a princess whose charms set paladins against one another even as her city falls around her. Trapped in a citadel with dwindling supplies, she rides out alone through enemy lines, relying on her enchanted ring and her own nerve. Her flight sets knights like Sacripant, Rogero, and Bradamante in motion, making her the quiet engine of the epic's wandering plots.

Achilles

supporting

Also known as Thetis, Achilles by Thetis

Achilles stands at the head of the Greek host before Troy, a warrior whose skill in battle is matched only by the fury that governs him. His quarrel with Agamemnon over honor and plunder drives a wedge through the Greek camp, and his refusal to fight costs his comrades dearly. Bulfinch presents him as the archetype of heroic pride, a man whose anger is as dangerous to his own side as to the enemy.

Sir Galahad

supporting

Also known as Galahad, See Galahad

Galahad arrives at Arthur's court as the knight whose sinlessness singles him out for the Holy Grail, a destiny that separates him from the flawed companions he rides beside. Where Launcelot and Tristram are tangled in love and feud, Galahad moves through the world untouched by either, and that very detachment marks him as both blessed and isolated. His presence raises the standard against which the other knights' failures are measured, giving the Grail quest its moral center.

Thor

supporting

Also known as Gods, the great Thor, the Other Gods Thor

Thor is the strongest of the Norse gods, the defender of Asgard and Midgard whose hammer Mjolnir answers the giants' threats. At Ragnarok he kills the Midgard serpent, only to fall dead from its venom, a fate he meets without flinching. Bulfinch places him at the heart of northern myth as the protector whose doom is written alongside the world's, making his courage inseparable from the coming twilight of the gods.

Sir Kay

supporting

Also known as Kay, Sir Kay the Seneschal, the Seneschal, Kay the Seneschal

Sir Kay is the seneschal of Arthur's household, the foster-brother raised alongside the king and entrusted with the practical running of the court. His tongue is famously cutting, and he often tests newcomers with scorn before their worth is proven, a habit that makes him both comic and quietly important. Bulfinch uses him to show that not every knight earns glory by the sword; some hold the hall together while others ride out.

Psyche

supporting

Also known as poor Psyche, the pious Psyche

Psyche is the youngest of three royal daughters, so radiant that crowds mistake her for Venus herself and leave the goddess's altars cold. That unintended rivalry sets a jealous deity against her, while her mysterious husband forbids her ever to look upon his face. Her story turns on trust and curiosity: the smallest disobedience costs her love, and only a series of impossible tasks can restore it.

Oliver

supporting

Also known as Oliver Roland, the brave Oliver

Oliver stands beside Roland in the emperor's household guard, matched to him in courage but not in temper. Where Roland charges ahead, Oliver reads the ground, counts the enemy, and begs for caution—advice that goes unheeded until the horns sound too late. Their friendship is the emotional spine of the Charlemagne legends, and Oliver's clear sight makes him the reader's measure of what pride costs.

Niobe

minor

Also known as this Niobe

Proud queen turned to stone after boasting about her children, slain by Apollo and Diana.

Minerva

supporting

Also known as Pallas, a Pallas, Minerva the wise, Pallas Athene

Minerva sits among the great Olympians as patron of crafts, strategy, and the disciplined side of battle, her counsel weighed against Neptune's and Juno's in the halls of Jupiter. She chooses her mortals carefully—Ulysses above all—and appears to them in disguise, testing whether they deserve her aid. Her interventions decide sieges and voyages, making her the quiet architect of the epic's most cunning victories.

Juno

supporting

Also known as the Rustics Juno, royal Juno, angry Juno

Juno reigns beside Jupiter as queen of gods and guardian of marriage, a position she defends with relentless energy. Her husband's endless affairs wound her pride, and she pursues his lovers and their children across land and sea, enlisting winds, monsters, and lesser deities in her grudges. Her wrath drives the wanderings of heroes like Aeneas and Hercules, making her the great obstacle that divine parentage cannot shield anyone from.

Vulcan

minor

Also known as Hercules, Strong Hercules

God of fire and metalworking, husband of Venus, forger of divine weapons.

Sir Lionel

minor

Also known as Leo

Knight of the Round Table, brother of Sir Bohort, known for his fierce temper.

Hector

minor

Also known as brave Hector, Sir Hector, Sir Hector de Marys, Hector de Marys

Trojan prince and greatest warrior of Troy, killed by Achilles.

Ovid

minor

Also known as Virgil, the Sibyl, the Cumaean Sibyl

Roman poet whose Metamorphoses is a major source for many myths in this book.

Antaeus

minor

Also known as Hercules

Giant wrestler of Libya, invincible while touching the earth, killed by Hercules.

Orpheus

minor

Also known as Eurydice Orpheus, Eurydice

Legendary musician who descended to the underworld to retrieve his wife Eurydice.

Cephalus

minor

Also known as Procris Cephalus, Procris

Hunter and husband of Procris, central figure in a tragic love story.

Pwyll

supporting

Also known as VIII Pwyll

Pwyll rules Dyfed with more courage than judgment, and one ill-considered exchange with Arawn, lord of the Otherworld, sends him to swap places with a king he has never met. He must govern a strange court for a year, sleep beside another man's queen without dishonor, and finally strike a single blow he has been warned not to repeat. His mistakes and recoveries open the Welsh tales with a lesson in keeping one's word.

Proserpine

minor

Also known as Ceres, Ceres seeking Proserpine

Daughter of Ceres, queen of the underworld, abducted by Pluto.

Medea

supporting

Medea is daughter of the king who guards the Fleece, and her knowledge of herbs and incantations makes her the most dangerous ally Jason could gain. She betrays her father and her brother to help him, then uses her arts to trick Pelias's daughters into killing their own father. When Jason casts her aside for a younger princess, her grief hardens into a revenge so total it stains the whole Argonaut cycle.

Enid

minor

Wife of Geraint, known for her loyalty and patience in Arthurian romance.

Theseus

supporting

Also known as the Minotaur, Minos, King Minos, the ungrateful Theseus

Theseus enters the Cretan labyrinth as one of fourteen Athenian youths sent to feed Minos's monster, and walks out with a crown waiting in Athens. His heroism is real but tangled with obligation: he owes his survival to Ariadne, and the myths that follow him keep asking whether he repaid what he owed. In Bulfinch's telling, Theseus anchors the Athenian cycle the way Hercules anchors the Theban — a hero whose adventures double as civic founding stories, which is why his ingratitude becomes as memorable as his sword.

Manawyddan

minor

Also known as Manawyddan Pwyll

Welsh hero and magician, son of Llyr, central figure in the Mabinogi.

Queen Guenever

supporting

Also known as XI Queen Guenever, Guenever, the fair Guenever

Guenever moves through Arthur's hall as its social center — receiving wounded knights, judging insults done to her maidens, and dispensing the mercy that keeps feuds from hardening. Bulfinch shows her forgiving Edeyrn for a blow struck at one of her women, weighing the insult as much against Arthur as against herself. That instinct for the court's dignity is what makes her later entanglements so costly: the queen who keeps everyone reconciled cannot always keep herself so.

Danaë

minor

Also known as Jupiter, Jupiter and Danaë

Mother of Perseus, imprisoned by her father but visited by Jupiter in a golden shower.

Charlot

minor

Also known as the perfidious Charlot, the ferocious Charlot

Son of Charlemagne, a treacherous figure in the Charlemagne legends.

Arachne

minor

Mortal weaver who challenged Minerva and was turned into a spider.

Venus

supporting

Also known as Adonis Venus, Adonis

Venus presides over the myths where desire becomes fate — the judgment of Paris, the passion of Adonis, the trials of Cupid's lovers. Bulfinch pauses on her statue in the Medici collection, noting that sculptors modeled her from the city's most perfect forms, as if beauty itself required a committee. That blend of divine authority and human craftsmanship is the point: Venus is both a power mortals pray to and an image mortals keep trying to reproduce.

Neptune

minor

God of the sea, brother of Jupiter, often causing storms and earthquakes.

Merlin

supporting

Also known as Merlin Merlin, Merlin Ambrose Merlin, Merlin the Wild, Sage Merlin

Merlin appears in Bulfinch's Welsh triads as Merlin Ambrose, son of Morfyn, called the Wild — a seer whose authority rests on verse and prophecy rather than arms. He belongs to the company of golden-tongued knights and bards who give Arthur's court its memory, the figures who know what has happened and what must. His presence in the early legends makes Camelot feel older than Arthur himself, built on counsel he provided before the king was born.

Luned

minor

Handmaiden and confidante of the Lady of the Fountain in Welsh Arthurian tales.

Pyramus

minor

Also known as Thisbe, Thisbe Pyramus, young Thisbe, poor Pyramus

Babylonian lover who died for love of Thisbe in a tragic tale of miscommunication.

Scylla

minor

Also known as Glaucus, Scylla Glaucus, poor Scylla

Sea monster or maiden transformed; also a princess who betrayed her father for love.

Jason

supporting

Jason arrives at the edge of the Argo's story as a man with a claim and no throne, gathering heroes from across Greece for a quest that doubles as a political errand. Bulfinch places him in the company of the great expedition cycles, where the voyage itself — the roster of Argonauts, the stops, the monsters — matters more than the prize. What makes him worth following is the bargain at the center: he needs Medea's help to finish, and the myths never let him forget what that help cost.

Melissa

minor

Also known as the sage Melissa

Wise enchantress who aids Bradamante and Rogero in the Orlando epics.

Gradasso

minor

Also known as King Gradasso

Proud Saracen king who invades France seeking the best sword and horse.

Osiris

minor

Also known as Isis, Isis Osiris

Egyptian god of the underworld, killed by Set and resurrected by Isis.

Sir Palamedes

minor

Also known as Palamedes, XVI Sir Palamedes

Saracen knight of the Round Table, rival of Tristram for Isoude's love.

Siegfried

supporting

Siegfried stands at the center of the Nibelungen cycle, the dragon-slayer whose strength is matched only by the doom attached to what he wins. Bulfinch's Northern Mythology section places him among the Teutonic counterparts to the Greek heroes — same heroic shape, darker weather. The tension that drives his story is not whether he can kill the dragon but what happens to loyalty and love once the gold changes hands, which is why the saga keeps circling back to him long after he falls.

Odin

supporting

Also known as Wotan

Odin rules Valhalla as chief of the Aesir, god of wisdom, war, and poetry, the figure Germanic peoples renamed Wotan. His hunger for knowledge and victory sets the gods' course, yet that same foreknowledge binds him to a fate he cannot dodge: the wolf Fenris, the triple winter, the burning of the world. He anchors Bulfinch's northern cycle, giving the Norse pantheon its brooding, elegiac weight beside the sunnier gods of Greece.

Bellerophon

minor

Also known as Proetus, Procrustes

Greek hero who tamed Pegasus and slew the Chimaera.

Mercury

minor

Also known as Mercury ( Merˈcu - ry )

Messenger of the gods, god of travelers, thieves, and commerce.

Atlas

minor

Titan condemned to hold up the sky, encountered by Perseus.

Baldur

minor

Also known as Baldur Baldur the Good, Baldur The gods

Beloved Norse god whose death triggers the onset of Ragnarok.

Isoude

supporting

Also known as Queen Isoude, the gentle Isoude, fair Isoude, the fair Isoude

Isoude, called the fair and the gentle, is daughter to the Irish king and wife to Mark of Cornwall, a marriage meant to seal peace between rival courts. Around her gathers the chivalric legend's central knot: loyalty owed to a husband against a love she cannot govern, with Tristram, Mark's own nephew, at the center of it. Her story carries Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry into its most human register, where romance and betrayal wear the same face.

Perseus

supporting

Also known as the Sea - Monster Perseus

Perseus moves through the Greek myths as a hero of divine parentage and practical nerve, claiming Jupiter as father and the conquest of the Gorgon as his credentials. Denied rest by the giant Atlas, he answers the refusal with the one weapon no strength can resist, and the mountain that bears the stars rises where a king once stood. His adventures give Bulfinch's Age of Fable its template for the hero's arc: impossible errand, borrowed gifts, and a rescue that turns monster into monument.

Rodomont

minor

Also known as King Rodomont

Proud Saracen king, a fierce warrior in the Orlando epics.

Malagigi

minor

Also known as Malagigi the Enchanter

Enchanter and cousin of Rinaldo, skilled in magic in the Charlemagne legends.

Zerbino

minor

Also known as Isabella, Isabella Zerbino

Scottish prince and lover of Isabella, a tragic figure in Orlando Furioso.

King Priam

minor

Also known as Priam, Troy, Priam of Troy

King of Troy during the Trojan War, father of Hector and Paris.

Triton

minor

Also known as Proteus, old Triton, Proteus Triton

Sea god, son of Neptune, often depicted blowing a conch shell.

King Cadmus

minor

Also known as Cadmus

Founder of Thebes, who slew a dragon and sowed its teeth to create warriors.

Pryderi

minor

Son of Pwyll and Rhiannon, a central figure in the Mabinogi.

Mandricardo

minor

Also known as Mandricardo ( Man - dri - carˈdo

Saracen king who seeks revenge and challenges Orlando.

Narcissus

minor

Also known as Echo, Diana

Beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection and died.

Turnus

minor

Rutulian king who fought Aeneas for the hand of Lavinia.

Sacripant

minor

Also known as King Sacripant

Saracen king, one of Angelica's suitors in the Orlando epics.

Medoro

minor

Young Saracen soldier who wins Angelica's love, causing Orlando's madness.

Polyphemus

minor

Also known as the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Cyclops, Cyclops

One-eyed Cyclops who imprisoned Ulysses and his men.

Circe

minor

Enchantress who turned Ulysses' men into swine on her island.

Paris

minor

Also known as Helen, the nymph Oenone

Trojan prince who abducted Helen, sparking the Trojan War.

Cupid

minor

Also known as Eros, XI Cupid, Eros ( Cupid ), Love

God of love, son of Venus, whose arrows cause irresistible desire.

Modred

minor

Also known as Sir Modred

Traitorous knight who usurped Arthur's throne and caused the final battle.

King Mark

minor

Also known as Mark

King of Cornwall, husband of Isoude, uncle of Tristram.

King Agramant

minor

Also known as Agramant, Observing Agramant

Saracen king who leads an invasion of France against Charlemagne.

Marphisa

minor

Also known as the bold Marphisa

Fierce female Saracen warrior who later converts to Christianity.