# Jurgen — Character guide

> Key figures in Jurgen by James Branch Cabell.

- [Jurgen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/jurgen.md): Jurgen is a respectable tradesman of Bellegarde, forty-something, married to the formidable Dame Lisa, and privately convinced he was meant for finer things than pawning other people's treasures. When Lisa vanishes into 
- [Queen Anaïtis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/anaitis.md): Anaïtis rules a land where the law is simply to do what seems good to you, and she takes Jurgen as Prince Consort when he blunders through the Breaking of the Veil. Her passion unnerves him — he keeps thinking of the fem
- [Koshchei](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/koshchei.md): Koshchei is the cosmic force behind the novel's shifting realities, the one who decides that what he wills has not only happened but always already happened. He meets Jurgen near the end of the journey and offers him not
- [Dame Lisa](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/dame_lisa.md): Dame Lisa is a decent Christian woman with strong opinions about long words, low company, and her husband's shirts, and she disposes of cosmic beings with the same brisk contempt she applies to Jurgen's reading in bed. S
- [Mother Sereda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/mother_sereda.md): Mother Sereda lives in a chill stone house with a yardstick, a pair of scales, and caged birds, and she bleaches the cloths that Clotho spun and Lachesis wove until nothing remains but dishclouts. She recognizes Jurgen's
- [Chloris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/the_hamadryad.md): Chloris is a hamadryad in the island of Leukê, where Jugatinus marries everyone and nobody ever leaves, so the question of Jurgen's prior wives simply cannot arise. She is tender, literal-minded, and utterly untroubled b
- [King Gogyrvan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/gogyrvan.md): Gogyrvan rules Glathion with a patience that looks like indolence and a candor that looks like cynicism: asked whether his counsel is reputable, he answers, surprised, that it is what we call philanthropy. His daughter G
- [Florimel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/florimel.md): Florimel becomes Jurgen's wife in the underworld, a courteous and merry companion whose trade is seducing and murdering young men — a vocation Jurgen finds not nice yet cannot stop coaxing her to describe. Her affection,
- [Dame Guenevere](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/guenevere.md): Guenevere first appears as the fairest and most perfect of mortal women, whose thick gold hair and small proud head reduce Jurgen to making sirventes in praise of his Phyllida. Later, with Lancelot turned monk and Arthur
- [Grandfather Satan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/grandfather_satan.md): Satan receives Jurgen in the underworld with the ease of a host who has seen every guest before, and his remark that whatever Coth believes will be the truth in Hell becomes the lever Jurgen uses against his father. He i
- [Coth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/coth.md): Coth bickers with his son in the timeless idiom of family grievance — about Jurgen's tone of voice, his mother, his light women — while the fiends tormenting him withdraw in embarrassment at the sheer volume of it. Becau
- [Queen Helen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/queen_helen.md): Helen is the rumor that pulls Jurgen from his remote kingdom, the woman whose face launched a thousand ships and now, married off by the aging Gods to Achilles, keeps a quiet court in Leukê. When Jurgen finally sees her,
- [King Smoit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/king_smoit.md): Smoit haunts the White Turret alongside Sylvia Tereu, his ninth wife, whom he freely admits to having assassinated in a moment of unprovoked excitement. Boisterous, unrepentant, and disarmingly frank about his scandalous
- [Queen Dolores](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/queen_dolores.md): Dolores governs Philistia with the level head of a monarch who has seen too much to be swayed by fine speeches or heroic airs. Where Jurgen drifts on fancy, she insists on the practical, and her refusal to be dazzled exp
- [Heitman Michael](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/heitman_michael.md): Heitman Michael moves through Philistia as a man of substance and standing, the sort of solid suitor Dorothy's world approves of. To the young Jurgen he seemed a senile interloper, yet he is the one who will actually win
- [Horvendile](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/horvendile.md): Horvendile once served Count Emmerick when Jurgen was a lad, and he turns up again on a long beach, unchanged and quietly amused. Where Perion insists Queen Helen is Helen, Horvendile calmly identifies her as Ettarre, an
- [Madame Dorothy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/madame_dorothy.md): Dorothy is the golden girl of Jurgen's youth, dancing on the terrace and promising him exploits he now knows he will never perform. She will give herself to Heitman Michael within two months, a future Jurgen foresees but
- [Queen Sylvia Tereu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/queen_sylvia_tereu.md): Sylvia Tereu drifts through the White Turret beside the husband who killed her, her protestations of innocence delivered with the weariness of long practice. She vanishes at cockcrow, leaving Jurgen to explain her to Dam
- [St. Peter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/st_peter.md): St. Peter sits at the wicket of Heaven with his fellow Apostles, and the view from there has made him chronically uncomfortable: every atrocity done in the Church's name eventually shows up at his gate claiming fellowshi
- [Steinvor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/steinvor.md): A Norse-inspired figure encountered by Jurgen in the northern realms.
- [Yolande](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/yolande.md): A woman whose undoing is recounted in an excursus during Jurgen's journey.
- [Thragnar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/thragnar.md): A monstrous king who disguises himself and is defeated by Jurgen.
- [Perion de la Forêt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/perion_de_la_foret.md): A knight and friend of Jurgen who appears in the early chapters.
- [The Master Philologist](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/the_master_philologist.md): A cryptic scholar who teaches Jurgen about the power of words and names.
- [Achilles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/achilles.md): The legendary Greek hero encountered by Jurgen in the underworld.
- [Phobetor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/phobetor.md): A personification of fear who appears in the dream-like realms Jurgen visits.
- [Merlin Ambrosius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/merlin_ambrosius.md): The legendary wizard who makes prophecies about King Arthur and Guenevere.
- [Silenus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/silenus.md): A companion of Dionysus encountered by Jurgen in his mythic travels.
- [Azra](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/azra.md): A mysterious figure briefly encountered by Jurgen in the garden.
- [Caliburn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/caliburn.md): King Arthur's legendary sword, mentioned as a symbol of authority.
- [John the Twentieth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/john_the_twentieth.md): A pope who appears in Heaven during Jurgen's visit.
- [Pandelis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/pandelis.md): A servant or attendant in the court of King Smoit.
- [Earl Giarmuid](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/earl_giarmuid.md): A nobleman who appears in the court of King Gogyrvan.
- [Phyllis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/phyllis.md): A woman mentioned in the context of Jurgen's romantic past.
- [Count Emmerick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/count_emmerick.md): A count who appears briefly in the early chapters of the book.
- [Lancelot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/lancelot.md): The legendary knight of the Round Table, mentioned in passing.
- [Stella](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/stella.md): A woman briefly encountered by Jurgen in his wanderings.
- [Thersitês](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/thersites.md): A deformed Greek soldier from the Trojan War, encountered in the underworld.
- [Gowlais](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/gowlais.md): A learned figure who appears in the philosophical discussions of the book.
- [Æsred](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/aesred.md): A figure from Norse mythology encountered by Jurgen.
- [Cannagosta](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/cannagosta.md): A location or figure mentioned in the context of Philistia.
- [Gudrun](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters/gudrun.md): A figure from Norse legend encountered in the northern realms.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/jurgen_se/characters