Was Athurs Father. At an Easter feast in London, Ygerna, the ravishing wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, innocently attracted the attentions of Uther Pendragon, the high king. Gorlois, realizing the potential for danger in this situation, wisely departs the feast with his entourage to return to his own castle at Tintagel, on the wild, rocky, northern seacoast of Cornwall. Flushed with unfulfilled desire for the maddeningly beautiful Ygerna, and angry at the insult of Gorlois' premature departure, Uther pursued Gorlois back to his lands.

Gorlois recieved word of the pursuit, and after making sure of his wife's safety in his castle, went out to lead his men in the coming battle against the hormone-driven king. Merlin, the shadowy character, who, according to later legends, would use his special abilities as adviser, seer and magician in the service of Arthur, enters the picture, and by means of a deception, makes it possible for Arthur to be born.

In a rather flamboyant display of his powers, Merlin transforms Uther's appearance to look exactly like that of Gorlois, so that while the real Gorlois is out in the trenches hacking away at Uther's men and being hacked away at by them, Uther walks past the guards, unrecognized and unquestioned, into Tintagel Castle for a tryst with the object of his inflamed passions, Ygerna. Merlin's transformation of Uther is so convincing, that Ygerna thinks that he is really Gorlois, and, since she believes the danger to have been averted, she gives herself to him without reservation.

The rest is history, as they say, and Arthur was conceived. Fortunately for Uther and the monarchy, Gorlois found himself unequal to the challenge of Uther's armies and passed into history without the knowledge that his wife, the spectacular Ygerna, would, in nine short months, become the mother of the greatest legend of the Dark Ages and the rest of all English history. The story is completed by Uther and Ygerna living happily ever after and having one son, Arthur and one daughter, Anna.

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