Now the story says that Guenevere, Cleodalis’s stepdaughter, had very wealthy kinsmen on her mother’s side, and they were very good knights. They hated King Leodagan for the great shame he had brought to Cleodalis because of his wife, whom he had kept for so long in spite of them all. As it happened, they were gathered together on the same evening Merlin came, and there were sixteen of them in all, and they were talking together of many things; but Cleodalis was not at this meeting, and he knew nothing about it. And they asked one another what they could do to hurt the king more and annoy him. They agreed at last that they would speak to the nurse of King Arthur’s betrothed, and they would be so generous toward her that, on the night when Guenevere was to lie down with her husband, the old woman would put the seneschal’s daughter with the king instead of her; and she would take Guenevere to play in the garden that evening, and “then we will seize her and take her to such a place that he will never hear news of her, nor will she be recognized, wherever she goes. Now let’s go and talk the nurse8 into doing this, and when it is over we will be lords of the king and his kingdom.”

Then they decided that seven of them would undertake the kidnapping, and they would have a boat ready where they would take her. After this planning, the traitors went their ways happy and cheerful because they thought that they had done very well, and they bought the boat and everything they needed. And they made the nurse such promises that she agreed to do what they wanted.

But as soon as they had reached their agreement, Merlin knew it. He went straight to Ulfin and Bretel and drew them aside by themselves, and he explained to them the treachery word for word just as they had plotted it; and when they heard it, they crossed themselves in wonder.

Vulgate Merlin