Erec

Literary traditions present Erec as the son of King Lac (a patronymic often given as 'son of Lac'), a Round Table knight whose figure is historicized within Arthurian legend. Medieval scholarship connects his name to Breton and Welsh name-forms (e.g., Guerec, Gweir) and notes that the paternal name Lac has been glossed in scholarship as cognate with Welsh Llwch ('lake'). In the Post‑Vulgate prose cycle a narrative expansion claims his family came from Greece and that his mother Crisea (Ocisea) enchanted him to be immune to magic; this maternal enchantment is a cycle-specific narrative element rather than a universally attested origin rite.

Sources do not give a standardized physical portrait beyond his status as a martial, chivalric knight. A specific material detail in Chrétien's Erec records a fur‑lined cloak described as made from ‘strange beasts’ with blond heads, black necks, scarlet backs, black stomachs, and dark‑blue tails; this is an isolated costume detail in the romance tradition rather than stable iconography for the character.

As presented in the romances, Erec's capacities are those of a heroic knight: martial skill, questing activity, and the social role of defending honor and courtly values. Narrative variants add episodic traits: Chrétien's Erec undertakes the test‑trip with Enide to vindicate his reputation; the Norse Erex saga makes him progenitor of sons Llac and Odus who become kings; the Post‑Vulgate prose Erec attributes to him immunity to magic through his mother Crisea's enchantment and records deeds such as saving Bohort from an enchanter named Mabon. These supernatural attributions are cycle‑specific and not universally present.