Evaine

Evaine is a queen in Arthurian legend, the sister of Elaine, mother of Lancelot; she and her sister married brother kings (Bors, King of Gaul and Ban, King of Benoic, respectively) and suffered parallel fates, both women losing their husbands and sons and then entering the same convent. In Evaine's case, she is widowed when her husband dies, either in battle or from grief after learning about his brother's death; feeling unsafe from attack, she flees with her two sons, Lionel and Bors the Younger, but tragically, her boys are captured and imprisoned by the enemy (Claudas). Evaine alone manages to escape, and goes to her sister who, spurred by her own personal sorrow, has taken the vow as a nun.

Evaine follows her into the religious life and passes many years at the abbey, incessantly tormented with worry over her sons. Finally a former knight called the Black Friar (a.k.a. Adragain) visits the abbey and informs her that her sons are still alive — and Elaine's son too, who has been with a fairy foster-mother, the Lady of the Lake. The Lady resolves to rescue and look after Evaine's sons also, and one of her damsels frees them and spirits them to her underwater home. Evaine, who has grown pale and ill from the fraught years, wishes to know that her sons are alive and safe; that night she has a vision of her sons playing in the Lady of Lake's garden with Elaine's Lancelot, and wakes up to find their names (Lionel, Bors and Lancelot) written on her right hand. She dies happy, knowing that her sons and nephew are safe.

Evaine is the wife of Bors the Elder, who is the brother of King Ban of Benoic (or, as in T.H. White's book The Once and Future King, Ban of Benwick). Evaine is the sister of Ban's wife, Elaine. Evaine and Bors have two sons, Sir Lionel and Sir Bors the younger, who later achieves the Holy Grail.