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Nimue
Nimue, a “damsel of the lake,” who cajoled Merlin in his dotage to tell her the secret “whereby he could be rendered powerless;” and then, like Delilah, she overpowered him, by “confining him under a stone.”
Then after these quests, Merlin fell in a dotage on ... one of the damsels of the lake, hight Nimue, and Merlin would let her have no rest, but always he would be with her in every place. And she made him good cheer till she learned of him what she desired.... And Merlin shewed to her in a rock, whereas was a great wonder ... which went under a stone. So by her subtle craft, she made Merlin go under that stone ... and he never came out, for all the craft that he could do. Le Morte d'Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory.
It is not unlikely that this name is a clerical error for Nineve or Ninive. It occurs only once in the three volumes. (See Nineve.)
*** Tennyson makes Vivien the seductive betrayer of Merlin,
and says she enclosed him “in the four walls of a hollow
tower;” but the History says “Nimue put him under the
stone” Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"SOON after this it befell that the damsel of the lake, called by some Nimue and by others Vivien, wedded Sir Pelleas, and came to the Court of King Arthur. And when she heard the talk of the death of Sir Patrise and how the Queen had been accused of it, she found out by means of her magic that the tale was false, and told it openly that the Queen was innocent and that it was Sir Pinel who had poisoned the apple." Tales of the Round Table
