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Nestling


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So, through Christopher Bruce's Arthurian Name Dictionary, I learned that in Tennyson's Idylls of the King, there's some thing in it where Arthur and Lancelot discover a baby girl in an eagle's nest with a ruby necklace around her neck. She's named "Nestling" and given to Guenevere to raise, but dies in infancy, and later the necklace is given to Tristan for winning a tourney.

Having not read Tennyson I'm not sure where that comes from or what its place is in the story, but an interesting possibility occurs to me, though I'm not yet sure where exactly I'd want to go with it. Eliwlod, Madoc's son and Arthur's nephew, became an eagle who prophecies his doom. What if Nestling is the daughter of Eliwlod, magically hatched from an eagle's egg as a human girl? You could even change the necklace into the ring that Uther had given to Madoc's mother (or the ring into a necklace, I guess). Of course, given how long it's been since Madoc's death, there might not be anyone at court who can recognize that heirloom for what it is and connect the dots.

Again, not actually sure where I'd want to go with this idea in the context of a Pendragon campaign, but as soon as I read it the idea popped into my mind and I figured I'd share it anyway to see if anyone else might have something in mind. Maybe she inherits some of her father's magic and becomes a kind of court seer, or is the focus of a lot of politicking as basically the only girl related to Arthur who'll be eligible for marriage at some point, or she grows up seeing both Arthur and Lancelot as fathers and can be used to highlight the tragedy of the two coming to blows? Just spitballing.

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