Did Bedwyr (Bedivere) ever have dark magic?

Question

A while back I found a small note (which seems to have been removed because of a lack of proper citation) on the Wikipedia article for Bedivere, speaking of his “role in Welsh tradition” and first mentioning:

Bedwyr is one of the earliest characters to be associated with the Arthurian cycle, appearing in a number of early Welsh texts in which he is described as Bedwyr Bedrydant (Bedwyr of the Perfect Sinews), a handsome, one-handed knight under Arthur's command. His father is given as Pedrawd or Bedrawd, and his children as Amhren and Eneuawg, both members of Arthur's court.

It went on to say:

He was known to use dark magic to seduce and subdue his foes with great skill and aggression. He was feared by many and although the townspeople frequently asked for his hanging, King Arthur still held him in high regards.

Since I have read several places that Bedwyr wielded an enchanted lance, Cei (Kay) and Menw had magical powers (in Culhwch ac Olwen, if not elsewhere), and Gwalchmei (Gawain) has solar-powered strength, it made me wonder what the source is for Bedwyr having “dark magic.” I would assume that if he ever had magic it has its origins in the Welsh stories.

Is there any source for Bedwyr having “dark magic” in Welsh tradition? Is this concept from a more modern retelling? Does it have no basis at all and was justifiably removed from the Wikipedia article?

Edit: I only have these excerpts from the Bedivere article because I made a copy before it was edited out. The copy I have dates the edit “last modified on 12 April 2014 at 19:32” if that's helpful in some way. I was unable to find the information linked to an external source, however.

Update: Did a few searches and found another reference to this sourceless dark magic.

Some believe that the reason Bedivere was so skilled in fighting was because he secretly was a friend with a knight who was known for using dark magic. But the main argument supporting that he didn’t use dark magic, is that it was never written in text that he did.

Though this seems to confirm that Bedwyr/Bedivere never used dark magic, I'm still curious about the source of this idea and what has caused some to believe in it. Wish there was a mention of a source text, or the name of this friend. The mystery continues.

Answer 1

Insofar as the earliest native British traditions go, at least, it doesn't seem so.

Looking through some early Welsh texts (Culhwch ac Olwen, Pa Gur, the Trioedd Ynys Prydein, the Beddau stanzas, a couple mentions in poetry), I can't find anything that suggests Bedwyr possessed magical abilities. The closest thing of relevance I saw was in CaO, when Cai describes Bedwyr's spear: "The head of his spear comes away from its shaft, it draws blood from the wind and lands on its shaft again"¹, which certainly sounds like some sort of enchantment, but seems tied entirely to the weapon itself. (The line is obscure to me; it might just be figurative language, or Cai blowing smoke or something, but in any case, it doesn't seem to be what you're describing.)

So then I thought, maybe someone might have misunderstood the concept in Welsh literature of a cynneddf, which means something like "magical trait". It's not something inherently negative, per se (and some are less than what we'd think of as "magical"; one of Cai's was just that he was stubborn). But in the texts I checked, I didn't see that word associated with Bedwyr anywhere, either.

It's possible there's other literature that does associate him with magical powers; I didn't look at anything from later medieval texts (i.e, anything demonstrably based primarily upon post-Galfridian writings).

So, while the earliest descriptions of Bedwyr do consistently highlight his combat prowess and preternatural reflexes, there's no indication (from what I've seen) that there's a supernatural element in play.

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^1. Taken from the Sioned Davies translation.

Answer 2

So, because me, I had to probe further into the revision history on Wikipedia.

On 25 August 2012, the following text was added by an anonymous one-time editor: Some scholars believe he had secret relations with another member of the Knights of the Round Table; Sir Gaheris. He was known to use dark magic to seduce and subdue his foes with great skill and aggression. He was feared by many and although the townspeople frequently asked for his hanging, King Arthur still held him in high regards.

Four minutes later, another(?) one-edit account amended it (additions in caps): ...to seduce and subdue his foes IN BED ... King Arthur still held him in high regards FOR HIS BUTT.

THAT revision was swiftly undone by a bot, but the rest remained for years. The first sentence was removed without comment on 26 January 2015. The remainder of the segment was edited out on 28 September 2015 with the description "removed unsourced nonsense".

Given the very close proximity of the two edits, I strongly suspect that they were both the work of the same wiki-vandal. Possibly as part of a probe to see what would/wouldn't provoke a swift response.