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Morgan le Fay

January 01, 1970

For other uses, see Morgan le Fay (disambiguation).

Morgan le Fay (/ˈmɔːrɡən lə ˈfeɪ/; Welsh: Morgên y Dylwythen Deg; Cornish: Morgen an Spyrys; all meaning 'Morgan the Fairy'), alternatively known as Morgan[n]a, Morgain[a/e], Morg[a]ne, Morgant[e], Morge[i]n, and Morgue[in] among other names and spellings, is a powerful and ambiguous enchantress from the legend of King Arthur, in which most often she and he are siblings. Early appearances of Morgan in Arthurian literature do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a goddess, a fay, a witch, or a sorceress, generally benevolent and connected to Arthur as his magical saviour and protector. Her prominence increased as the legend of Arthur developed over time, as did her moral ambivalence, and in some texts there is an evolutionary transformation of her to an antagonist, particularly as portrayed in cyclical prose such as the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle. A significant aspect in many of Morgan's medieval and later iterations is the unpredictable duality of her nature, with potential for both good and evil.

Morgan
Matter of Britain character
First appearanceVita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth
Based onPossibly Modron, the Morrígan, Circe, Medea, Niamh, others
In-universe information
SpeciesHuman, fairy or goddess (depending on the source)
GenderFemale
OccupationEnchantress, queen
Family
SpouseNentres or Urien
Significant otherVarious, including Accolon, Guiomar, Lancelot, Merlin, Ogier the Dane, Sebile, Lord Calhoun
ChildrenVarious, including Ywain, Mordred
HomeAvalon, Broceliande, Camelot, Kingdom of Gorre [fr], Tintagel Castle

Her character may have originated from Welsh mythology as well as from other ancient and medieval myths and historical figures. The earliest documented account, by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Vita Merlini (written c. 1150) refers to Morgan in association with the Isle of Apples (Avalon), to which Arthur was carried after having been fatally wounded at the Battle of Camlann, as the leader of the nine magical sisters unrelated to Arthur. Therein, and in the early chivalric romances by Chrétien de Troyes and others, Morgan's chief role is that of a great healer. Several of numerous and often unnamed fairy-mistress and maiden-temptress characters found through the Arthurian romance genre may also be considered as appearances of Morgan in her different aspects.

Romance authors of the late 12th century established Morgan as Arthur's supernatural elder sister. In the 13th-century prose cycles – and the later works based on them, including the influential Le Morte d'Arthur – she is usually described as the youngest daughter of Arthur's mother Igraine and her first husband Gorlois. Arthur, son of Igraine and Uther Pendragon, is thus Morgan's half-brother, and her full sisters include Mordred's mother, the Queen of Orkney. The young Morgan unhappily marries Urien, with whom she has a son, Yvain. She becomes an apprentice of Merlin, and a capricious and vindictive adversary of some knights of the Round Table, all the while harbouring a special hatred for Arthur's wife Guinevere. In this tradition, she is also sexually active and even predatory, taking numerous lovers that may include Merlin and Accolon, with an unrequited love for Lancelot. In some variants, including in the popular retelling by Malory, Morgan is the greatest enemy of Arthur, scheming to usurp his throne and indirectly becoming an instrument of his death. However, she eventually reconciles with Arthur, retaining her original role of taking him on his final journey to Avalon.

Many other medieval and Renaissance works feature continuations of her evolutionary tale from the aftermath of Camlann as she becomes the immortal queen of Avalon in both Arthurian and non-Arthurian stories, sometimes alongside Arthur. After a period of being largely absent from contemporary culture, Morgan's character again rose to prominence in the 20th and 21st centuries, appearing in a wide variety of roles and portrayals. Notably, her modern character is frequently being conflated with her sister's as mother of Arthur's son and nemesis Mordred, the status that Morgan herself never had in medieval legend.

Etymology and origins edit

 
Fata Morgana (Italian for 'Morgan the Fairy'[1]) by Giambologna (c. 1574)

The earliest spelling of the name (found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini, written c. 1150) is Morgen, which is likely derived from Old Welsh or Old Breton Morgen, meaning 'sea-born' (from Common Brittonic *Mori-genā, the masculine form of which, *Mori-genos, survived in Middle Welsh as Moryen or Morien; a cognate form in Old Irish is Muirgen, the name of a Celtic Christian shapeshifting female saint who was associated with the sea). The name is not to be confused with the unrelated Modern Welsh masculine name Morgan (spelled Morcant in the Old Welsh period).[2][3] As her epithet "le Fay" (a pseudo-French phrase coined up in the 15th century by Thomas Malory,[4] who derived it from the original French descriptive form la fée 'the fairy'; Malory would also use the form "le Fey" alternatively with "le Fay"[5]) and some traits indicate, the figure of Morgan appears to have been a remnant of supernatural females from Celtic mythology, and her main name could be connected to the myths of Morgens (also known as Mari-Morgans or just Morgans),[6] the Welsh and Breton fairy water spirits related to the legend of Princess Dahut (Ahes). Speculatively, beginning with Lucy Allen Paton in 1904,[7] Morgan has been connected with the shapeshifting and multifaced Irish goddess of strife known as the Morrígan ('Great Queen').[8] Proponents of this theory have included Roger Sherman Loomis, who doubted the Muirgen connection.[9][10]

Further early inspiration for her figure likely came from other Welsh folklore, as well as possibly other works of medieval Irish literature and hagiography, and perhaps historical figures such as Empress Matilda.[11] One of the proposed candidates for the historical Arthur, Artuir mac Áedán, was recorded as having a sister named Maithgen (daughter of king Áedán mac Gabráin, a 6th-century king of Dál Riata), whose name also appears as that of a prophetic druid in the Irish legend of Saint Brigid of Kildare. Geoffrey's description of Morgen and her sisters in the Vita Merlini closely resembles the story of the nine Gaulish priestesses of the isle of Sena (now Île de Sein) called Gallisenae (or Gallizenae), as described by the 1st-century Roman geographer Pomponius Mela, strongly suggesting that Pomponius' Description of the World (De situ orbis) was one of Geoffrey's prime sources for at least his own, unique version.[12][13][14][15] Also suggested have been possible influence by other magical women from the Irish mythology such as the mother of hero Fráech,[16] and elements of the classical Greek mythology sorceresses or goddesses such as Circe and especially Medea — who, similar to Morgan, are often alternately benevolent and malicious.[7][11] A chiefly Greek (instead of Celtic) construction Morgan in medieval romances is a relatively new theory by Carolyne Larrington.[5]

 
Morgan with Lancelot under an apple tree in a Siedlęcin Tower fresco (early 14th century)

Morgan has also been often linked with the supernatural mother Modron,[6][17] derived from the continental mother goddess figure of Dea Matrona and featured in medieval Welsh literature. Modron appears in Welsh Triad 70 ("Three Blessed Womb-Burdens of the Island of Britain") – in which her children by Urien are named Owain mab Urien (son) and Morfydd (daughter)[18] – and a later folktale have recorded more fully in the manuscript Peniarth 147.[19] A fictionalised version of the historical king Urien is usually Morgan le Fay's husband in the variations of Arthurian legend informed by continental romances, wherein their son is named Yvain. Furthermore, the historical Urien had a treacherous ally named Morcant Bulc who plotted to assassinate him, much as Morgan attempts to kill Urien.[20] Additionally, Modron is called "daughter of Afallach",[21] a Welsh ancestor figure also known as Avallach or Avalloc, whose name can also be interpreted as a noun meaning 'a place of apples';[22] in the tale of Owain and Morfydd's conception in Peniarth 147, Modron is called the "daughter of the King of Annwn", a Celtic Otherworld.[23] This evokes Avalon, the marvelous "Isle of Apples" with which Morgan has been associated since her earliest appearances, and the Irish legend of the otherworldly woman Niamh including the motif of apple in connection to Avalon-like Otherworld isle of Tír na nÓg ("Land of Youth").[24] As summarised by Will Hasty, "while this is difficult to establish with certainty the relationship between female figures such as these in the Arthurian tradition and the otherworldly goddesses, sprites, and nymphs of Irish and Welsh myths (a relationship is assumed especially in the case of Morgan le Fay), both groups demonstrate similar ambivalent characteristics: they are by turns dangerous and desirable, implicated alternately in fighting, death, sexuality, and fertility."[25]

While many works make Morgan specifically human, she almost always keeps her magical powers[26] and often also her otherworldly if not divine attributes and qualities.[6] Some medieval authors refer to her as a fairy queen or even outright a goddess (dea, déesse, gotinne).[27] According to Gerald of Wales in his 12th-century De instructione principis, a noblewoman and close relative of King Arthur named Morganis carried the dead Arthur to her island of Avalon (identified by him as Glastonbury), where he was buried.[28] Writing in the early 13th century in Speculum ecclesiae, Gerald also wrote that "as a result, the fanciful Britons and their bards invented the legend that some kind of a fantastic goddess (dea quaedam phantastica)[29][30] had removed Arthur's body to the Isle of Avalon, so that she might cure his wounds there," for the purpose of enabling the possibility of King Arthur's messianic return.[31] In his encyclopaedic work, Otia Imperialia, written around the same time and with similar derision for this belief, Gervase of Tilbury calls her Morganda Fatata (Morganda the Fairy).[30] Morgan retains her early role as Arthur's legendary healer throughout later Arthurian tradition.

Medieval and Renaissance literature edit

 
A detail of The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon by Edward Burne-Jones (1898), showing Morgan (with her sisters) in her initial literary portrayal and role from Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century poem Vita Merlini
 
A detail of How Four Queens Found Sir Lancelot Sleeping by William Frank Calderon (1908), featuring a later version of the character in a scene from Thomas Malory's 15th-century compilation Le Morte d'Arthur

Geoffrey, Chrétien and other early authors edit

Morgan first appears by name in Vita Merlini, written by Norman-Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth. Purportedly an account of the life of Merlin, it elaborates some episodes from Geoffrey's more famous earlier work, Historia Regum Britanniae (1136). In Historia, Geoffrey relates how King Arthur, gravely wounded by Mordred at the Battle of Camlann, is taken off to the blessed Isle of Apple Trees (Latin Insula Pomorum), Avalon, to be healed; Avalon (Ynys Afallach in the Welsh versions of Historia) is also mentioned as the place where Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged. (Geoffrey's Arthur does have a sister, whose name is Anna, but the possibility of her being a predecessor to Morgan is unknown.[4]) In Vita Merlini, Geoffrey describes this island in more detail and names Morgen as the chief of the nine magical queen sisters who dwell there, ruling in their own right. Morgen agrees to take Arthur, delivered to her by Taliesin to have him revived. She and her sisters are capable of shapeshifting and flying,[32] and (at least seemingly[11]) use their powers only for good.[33] Morgen is also said to be a learned mathematician[34] and to have taught it and astronomy[35] to her fellow nymph (nymphae)[29] sisters, whose names are listed as Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe, Thiten (Thitis), and Thiton (Thetis).[36][37]

She who is first among them is more skilled in the healing art, and also surpasses her sisters in beauty. Morgen is her name, and she has learned what useful properties all the herbs contain, so that she can cure the body ills. She knows, too, the art by which to change her shape, and to fly through the air, like Daedalus, on strange wings. When she wishes, she is now at Brest (Brisiti), now at Chartres (Carnoti), now at Pavia (Papie); and at will she glides down from the sky onto your shores. (...) Morgen received us with due honor. She put the king in her chamber on a golden bed, uncovered his wound with her noble hand and looked long at it. At length she said he could be cured if only he stayed with her a long while and accepted her treatment. We therefore happily committed the king to her care, and spred our sails to favourable winds on return journey.

 
Morgan le Fay by Edward Burne-Jones (1862)

In the making of this arguably Virgin Mary-type[4] character and her sisters, Geoffrey might have been influenced by the first-century Roman cartographer Pomponius Mela, who has described an oracle at the Île de Sein off the coast of Brittany and its nine virgin priestesses believed by the continental Celtic Gauls to have the power to cure disease and perform various other awesome magic, such as controlling the sea through incantations, foretelling the future, and changing themselves into any animal.[6][38] In addition, according to a theory postulated by R. S. Loomis, it is possible that Geoffrey has not been the original inventor of Morgan, as character may have had already existed in Breton folklore in the hypothetical unrecorded oral stories that featured her as Arthur's fairy saviour, or even also his fairy godmother (her earliest shared supernatural ability being able to traverse on or under water). Such stories being told by wandering storytellers (as credited by Gerald of Wales) would then influence multiple authors writing independently from each other, especially since Vita Merlini was a relatively little-known text.[29]

Geoffrey's description of Morgan is notably very similar to that in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's epic poem Roman de Troie (c. 1155–1160), a story of the ancient Trojan War in which Morgan herself makes an unexplained appearance in this second known text featuring her.[10] As Orvan the Fairy (Orva la fée, likely a corruption of a spelling such as *Morgua[a] in the original-text),[39] there she first lustfully[40] loves the Trojan hero Hector and gifts him a wonderful horse, but then pursues him with hate after he rejects her. The abrupt way in which she is used suggests Benoît did expect his aristocratic audience to have been already familiar with her character.[7][11] Another such ancient-times appearance of a Morgan character can be found in the much later Perceforest (1330s), within the fourth book which is set in Britain during Julius Caesar's invasions, where the fairy Morgane lives in the isle of Zeeland and has learned her magic from Zephir. Here, she has a daughter named Morganette and an adoptive son named Passelion, who in turn have a son named Morgan, described as an ancestor of the Lady of the Lake.[41]

 
Henry Fuseli's Prince Arthur and the Fairy Queen (c. 1788)

In Jaufre, an early Occitan language Arthurian romance dated c. 1180, Morgan seems to appear, without being named other than introducing herself as the "Fairy of Gibel" (fada de Gibel; Gibel was the Arabic name of Sicily's Mount Etna that is also occurring in an Italian version of the Avalon motif in some later works). Here, she is the ruler of an underground kingdom who takes the protagonist knight Jaufre (Griflet) through a fountain to gift him her magic ring of protection.[29] In the romance poem Lanzelet, translated by the end of the 12th century by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven from a now-lost French text, the infant Lancelot is spirited away by a water fairy (merfeine in Old High German) and raised in her paradise island country of Meidelant ('Land of Maidens'). Ulrich's unnamed fairy queen character might be also related to Geoffrey's Morgen,[16] as well as to the early Breton oral tradition of Morgan's figure, especially as her son there is named Mabuz, similar to the name of Modron's son Mabon ap Modron. In Layamon's Middle English poem The Chronicle of Britain (c. 1215), Arthur was taken to Avalon by two women to be healed there by its most beautiful elfen (aluen) queen named Argante or Argane;[7][42] it is possible her name had been originally Margan(te) before it was changed in manuscript transmission.[43]

The 12th-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes already mentions her in his first romance, Erec and Enide, completed around 1170. In it, a love of Morgan (Morgue) is Guigomar (Guingomar, Guinguemar), the Lord of the Isle of Avalon and a nephew of King Arthur, a character derivative of Guigemar from the Breton lai Guigemar by Marie de France.[16] Guingamor's own lai links him to the beautiful magical entity known only as the "fairy mistress",[44] who was later identified by Thomas Chestre's Sir Launfal as Dame Tryamour, the daughter of the King of the Celtic Otherworld who shares many characteristics with Chrétien's Morgan.[45][46] It was noted that even Chrétien' earliest mention of Morgan already shows an enmity between her and Queen Guinevere, and although Morgan is represented only in a benign role by Chrétien, she resides in a mysterious place known as the Vale Perilous (which some later authors would say she has created as a place of punishment for unfaithful knights).[38][47] She is later mentioned in the same poem when Arthur provides the wounded hero Erec with a healing balm made by his sister Morgan. This episode affirms her early role as a healer, in addition to being one of the first instances of Morgan presented as Arthur's sister. Healing remains Morgan's chief ability, but Chrétien also hints at her potential to harm.[48]

 
Frank William Warwick's Voyage of King Arthur and Morgan le Fay to the Isle of Avalon (1888)

Chrétien again refers to Morgan as a great healer in his later romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, in an episode in which the Lady of Norison restores the maddened hero Yvain to his senses with a magical potion provided by Morgan the Wise (Morgue la sage).[27][11] Morgan the Wise is female in Chrétien's original, as well as in the Norse version Ivens saga, but male in the English Ywain and Gawain. While the fairy Modron is mother of Owain mab Urien in the Welsh myth, and Morgan would be assigned this role in the later literature, this first continental association between Yvain (the romances' version of Owain) and Morgan does not imply they are son and mother. The earliest mention of Morgan as Yvain's mother is found in Tyolet, an early 13th-century Breton lai.[42]

The Middle Welsh Arthurian tale Geraint son of Erbin, either based on Chrétien's Erec and Enide or derived from a common source, mentions King Arthur's chief physician named Morgan Tud. It is believed that this character, though considered a male in Gereint, may be derived from Morgan le Fay, though this has been a matter of debate among Arthurian scholars since the 19th century (the epithet Tud may be a Welsh or Breton cognate or borrowing of Old Irish tuath, 'north, left', 'sinister, wicked', also 'fairy (fay), elf').[49][50] There, Morgan is called to treat Edern ap Nudd, Knight of the Sparrowhawk, following the latter's defeat at the hands of his adversary Geraint, and is later called on by Arthur to treat Geraint himself. In the German version of Erec, the 12th-century knight and poet Hartmann von Aue has Erec healed by Guinevere with a special plaster that was given to Arthur by the king's sister, the goddess (gotinne)[29] Feimurgân (Fâmurgân, Fairy Murgan[51]):

When she began to demonstrate her magic powers, she had very soon circumnavigated the world and come back again. (...) Both in the air and on the earth she could hover at her ease, on the waves and beneath them. She was totally indifferent as to whether she lived in the fire or, just as much at her ease, in the dew. (...) And when it took her fancy she could change a man into a bird or an animal. (...) Mighty was she in magic and her life was greatly in defiance of God, for at her command were the birds in the wild, in the woods and fields, and what seems to me greatest, those evil spirits, that are called devils – they were all at her command. She was well capable of marvels for dragons had to bring from the air support in her affairs, as well as the fish in the sea. Moreover, she had kin deep in Hell: the Devil was her companion. He sent her aid, even from the fire, as much as she wanted. And whatever she would have from this earth, she took, without peril, in ample measure, all for herself. The earth bore no root, the power of which was not as familiar to her as the back of my hand is to me. (...) This earth never acquired a better mistress of magic arts than Feimurgân.[52]

 
Morgan Le Fay by John R. Spencer Stanhope (1880)

In writing that, Hartmann might have not been influenced by Chrétien, but rather by an earlier oral tradition from the stories of Breton bards.[29] Hartmann also separated Arthur's sister (that is Feimurgân) from the fairy mistress of the lord of Avalon (Chrétien's Guigomar), who in his version is named Marguel.[53] In the anonymous First Continuation of Chrétien's Perceval, the Story of the Grail, the fairy lover of its variant of Guigomar (here as Guingamuer) is named Brangepart, and the two have a son Brangemuer who became the king of an otherworldly isle "where no mortal lived".[54][55] In the 13th-century romance Parzival, another German knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach inverted Hartmann's Fâmurgân's name to create that of Arthur's fairy ancestor named Terdelaschoye de Feimurgân, the wife of Mazadân, where the part "Terdelaschoye" comes from Terre de la Joie, or Land of Joy; the text also mentions the mountain of Fâmorgân.[29][42] Jean Markale further identified a Morganian figure in Wolfram's ambiguous character of Cundrie the Sorceress (later better known as Kundry) through her plot function as mistress of illusions in an enchanted fairy garden.[56]

Speculatively, Loomis and John Matthews further identified other perceived avatars of Morgan as the "Besieged Lady" archetype in various early works associated with the Castle of Maidens motif, often appearing as (usually unnamed) wife of King Lot and mother of Gawain. These characters include the Queen of Meidenlant in Diu Crône, the lady of Castellum Puellarum in De Ortu Waluuanii, and the nameless heroine of the Breton lai Doon, among others, including some in later works (such as with Lady Lufamore of Maydenlande in Sir Perceval of Galles).[57] Loomis also linked her to the eponymous seductress evil queen from The Queen of Scotland, a 19th-century ballad "containing Arthurian material dating back to the year 1200."[58]

A recently discovered moralistic manuscript written in Anglo-Norman French is the only known instance of medieval Arthurian literature presented as being composed by Morgan herself. This late 12th-century text is purportedly addressed to her court official and tells of the story of a knight called Piers the Fierce; it is likely that the author's motive was to draw a satirical moral from the downfall of the English knight Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall. Morgayne is titled in it as "empress of the wilderness, queen of the damsels, lady of the isles, and governor of the waves of the great sea."[59] Morgan (Morganis) is also mentioned in the Draco Normannicus, a 12th-century (c. 1167–1169) Latin chronicle by Étienne de Rouen, which contains a fictitious letter addressed by King Arthur to Henry II of England, written for political propaganda purpose of having 'Arthur' criticise King Henry for invading the Duchy of Brittany.[59] Notably, it is one of the first known texts that made her a sister to Arthur, as she is in the works of Chrétien and many others after him.[60] As described by Étienne,

Arthur, gravely wounded, sought the help of his sister, who held the holy Isle of Avalon. Morgan, the everlasting nymph (Morganis nympha perennis), received her brother here, cured him, nourished him, revived him, and made him immortal. He was presented the Antipodes as his kingdom. The faerie folk being unarmed, the great war leader comes to their aid: he fears no battle.[59]

French prose cycles edit

 
An illustration of the Vulgate Lancelot shows Morgan discovering her unfaithful lover with another lady at the Vale of No Return (c. 1480)
 
"Queen Morgan le Fay took the scabbard." W. H. Margetson's illustration for Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Janet MacDonald Clark (1914)

Morgan's role was greatly expanded by the unknown authors of the early-13th-century Old French prose romances of the Vulgate Cycle, also known as the Lancelot-Grail cycle, and its subsequent rewrite, the Prose Tristan-influenced Post-Vulgate Cycle. (Both of these cycles are believed to be at least influenced by the Cistercian religious order, which might explain the texts' demonisation of pagan motifs and increasingly anti-sexual attitudes,[6] altrough some of these attitudes may be arguably shared with the pre-Christian source material.[b]) Integrating her figure fully into the Arthurian world, they also portray Morgan's ways and deeds as being much more sinister and aggressive than they are in Geoffrey or Chrétien, showing her undergoing a series of transformations in the process of becoming a much more chaotic and unpredictable character.[7][63] Beginning as an erratic ally of Arthur and a notorious temptress opposed to his wife and some of his knights (especially Lancelot, doubling as her unrequited love interest) in the original stories of the Vulgate Cycle, Morgan's figure eventually often turns into an ambitious and depraved nemesis of King Arthur himself in the Post-Vulgate stories.

A common image of Morgan becomes a malicious, jealous and cruel sorceress, the source of many intrigues at the royal court of Arthur and elsewhere. In some of the later works, she is also subversively working to take over Arthur's throne through her mostly harmful magic and scheming, including manipulating men.[35][64] Most of the time, Morgan's magic arts correspond with these of Merlin's and the Lady of the Lake's, featuring shapeshifting, illusion, and sleeping spells (Richard Kieckhefer connected it with Norse magic[5]).[65] Some scholars even see the figure of the Lady (or Ladies) of the Lake as Morgan's split-off literary double serving as a "benevolent anti-Morgan", especially in the Post-Vulgate tradition: a largely (but not entirely) opposite character created using Morgan's copied traits.[66][c] Although Morgan is usually depicted in medieval romances as beautiful and seductive,[68] the medieval archetype of the loathly lady is used frequently, as Morgan can be in a contradictory fashion described as both beautiful and ugly even within the same narration.[27]

Family and upbringing edit

 
W. H. Margetson's illustration for The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights (1908)
"She was known to have studied magic while she was being brought up in the nunnery."[69]

This version of Morgan (usually named Morgane, Morgain or Morgue) first appears in the few surviving verses of the Old French poem Merlin, which later served as the original source for the Vulgate Cycle and consequently also the Post-Vulgate Cycle. It was written c. 1200 by the French knight-poet Robert de Boron, who described her as an illegitimate daughter of Lady Igraine with an initially unnamed Duke of Tintagel, after whose death she is adopted by King Neutres of Garlot.[7][70] Merlin is the first known work linking Morgan to Igraine and mentioning her learning sorcery after having been sent away for an education. The reader is informed that Morgan was given her moniker 'la fée' ("the fairy") due to her great knowledge.[71] A 14th-century massive prequel to the Arthurian legend, Perceforest, also implies that Arthur's sister was later named after its fée character Morgane from several centuries earlier. In the Huth-Merlin version of Merlin, Morgain and Morgue la fee are introduced as two different half-sisters of Arthur who then become merged into one character later in the text.[72]

In a popular tradition, Morgan is the youngest of the daughters of Igraine and her husband, a Duke of Cornwall (or Tintagel) who today best known as Gorlois. Her father dies in battle with the army of the British high king Uther Pendragon in a war over his wife (Morgan's mother) at the same moment as when Arthur is conceived by Uther, who infiltrates Tintagel Castle with the half-demon Merlin's magic aid. In the poem's prose version and its continuations, she has at least two elder sisters. Various manuscripts list up to five sisters or half-sisters of Arthur, sometimes from different fathers, and some do not mention Morgan being a bastard (step)child.[7] In the best-known version, her sisters are Elaine (Blasine) and the Queen of Orkney sometimes known as Morgause, the latter of whom is the mother of Arthur's knights Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth by King Lot, and the traitor Mordred by Arthur (in some romances the wife of King Lot is called Morcades, a name that R. S. Loomis argued was another name of Morgan[73]). At a young age, Morgan is sent to a convent after Arthur's father Uther marries her mother, who later gives him a son, Arthur (which makes him Morgan's younger half-brother). There, Morgan masters the seven arts and begins her study of magic, going on to specialise in astronomie (astronomy and astrology) and healing;[59][74] the Prose Merlin describes her as "wonderfully adept" and "working hard all the time."[59] The Vulgate Suite du Merlin narration describes Morgan's unmatched beauty and her various skills and qualities of character:

She was comely in body and features, she stood straight and was wonderfully pleasant and a good singer. She was the best worker with her hands that anyone knew about in any land, and she was the cleverest of all. And she had the fairest head of any suited for a woman, and the most beautiful hands, and her skin was softer than millet. But she was the most lustful woman in all Great Britain and the lewdest. And as long as she was in her right mind, she was more courteous than any, but when she was angry with anyone, there was no need in trying to reconcile them.[75]

Schism with Guinevere and Arthur edit

 
"Queen Morgana Le Fey", Howard Pyle's illustration from The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903)

Uther (or Arthur himself in the Post-Vulgate[7]) betroths her to his ally, King Urien of Gorre (Gore), the realm described as an Otherworldly northern British kingdom, possibly the historical Rheged (early versions have alternatively named Morgan's husband as Nentres of Garlot, who later was recast as the husband of her sister Elaine). Now a queen but unhappy with her husband, Morgan serves as a lady-in-waiting for the high queen, Arthur's newly married young wife Guinevere. At first, Morgan and the also young Guinevere are close friends, even wearing shared near-identical rings. However, everything changes when Morgan is caught in an affair with her lover Guiomar (derived from Chrétien's Guigomar) by Guinevere. Usually, Guiomar is depicted as Guinevere's cousin (alternatively, appearing there as Gaimar, he is Guinevere's early lover instead of her relative in the German version Lancelot und Ginevra). The high queen intervenes to break their relationship to prevent the loss of honor (according to some scholarship, possibly also because of Guinevere's perception of Morgan, with her kinship and close relationship with Arthur, as a rival in political power[76]). This incident, introduced in the Prose Merlin and expanded in the Vulgate Lancelot[77] and the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin (the Huth Merlin),[7] begins a lifelong feud between Guinevere and Morgan, who leaves the court of Camelot with all her wealth to seek out Merlin and greater powers. The pregnant Morgan later gives birth to Guiomar's son, who is not named in the story but is said to grow up to become a great knight.[78]

Morgan then either undertakes or continues her studies of dark magic under Merlin, enamored for her, the details of which vary widely depending on the telling.[40] In the Prose Merlin, for instance, it is Morgan who finds Merlin, whom she "loves passionately".[7] In the Livre d'Artus, where Morgan's first lover is a knight named Bertolais,[79] it is rather Merlin who goes to live with Morgan and her two ladies for a long time following the betrayal of him by Niniane (the Lady of the Lake) with her other lover, just as Morgan wished for him to do.[7][40] In the Post-Vulgate Suite, Morgan had been tutored by Merlin even before her relationship with Guiomar, and later she returns to learn more.[7] They meet at Lot's funeral, during the time when Morgan is pregnant with Yvain. After Merlin teaches her so much she becomes "the wisest woman in the world", Morgan scorns and drives Merlin away by threatening to torture and kill him if he would not leave her alone, which causes him great sorrow out of his "foolish love" (fol amor) for her.[7][30] In the Vulgate Lancelot, Morgan learns all her magic only from Merlin (and not in the nunnery). In any case, having finished her studies under Merlin, Morgan begins scheming her vengeance as she tries to undermine virtue and achieve Guinevere's downfall whenever she can.

 
Queen Morgan le Fay, Beatrice Clay's illustration from Stories of King Arthur and the Round Table (1905)
"There was a time when great was her enmity towards King Arthur, so that she plotted his ruin not once only nor twice; and that is a strange thing, for it is said that she herself was the kinswoman of the King."[80]
 
Morgan le Fay Casts Away Excalibur's Scabbard, H. J. Ford's illustration for Andrew Lang's Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table (1902)

While Morgan's antagonistic actions in the Vulgate Cycle have been motivated by her "great hatred" (grant hayne) toward Guinevere,[81] in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, where Morgan's explicitly evil nature is directly stated and accented, she also works to destroy Arthur's rule and end his life. The most famous and important of these machinations is introduced in the Post-Vulgate Suite, where she arranges for her devoted lover Accolon to obtain the enchanted sword Excalibur as well as its protective scabbard, which has been previously confided to Morgan by Arthur himself as he had trusted her even more than his wife, replacing the real ones with fakes. In a conspiracy with the villainous lord Damas, Morgan plans for Accolon to use Arthur's own magic items against him in single combat, so she and her beloved Accolon would become the rulers. As part of her convoluted plan, both Arthur and Accolon are spirited away from their hunt with Urien by a magical boat of twelve damsels. Confident of her coming victory, Morgan also attempts to murder her sleeping husband Urien with his own sword, but in this act she is stopped by their son Yvain (Uwayne), who pardons her when she protests she has been under the devil's power and promises to abandon her wicked ways.[78] After Arthur nevertheless mortally defeats Accolon in a duel arranged by Morgan, her former mentor Merlin, still having feelings for her, saves her from Arthur's wrath by enabling her to escape.[82] To avenge Accolon's death, which caused her great sorrow, Morgan again steals the scabbard from the sleeping king. Pursued by Arthur for her betrayal, Morgan throws the scabbard into a lake, before temporarily turning herself and her entourage to stone, the sight of which makes Arthur think they have been already punished by God. That action of Morgan ultimately causes the death of Arthur, who would otherwise be protected by the scabbard's magic in his final battle. On her way out, Morgan saves Arthur's knight named Manassen (Manessen) from certain death when she learns Accolon was Manessen's cousin and enables him to kill his captor.

In the same narrative, having been banished from Camelot, Morgan then retires to her lands in the magical kingdom of Gorre and then to her castle near the stronghold of Tauroc (possibly in North Wales). However, her treacherous attempts to bring about Arthur's demise in the Suite are repeatedly frustrated by the king's new sorceress advisor Ninianne (the Lady of the Lake). An iconic case of Morgan's such further and very underhanded plots to kill Arthur in the Post-Vulgate occurs when Morgan sends him a supposed offering of peace in the form of a rich mantle cloak, but Morgan's messenger maiden is made put on the gift first by Ninianne'a advice to Arthur, for "if she dies of it, Morgan will be angrier than at anything else that could happen to her, for she loves her with a very great love." The girl indeed falls dead, and Arthur has her body burned.[83] It is possible that this motif was inspired by classical stories like that how Medea killed her rival for Jason's affection[84] or how Deianira sent a poisoned tunic to Hercules.[85] The reasons for Morgan's hatred of her brother in the Post-Vulgate narrative are never fully explained, other than by just a "natural" extreme antipathy against goodness by the evil that she is an embodiment of.[7]

Lancelot, Tristan and other knights edit

Morgan is often emphasised as promiscuous, even more than her sister Morgause, as she is "so lustful and wanton that a looser [noble]woman could not have been found."[86] In some versions, she also associates with two other lascivious enchantresses, Queen Sebile (Sedile) and the unnamed Queen of Sorestan. Together, the three "knew so much about magic, they enjoyed one another's company and always rode together and ate and drank together." Sebile and Morgan are particularly close companions, working their magic together, but they tend to fall into petty squabbles due to their rivalries and bad tempers, including a conflict between them when they both seduce Hector de Maris in the late 13th-century Prophéties de Merlin. Their friendship is further tested when a quarrel over a handsome widower named Berengier (captured by Sebile after Morgan kidnapped his child) ends in a violent attack by Sebile that leaves Morgan half-dead; Morgan swears revenge, but their relationship is later restored.[70] After Merlin's entombment by the Lady of the Lake, Morgan and her three enchantresses also try to find and rescue him but they fail in that task.[30] Morgan's other allies in the Prophéties include the opponents of chivalry such as Mark and Claudas, and she enlists the help of the latter in her failed attempt to eliminate the Lady of the Lake.[87]

 
Howard Pyle's illustration from The Story of the Champions of the Round Table (1905)
"She was clad in all the glory at her command, and her appearance was so shining and radiant that when she came into that room Sir Launcelot knew not whether it was a vision his eyes beheld or whether she was a creature of flesh and blood."[88]
 
"How Morgain granted Lancelot a leave from her prison to conquer Dolereuse Gard." (Lancelot en prose c. 1494 or later)
 
How Morgan le Fay Gave a Shield to Sir Tristram by Aubrey Beardsley (1893)

Morgan uses her skills in her dealings, amorous or otherwise, with several of Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. It applies in particular to the greatest of them all, Lancelot, whom she alternately tries to seduce and to expose as Guinevere's adulterous lover. Her magic aside, Lancelot is always disempowered in his dealings with Morgan as he could never hurt a woman, which, coupled with her being his king's kin, made the Vulgate's Morgan a perfect foil for Lancelot as "the woman he most feared in the world."[7][89] As told in the Prose Lancelot, they first meet in her magical domain known as the Val sans Retour (the Vale of No Return), serving as an enchanted prison for false lovers since she took an unnamed knight as her lover but then discovered his affair with another woman.[7] There, Lancelot frees the 250 unfaithful knights entrapped by Morgan, including her former lover Guiomar whom she has turned to stone for his infidelity,[42] but Morgan then captures Lancelot himself under her spell, using a magic ring and keeps him prisoner in the hope Guinevere would then go mad or die of sorrow. She also otherwise torments Guinevere, causing her great distress and making her miserable until the Lady of the Lake gives her a ring that protects her from Morgan's power.[90] Since then, Lancelot becomes Morgan's prime object of sexual desire but he consistently refuses her obsessive advances due to his great love of Guinevere, even as Morgan repeatedly courts, drugs, enchants or imprisons the knight. Their one-sided relationship (as well as interactions between her and Arthur[7]) may evoke that of the goddess Morrígan and the Celtic hero Cú Chulainn.[91] One time, she lets the captive Lancelot go to rescue Gawain when he promises to come back (but also keeping him the company of the most beautiful of her maidens to do "whatever she could to entice him"), and he keeps his word and does return; she eventually releases him altogether after over a year, when his health falters and he is near death.[92] On another occasion, Lancelot captured in Cart Castle (Charyot) by Morgan and her fellow magical queens, each of whom tries to make Lancelot her lover; he refuses to choose either of them and escapes with the help of one of their maidservants, Rocedon.[42]

Another of Morgan's illicit love subjects is the rescued-but-abducted young Cornish knight Alexander the Orphan (Alisaunder le Orphelin), a cousin of Tristan and Mark's enemy from a later addition in the Prose Tristan as well as the Prophéties de Merlin, whom she promises to heal but he vows to castrate himself rather than to pleasure her. Nevertheless, Alexander promises to defend her castle of Fair Guard (Belle Garde), where he has been held, for a year and a day, and then dutifully continues to guard it even after the castle gets burned down;[42][93] this eventually leads to his death.[34] Morgan's other fancied good knights include Alexander's relative Tristan, but her interest in him turns into burning hatred of him and his true love Isolde after he kills her lover as introduced in the Prose Tristan. In this story, Morgan's paramours include Huneson the Bald (Hemison in Malory's version) who is mortally wounded when he attacks the great Cornish knight out of his jealously for her attention; the knight soon dies after returning to her, and the anguished Morgan buries him in a grand tomb. In one variation, Morgan then takes revenge as she takes possession of the lance that was used to kill Huneson, enchants it, and sends it to King Mark of Cornwall, her possible lover,[94] who years later uses it to slay Tristan.[42]

In the Prose Tristan, wherein Morgan presents herself as Arthur's full sister,[7] she delivers by Lamorak to Arthur's court a magical drinking horn from which no unfaithful lady can drink without spilling, hoping to disgrace Guinevere by revealing her infidelity, but it is Isolde whose adultery is disclosed instead. With same intent, when Tristan was to be Morgan's champion at a jousting tournament, she also gives him an enchanted shield depicting Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot to deliver to Camelot in the Prose Tristan.[90] In the Vulgate Queste, after Morgan hosts her nephews Gawain, Mordred and Gaheriet to heal them, Mordred spots the images of Lancelot's passionate love for Guinevere that Lancelot painted on her castle's walls while he was imprisoned there. Morgan shows it to Gawain and his brothers, encouraging them to take action in the name of loyalty to their king, but they decide not to do this.[95]

Later years and Avalon edit

It is said that Morgan concentrates on witchcraft to such degree that she goes to live in seclusion in the exile of far-away forests. She learns more spells than any other woman, gains an ability to transform herself into any animal, and people begin to call her Morgan the Goddess (Morgain-la-déesse, Morgue la dieuesse).[29][30][87] In the Post-Vulgate version of Queste del Saint Graal, Lancelot has a vision of Hell where Morgan still will be able to control demons even in afterlife as they torture Guinevere.[96] In one of her castles, Tugan in Garlot, Morgan has hidden a magic book given to her by Merlin, which actually prophesied the deaths of Arthur and Gawain and who would kill them, but no one can read this passage without dying instantly.[42][82] In the Vulgate La Mort le Roi Artu (The Death of King Arthur, also known as just the Mort Artu), Morgan ceases troubling Arthur and vanishes for a long time, and the king assumes her to be dead. One day, he and Sagramor wander into Morgan's incredibly beautiful castle while lost in a forest, where Arthur is received extremely well and instantly reconciles with his sister. Overjoyed with their reunion, the king allows Morgan to return to Camelot, but she refuses and declares her plan to move to the Isle of Avalon, "where the women live who know all the world's magic," so she can dwell there with these (unspecified) other sorceresses.[97]

 
A detail of La Mort d'Arthur (The Death of Arthur) by James Archer (1860)

However, disaster strikes Arthur when the sight of Lancelot's frescoes and Morgan's confession finally convinces him about the truth to the rumours of the two's secret love affair (about which he has been already warned by his nephew Agravain). This leads to a great conflict between Arthur and Lancelot, which brings down the fellowship of the Round Table. At the end of the Vulgate Mort Artu, Morgan is the only one who is recognised among the black-hooded ladies who take the dying Arthur to his final rest and possible revival in Avalon. Depending on the manuscript, she is either the leading lady (usually, being recognised by Griflet as the one holding Arthur's hand as he enters the boat), a subordinate to another who is unnamed, or neither of them are superior.[98] The latter part of the Post-Vulgate versions of Queste and Mort both seem to revert to Morgan's friendly attitude toward Arthur from the end of the Vulgate Cycle, despite the Post-Vulgate' own characterisation of Morgan as thoroughly evil and the earlier fierce hostility between them. As Arthur steps into her boat after Camlann but assures he is not going to return, she makes no mention of Avalon or her intentions when taking him away. His supposed grave is later said to be found mysteriously empty but for his helmet.[7] (Spanish poem La Faula has Morgan explain that by saying the tomb's purpose was to prevent knights from searching for Arthur.[99])

Malory and other medieval English authors edit

 
Morgan and Accolon in Eric Pape's illustration for Madison Cawein's poem "Accolon of Gaul" (1907).
"With haughty, wicked eyes and lovely face, Studied him steadily a little space."[100]
 
Howard Pyle's illustration from The Story of the Grail and the Passing of King Arthur (1909)
"And Sir Bedivere stood upon the shore and looked upon the face of King Arthur as it lay within the lap of Queen Morgana, and he beheld that the face of King Arthur was white like to the ashes of wood, wherefore he wist that he was dead."[101]

Middle English writer Thomas Malory was the first to actually call her "Morgan le Fay". Malory follows Morgan's portrayals from the Old French prose cycles in his late-15th-century seminal work of the selective compilation book Le Morte d'Arthur (The Death of Arthur), though he reduces her in role and detail of characterisation, in particular either removing or limiting her traditions of healing and prophecy, and making her more consistently and inherently evil than she is in most of his sources, just as he makes Merlin more good.[7] He also diminishes Morgan's conflict with Guinevere, since there is no mention of Guiomar and instead Accolon ("of Gaul") is her first named lover in a much abbreviated version of his story,[5] but does not clarify Morgan's motivations for her very antagonistic behaviour against Arthur.[60][86] Overall, up until the war between Arthur and Lancelot and the rebellion of Mordred, it is the evil and chaotic Morgan who remains the main and constant source of direct and indirect threat to the realm.[60][d]

In Malory's backstory, Morgan has studied astrology as well as nigremancie (which might actually mean black magic in general rather than "necromancy"[105]) in the nunnery where she was raised, before being married to Urien (Uriens) as a young teenager; in this narrative she did not study with Merlin.[60] Unlike Malory's good sorceress Nimue, Morgan deals mostly in "black" rather than "white" magic, employed usually through enchantments and potions.[5] Her powers, however, seem to be inspired by fairy magic of Celtic folklore rather than by medieval Christian demonology.[34] Morgan is widely feared and hated, so much that "many knights wished her burnt." She is now the leader of the four (not three) witch queens who capture Lancelot (the others being the Queen of the Northgales, the Queen of Eastland, and the Queen of the Outer Isles). In an episode that had been first introduced by the anonymous writer of the earlier Prose Lancelot, Lancelot rescues Elaine of Corbenic from being trapped in an enchanted boiling bath by Morgan and the Queen of the Northgales, both envious of Elaine's great beauty (echoing Circe's treatment of Scylla[7]). Malory also reused the magic mantle assassination plot from the Huth Merlin in a slightly modified form, resulting in Morgan's damsel instantly burnt to cinders by its curse when she is forced to take it on. In one of later episodes, Morgan plots an elaborate ambush in "The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyons", after learning of the death of one of her favourites in a tournament, but Tristan ends up killing or routing thirty of her knights. Malory mentions Arthur's attempts to conquer at least one of her castles, which originally had been his own gift to her, and which he could not retake (apparently due to magical defences[103]). Nevertheless, despite all of their prior hostility towards each other and her numerous designs directed against Arthur personally (and his own promise to get a terrible revenge on her as long as he lives[60]), she is still redeemed and is one of the four grieving enchantress queens (the others being Nimue, marking the end of conflict between her and Morgan,[106] and two of Morgan's allies, the Queen of the Northgales and the Queen of the Wasteland) who arrive in a black boat to transport the wounded king to Avalon in the end. Unlike in the French and earlier stories on which Le Morte d'Arthur is based, and where Morgan and Arthur usually would either have first made peace or have just never fought to begin with, here her change of attitude towards him is sudden and unexplained (similar to the Post-Vulgate).[4][60][107] Arthur is last seen in Morgan's lap, with her lament of sorrow referring to him as her "dear brother" (dere brothir), as they disappear from the work's narrative together.

 
Morte D'Arthur by Daniel Maclise (1857)

In the c. 1400 English poem Alliterative Morte Arthure, Morgan appears in Arthur's dream as Lady Fortune (that is, the goddess Fortuna) with the Wheel of Fortune to warn Arthur prior to his fatal final battle, foretelling his death.[108][109] She also appears in some other English texts, such as the early-13th-century Anglo-Norman Roman de Waldef where she is only "name-dropped" as a minor character.[110] Middle English romance Arthour and Merlin, written around 1270, casts a villainous Morgan in the role of the Lady of the Lake and gives her a brother named Morganor as an illegitimate son of King Urien; her wondrous castle Palaus is built mostly of crystal and glass.[42] Conversely, a 14th-century Middle English version of the Vulgate Mort Artu known as the Stanzaic Morte Arthur makes Morgan an unquestionably good sister of Arthur, concerned only about his honour in regard to the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere. Entering her boat (she is not named in the scene, but addresses him as her brother), Arthur believes he is going to be healed, yet his tomb is later discovered by Bedivere.[7]

At the end of the 14th-century Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the best-known Arthurian tales, it is revealed that the entire Green Knight plot has been instigated by Gawain's aunt, the goddess[111] Morgan le Fay (Morgue la Faye, Morgne þe goddes[30]), whose prior mentorship by Merlin is mentioned.[112] Here, she is an ambiguous trickster[113] who takes an appearance of an elderly woman (contrasting from the beautiful Lady Bertilak in a role evoking the loathly lady tradition[114]), as a test for Arthur and his knights and to frighten Guinevere to death. Morgan's importance to this particular narrative has been disputed and called a deus ex machina[115] and simply an artistic device to further connect Gawain's episode to the Arthurian legend, but some regard her as a central character and the driving force of the plot.[27][76] Opinions are also divided regarding Morgan's intentions and whether she succeeds or fails,[116] and how the story's shapeshifting and enigmatic Morgan might be, or might be not, also Lady Bertilak herself.[107][e]

Other later portrayals in various countries edit

Morgan further turns up frequently throughout the Western European literature of the High and Late Middle Ages, as well as of the Renaissance. She appears in a variety of roles, generally appearing in works related to the literary cycles of Arthur (the Matter of Britain) or Charlemagne (the Matter of France) and written mostly in various Romance languages and dialects, especially still in France but also in Italy, Spain and elsewhere. In the case of Spain, even public edicts dating from the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century tell of the belief in Morgan continuing to enchant and imprison people at Tintagel and in "the Valley of False Trickery".[119]

Later standalone romances often feature Morgan as a lover and benefactor of various heroes, and yet she can also be their opponent, especially when abducting those who turned down her amorous offers or working to separate true lovers. Such texts may also introduce her additional offspring or alternate siblings, or connect her closer with the figure of the Lady of the Lake. For instance, the fairy queen Lady Morgan (Dame Morgue, Morgue li fee) shows up in Adam de la Halle's late-13th-century French farce Jeu de la feuillée, in which she visits a contemporary Arras.[120] She arrives accompanied by two of her fay sisters named Arsile and Maglore to dispense enchantment gifts to and curses upon several characters including the author himself, and in the course of the story reverts her love interest in the local mortal (and unfaithful) knight Robert to her previous lover Hellequin (Hellekin), a demonic prince of Faerie who has been trying to woo her back.[121][122] Hellequin's character in this case may be connected in some way to Arthur, who like him sometimes also figures as the leader of the Wild Hunt.[123][124] In Thomas III of Saluzzo's Le Chevalier Errant, the fairy Morgan (la fée Morgane) holds the eponymous Wandering Knight captive inside a magnificent castle in her forest realm Païenie ('Pagania'), until messengers from her brother Arthur arrive with a request to lift her enchantment and let him go, to which she agrees.[125] Loosely drawing from the Vulgate Cycle, the Old French anonymous Li Romans de Claris et Laris better known as just Claris and Laris (c. 1270),[126] has its Morgan (Morgane la Faye) as a fairy sister of Arthur as well as a former pupil of the Lady of Lake, Viviane. Ever lascivious and sexual, Morgan lives in a splendid enchanted castle in the wilderness (identified as Brocéliande in a later manuscript) with twelve other beautiful fairy ladies including the sorceress Madoine.[29][127][128] There, they lure and ensnare many hundreds of young and attractive knights, who then spend the rest of their lives in the palace:

Morgana made several conquests, and of course, many enemies amongst the damsels who found themselves forsaken by their disloyal Knights. The fairy gave proofs of her partial preference to the great Lancelot of the Lake, which Genievre, Arthur's beauteous consort, bore very impatiently. At last, whether she took a dislike to the court, or the court to her, she thought proper to retire to the forest we speak of; where, at her command, her invisible agents erected an enchanted palace. She was followed in her delicious retreats by young and beautiful Varlets, Esquires, and as many Knights as preferred the inglorious, but delightful pleasures that awaited them with Morgana, to the honourable toils of knight-errantry. The fairy was also constantly attended by spirits, and other familiars, who gave her an exact account of what passed within a certain distance from her palace, and assisted her in inveigling every traveller whom she best thought worth her notice.

1780 English translation by Lewis Porney[129]

 
Beatrice Clay, Morgan le Fay with Excalibur (1905)
 
How the Fairies Came to See Ogier the Dane by H.J. Ford (1921)
"And, in tones more musical than mortals often hear, she sang a sweet lullaby, a song of fairyland and of the island of Avalon, where the souls of heroes dwell."[130]

A human Morgan is named Dioneta in the 14th-century Welsh fragment known as The Birth of Arthur, where she is a sister of both Gwyar (Morgause) and Gwalchmei (Gawain), as well as of the other sisters Gracia and Graeria, and is sent off by Uther to Avallach (Avalon).[131] The island of Avalon is often described as an otherworldly place ruled by Morgan in other later texts from all over Western Europe, especially these written in Iberia. In the 14th-century French Crusadic fantasy Le Bâtard de Bouillon, the island kingdom of Arthur and his fairy sister Morgan the Beautiful is hidden by a cloud in the Red Sea,[132] where it is visited by King Bauduins (Baldwin II of Jerusalem). In his 14th-century Catalan poem La faula, Guillem de Torroella writes about having visited the Enchanted Isle and met Arthur who has been brought back to life by the fay Morgan (Morgan la feya, Morguan la fea)[29] and they both are now forever young due to the power of the Holy Grail.[133] In the 15th-century Valencian romance Tirant lo Blanc, the noble Queen Morgan searches the world for her missing brother. Finally finding him entranced in Constantinople, Morgan brings Arthur back to his senses by removing Excalibur from his hands, after which they celebrate and leave to Avalon.[134][135] The Castilian Arderique begins where the Mort Artu ends, that is with the departure and disappearance of Arthur and his sister Morgaina, described there as a fairy necromancer, after the battle with Mordred.[136] Another Spanish work, Francisco de Enciso Zárate's Florambel de Lucea (1532), features a later appearance of Arthur together with his sister Morgaina, "better known as Morgana the fairy" (fada Morgana), who explains how she saved her brother and gifts Excalibur to the eponymous hero Florambel.[137][138] In Tristán de Leonis, Morgana offers her love to Tristan.[139] In the rondalla ('folk tale' in Catalan) La fada Morgana, the protagonist Joana ends up marrying the fairy queen Morgana's son named Beuteusell after passing his mother's test with his help.[140][141]

In the legend of the Paladins of Charlemagne, she is most associated with one of the Paladins, the Danish folklore hero Ogier the Dane: following his initial epics, when he is 100 years old, the fairy queen Morgan restores him to his youthful form but removes his memory, then takes him to her mystical island palace in Avalon (where Arthur and Gawain are also still alive) to be her lover for 200 years. She later protects him during his adventures in the mortal world as he defends France from Muslim invasion, before his eventual return to Avalon.[142] In some accounts, Ogier begets her two sons, including Marlyn (Meurvin).[42][143] In the 14th-century pseudo-chronicle Ly Myreur des Histors written by the French-Belgian author Jean d'Outremeuse, one of their sons is a giant[29] and they live in a palace made of jewels.[59] In the 13th-century chanson de geste story of another Paladin, Huon of Bordeaux, Morgan is a protector of the eponymous hero and the mother of the fairy king Oberon by none other than Julius Caesar.[144] In the 14th-century Ogier le Danois, a prose redaction of the epic poem Roman d'Ogier, Morgue la Fée lives in her palace in Avalon together with Arthur and Oberon, who both seem to be her brothers.[42][145] Variants of Ogier's and Huon's stories typically involve Morgan, Arthur, and Oberon (Auberon) all living in a fairyland where time passes much slower than in human world. Such works include the 14th century's French Tristan de Nanteuil and the Chanson de Lion de Bourges, the 15th-century French Mabrien,[146][147] and John Bourchier's 16th-century English The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux in which Arthur's sister Morgan is mother of not Oberon but Merlin.[148] In another French chanson de geste, the early-13th-century La Bataille Loquifer, the fays[29] Morgan (Morgue) and her sister Marsion (Marrion) bring the Saracen hero Renoart (Renouart, Rainouart) to Avalon, where Arthur is the king. Renoart falls in love with Morgan and impregnates her with his illegitimate son named Corbon (Corbans), "a live devil who did nothing but evil."[42][147] When Renoart jilts her and escapes to rescue his other son Maileffer, Morgan sends her demonic monster servant Kapalu (character derived from the Welsh legends' Cath Palug[149]) after him; the shipwrecked Renoart ends up luckily rescued by a mermaid.

The 14th-century Italian romance titled La Pulzella Gaia (The Merry Maiden)[150] features the titular beautiful young fairy daughter of Morgana (Italian version of Morgan's name, here too also a sister of the Lady of the Lake) with Hemison. In her own tale, Morgana's daughter defeats Gawain (Galvano) in her giant serpent form before becoming his lover; she and her fairy army then save Gawain from the jealous Guinevere, who wants Gawain dead after having been spurned by him. She then herself is imprisoned in a magical torment in her mother's glass-and-diamond magical castle Pela-Orso, because of how Morgana wanted to force her to marry Tristan. Eventually, Gawain storms the castle after three years of siege and frees her from a cursed dungeon, also capturing her tyrannical mother for the same punishment.[151][152] The 15th-century Italian compilation of Arthur and Tristan legends, La Tavola Ritonda (The Round Table), too makes Morgan a sister to the Lady of the Lake as well as to Arthur (about the fate of whom it says Morgan "brought him away to a little island in the sea; and there he died of his wounds, and the fairy buried him on that island"[153]). It is based on the French prose romances, but here Morgan is a prophetic figure whose main role is to ensure the fulfilment of fate.[94] Her daughter also appears, as Gaia Donzella, in the Tavola Ritonda, where she is kidnapped by the knight Burletta of the Desert (Burletta della Diserta) who wants to rape her but she is rescued by Lancelot. The Italian Morgana appears in a number of cantari poems of the 14th to 15th century. Some of these are original new episodes, such as the Cantari di Tristano group's Cantare di Astore e Morgana, in which Morgana heals the wounded Hector de Maris (Astore) but turns him evil, and gives him an armour made in Hell as well as a magical ship in her revenge plot against Gawain as well as Arthur himself, and the Cantari del Falso Scudo that features her evil fairy son, the Knight of the False Shield, who ends up slain by Galahad. Other include Lasencis, a standalone version of the Tavola Ritonda story of the eponymous Corsican knight armed by Morgan with enchanted weapons to avenge his brother killed by Lancelot, and a yet another telling of the familiar story of Morgana's good fairy daughter titled the Ponzela Gaia.[154][155][156][157][158] Evangelista Fossa combined and retold some of those in his Innamoramento di Galvano (Gawain Falling in Love, c. 1494).[159]

 
Fata Morgana; Nude Study by John Macallan Swan (1905)

Morgan le Fay, or Fata Morgana in Italian, has been in particular associated with Sicily as a location of her enchanted realm in the mythological landscape of medieval Europe (at least since the Norman conquest of southern Italy),[160] and local folklore describes her as living in a magical castle located at or floating over Mount Etna.[42] As such she gave her name to the form of mirage common off the shores of Sicily, the Fata Morgana, since the 14th century.[160][161] References linking Avalon to Sicily can be found in Otia Imperialia (c. 1211) and La faula, as well as in Breton and Provençal literature, for example in the aforementioned Jaufre and La Bataille Loquifer. The 13th-century Chrétien-inspired romance Floriant et Florete places Morgan's secret mountain castle of Mongibel (also Montgibel or Montegibel, derived from the Arabic name for Etna), where, in the role of a fairy godmother, Morgane and two other fays[29] spirit away and raises Floriant, a son of a murdered Sicilian king and the hero of the story. Floriant, with the help of her magic ship, eventually reunites with Morgane at her castle when he returns there with his wife Florete.[42] The 15th-century French romance La Chevalier du Papegau (The Knight of the Parrot) gives Morgaine the Fairy of Montgibel (Morgaine, la fée de Montgibel, as she is also known in Floriant et Florete)[162] a sister known as the Lady Without Pride (la Dame sans Orgueil), whom Arthur saves from the evil Knight of the Wasteland (similar to the story in the Tavola Ritonda). Meanwhile, the Fastnachtspiel (Ain Hupsches Vasnacht Spill von Künig Artus), a German retelling of the enchanted horn episode, moved Morgan's Mediterranean Sea island domain to the east of Sicily, referring to her only as the Queen of Cyprus.[163]

 
Morgana and Orlando as painted by George Frederic Watts (1865)

During the Italian Renaissance, Morgan has been primarily featured in relation to the cycle of epic poems of Orlando (based on Roland of the historical Charlemagne). In Matteo Maria Boiardo's late-15th-century Orlando Innamorato, fata Morgana (initially as lady Fortune[164]) is beautiful but wicked fairy enchantress, a sister of King Arthur and a pupil of Merlin. Morgana lives in her paradise-like garden in a crystal cavern under a lake, plotting to eventually destroy the entire world. There, she abducts her favourites until she is thwarted by Orlando who defeats, chases and captures Morgana, destroying her underwater prison and letting her keep only one of her forced lovers, a knight named Ziliante.[165] In Ludovico Ariosto's continuation of this tale, Orlando Furioso (1532), Morgana is revealed as a twin sister of two other sorceresses, the good Logistilla and the evil Alcina; Orlando again defeats Morgana, rescuing Ziliante who has been turned into a dragon, and forces Morgana to swear by her lord Demogorgon to abandon her plots. The story also features the medieval motif where uses a magic horn to convince Arthur of the infidelity of his queen (Geneura), here successfully. Bernardo Tasso's L'Amadigi (1560) further introduces Morgana's three daughters: Carvilia, Morganetta, and Nivetta, themselves temptresses of knights.[166] Morgan's other 16th-century appearances include these of Morgue la fée in François Rabelais' French satirical fantasy novel Les grandes chroniques du grand et énorme géant Gargantua et il publie Pantagruel (1532)[167] and of the good Morgana in Erasmo di Valvasone's Italian didactic poem La caccia (1591).[168] In Edmund Spenser's English epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590), Argante (Layamon's name for Morgan) is lustful giantess queen of the "secret Ile", evoking the Post-Vulgate story of Morgan's kidnapping of Sir Alexander. It also features three other counterpart characters: Acrasia, Duessa, and Malecasta, all representing different themes from Malory's description of Morgan.[169] Morgan might have also inspired the characters of the healer Loosepaine and the fay Oriande in the Scots language poem Greysteil,[170] possibly originally written in 15th-century England.

Modern culture edit

Main article: Morgan le Fay in modern culture

The character Morgan le Fay has become ubiquitous in Arthurian works of the modern era, spanning fantasy, historical fiction and other genres across various mediums, especially since the mid-20th century.[171]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Variant spellings of the name in the manuscripts include: orua, orna, oua, ornains, orueins, oruain, ornais, morgain, moruein, moran, and moranz.[39]
  2. ^ Richard Cavendish wrote: "Christian writers may have found it hard to cope with such an ambivalent figure (...) However this may be, in most of the stories about her Morgan personifies the old and deep-rooted male fear of the evilness of woman, which is not confined to the Celtic background but exists in the Judaeo-Christian and classical traditions, to which Arthurian writers were also heir. Woman's evilness is linked with voracious female sexuality, felt to rob man of his dominance and reduce him to abject subjection. It is connected with an old awareness of the irrational and overwhelming nature of passionate desire, regarded as a supernatural force."[61] According to Maureen Fries, "This character elaboration, incidentally coinciding with the growth of women-hatred in the latter Middle Ages, turns Morgan from a nurturing ruler of a sea-girt paradise into a destructive sorceress who entraps men sexually rather than healing them. (...) In spite of this murderous and adulterous career, Morgan retains her nurturing function as Arthur's conductress to Avalon after his wounding. But this 'good' Morgan is overshadowed by the ubiquitous 'bad' woman. She is the most extreme villain of Arthurian romance—even worse than the infamous Sir Breunz sans Pitié. Her gradual change (...) from a connector of life with healing, as mistress of Avalon, into a connector of death with illicit sex indicates the inability of male Arthurian authors to cope with the image of a woman of power in positive terms."[62]
  3. ^ For example, Maureen Fries, describing Morgan as the most influential Arthurian female counter-hero, wrote about how "more beneficent splittings-off from her original role emerge in the several Ladies of the Lake who later develop from her archetype: literally watered-down from Morgan (whose name indicates her origins in the greater body of water, the sea)". Fries wrote about this "fluid figure, always at least double and usually multiple in her manifestations": "Obviously the Lady has been retailored to represent the (mostly) nurturing side of the split mother-image, as Morgan has become the (mostly) devouring side. A combination of these split images appears in the figure of Nimue (also called Niniane and Viviane), who first serves as a devourer and then as a restorer of Arthurian males. Like her [Excalibur giver] sister-avatar, she is called the Lady of the Lake. In a borrowing from Morgan's career, she has the besotted Merlin teach her his magic, but without yielding to him sexually. (...) But Nimue then becomes the devoted and influential friend of Arthurian society: she saves the King and his knights from Morgan's death-dealing (...) and emerges as one of the three (or more, depending on the work) queens who bear the King away to Avalon. This last function allies her, of course, with her original—Morgan le Fay."[67]
  4. ^ Elizabeth Sklar described Malory's version of Morgan's character as "an essentially sociopathic personality, respecting no boundaries and acknowledging no rules save those dictated by her own ambitions, envy, and lust."[102] As noted by Mary Lynn Saul: "Curiously, in spite of all her powers, Morgan is rarely successful in any of her plots. Nevertheless, she remains a medieval symbol of the potential danger of uncontrolled female power."[103] According to Corinne Saunders, Malory's "Morgan is also characterized as following the pattern of the otherworldly ruler who wishes both to destroy and to possess bodies. She shapes herself as the faery mistress and her magic is partly directed towards the destruction of female rivals."[5] Some modern researchers attribute Malory's "personal misogyny"[104] to his portrayal of Morgan as well as women in general.
  5. ^ For example, Angela Carson proposed, citing a dual nature of Morgan seen in the poem's sources, that not only the two women are one and the same but also that Bertilak's true identity is Morgan's sometime-husband Urien.[117] According to Corinne Saunders, "Morgan is typically depicted as beautiful and seductive, but here Bertilak's wife functions as the youthful, desirable counterpart of the loathly old hag: the poem separates out the two faces of the enchantress, beautiful and monstrous."[118]

References edit

Citations edit

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Bibliography edit

 
Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article "Morgan, the Fay".
  • Bromwich, Rachel (1963). Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-1386-2.
  • Faedo, María José Alvarez, ed. (2007). Avalon Revisited: Reworkings of the Arthurian Myth. Literary Criticism. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-03911-231-9.
  • Fenster, Thelma S., ed. (1996). Arthurian Women: A Casebook. Garland Publishing (published 2015). ISBN 978-0-203-76081-9.
  • Thebert, Jill Marie (2008). Shapeshifter: The Manifestations of Morgan le Fay. Western Michigan University. ISBN 978-0-549-75664-4.
  • Hook, David (2015). The Arthur of the Iberians: The Arthurian Legends in the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-1-78316-243-7.
  • Larrington, Carolyne (2006). King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-78453-041-9.
  • Pérez, Kristina (2014). The Myth of Morgan la Fey. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-33298-1.

External links edit

  • Morgan le Fay at The Camelot Project
  •   Media related to Morgan le Fay at Wikimedia Commons

January 01, 1970
morgan, other, uses, disambiguation, ɔːr, welsh, morgên, dylwythen, cornish, morgen, spyrys, meaning, morgan, fairy, alternatively, known, morgan, morgain, morg, morgant, morge, morgue, among, other, names, spellings, powerful, ambiguous, enchantress, from, le. For other uses see Morgan le Fay disambiguation Morgan le Fay ˈ m ɔːr ɡ en l e ˈ f eɪ Welsh Morgen y Dylwythen Deg Cornish Morgen an Spyrys all meaning Morgan the Fairy alternatively known as Morgan n a Morgain a e Morg a ne Morgant e Morge i n and Morgue in among other names and spellings is a powerful and ambiguous enchantress from the legend of King Arthur in which most often she and he are siblings Early appearances of Morgan in Arthurian literature do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a goddess a fay a witch or a sorceress generally benevolent and connected to Arthur as his magical saviour and protector Her prominence increased as the legend of Arthur developed over time as did her moral ambivalence and in some texts there is an evolutionary transformation of her to an antagonist particularly as portrayed in cyclical prose such as the Lancelot Grail and the Post Vulgate Cycle A significant aspect in many of Morgan s medieval and later iterations is the unpredictable duality of her nature with potential for both good and evil MorganMatter of Britain characterMorgan le Fay by Frederick Sandys 1864First appearanceVita Merlini by Geoffrey of MonmouthBased onPossibly Modron the Morrigan Circe Medea Niamh othersIn universe informationSpeciesHuman fairy or goddess depending on the source GenderFemaleOccupationEnchantress queenFamilyHer sisters Vita Merlini or King Arthur s familyLe Morte d Arthur Igraine and Gorlois parents Morgause and Elaine sisters Uther Pendragon stepfather Arthur Pendragon half brother SpouseNentres or UrienSignificant otherVarious including Accolon Guiomar Lancelot Merlin Ogier the Dane Sebile Lord CalhounChildrenVarious including Ywain MordredHomeAvalon Broceliande Camelot Kingdom of Gorre fr Tintagel Castle Her character may have originated from Welsh mythology as well as from other ancient and medieval myths and historical figures The earliest documented account by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Vita Merlini written c 1150 refers to Morgan in association with the Isle of Apples Avalon to which Arthur was carried after having been fatally wounded at the Battle of Camlann as the leader of the nine magical sisters unrelated to Arthur Therein and in the early chivalric romances by Chretien de Troyes and others Morgan s chief role is that of a great healer Several of numerous and often unnamed fairy mistress and maiden temptress characters found through the Arthurian romance genre may also be considered as appearances of Morgan in her different aspects Romance authors of the late 12th century established Morgan as Arthur s supernatural elder sister In the 13th century prose cycles and the later works based on them including the influential Le Morte d Arthur she is usually described as the youngest daughter of Arthur s mother Igraine and her first husband Gorlois Arthur son of Igraine and Uther Pendragon is thus Morgan s half brother and her full sisters include Mordred s mother the Queen of Orkney The young Morgan unhappily marries Urien with whom she has a son Yvain She becomes an apprentice of Merlin and a capricious and vindictive adversary of some knights of the Round Table all the while harbouring a special hatred for Arthur s wife Guinevere In this tradition she is also sexually active and even predatory taking numerous lovers that may include Merlin and Accolon with an unrequited love for Lancelot In some variants including in the popular retelling by Malory Morgan is the greatest enemy of Arthur scheming to usurp his throne and indirectly becoming an instrument of his death However she eventually reconciles with Arthur retaining her original role of taking him on his final journey to Avalon Many other medieval and Renaissance works feature continuations of her evolutionary tale from the aftermath of Camlann as she becomes the immortal queen of Avalon in both Arthurian and non Arthurian stories sometimes alongside Arthur After a period of being largely absent from contemporary culture Morgan s character again rose to prominence in the 20th and 21st centuries appearing in a wide variety of roles and portrayals Notably her modern character is frequently being conflated with her sister s as mother of Arthur s son and nemesis Mordred the status that Morgan herself never had in medieval legend Contents 1 Etymology and origins 2 Medieval and Renaissance literature 2 1 Geoffrey Chretien and other early authors 2 2 French prose cycles 2 2 1 Family and upbringing 2 2 2 Schism with Guinevere and Arthur 2 2 3 Lancelot Tristan and other knights 2 2 4 Later years and Avalon 2 3 Malory and other medieval English authors 2 4 Other later portrayals in various countries 3 Modern culture 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 6 1 Citations 6 2 Bibliography 7 External linksEtymology and origins edit nbsp Fata Morgana Italian for Morgan the Fairy 1 by Giambologna c 1574 The earliest spelling of the name found in Geoffrey of Monmouth s Vita Merlini written c 1150 is Morgen which is likely derived from Old Welsh or Old Breton Morgen meaning sea born from Common Brittonic Mori gena the masculine form of which Mori genos survived in Middle Welsh as Moryen or Morien a cognate form in Old Irish is Muirgen the name of a Celtic Christian shapeshifting female saint who was associated with the sea The name is not to be confused with the unrelated Modern Welsh masculine name Morgan spelled Morcant in the Old Welsh period 2 3 As her epithet le Fay a pseudo French phrase coined up in the 15th century by Thomas Malory 4 who derived it from the original French descriptive form la fee the fairy Malory would also use the form le Fey alternatively with le Fay 5 and some traits indicate the figure of Morgan appears to have been a remnant of supernatural females from Celtic mythology and her main name could be connected to the myths of Morgens also known as Mari Morgans or just Morgans 6 the Welsh and Breton fairy water spirits related to the legend of Princess Dahut Ahes Speculatively beginning with Lucy Allen Paton in 1904 7 Morgan has been connected with the shapeshifting and multifaced Irish goddess of strife known as the Morrigan Great Queen 8 Proponents of this theory have included Roger Sherman Loomis who doubted the Muirgen connection 9 10 Further early inspiration for her figure likely came from other Welsh folklore as well as possibly other works of medieval Irish literature and hagiography and perhaps historical figures such as Empress Matilda 11 One of the proposed candidates for the historical Arthur Artuir mac Aedan was recorded as having a sister named Maithgen daughter of king Aedan mac Gabrain a 6th century king of Dal Riata whose name also appears as that of a prophetic druid in the Irish legend of Saint Brigid of Kildare Geoffrey s description of Morgen and her sisters in the Vita Merlini closely resembles the story of the nine Gaulish priestesses of the isle of Sena now Ile de Sein called Gallisenae or Gallizenae as described by the 1st century Roman geographer Pomponius Mela strongly suggesting that Pomponius Description of the World De situ orbis was one of Geoffrey s prime sources for at least his own unique version 12 13 14 15 Also suggested have been possible influence by other magical women from the Irish mythology such as the mother of hero Fraech 16 and elements of the classical Greek mythology sorceresses or goddesses such as Circe and especially Medea who similar to Morgan are often alternately benevolent and malicious 7 11 A chiefly Greek instead of Celtic construction Morgan in medieval romances is a relatively new theory by Carolyne Larrington 5 nbsp Morgan with Lancelot under an apple tree in a Siedlecin Tower fresco early 14th century Morgan has also been often linked with the supernatural mother Modron 6 17 derived from the continental mother goddess figure of Dea Matrona and featured in medieval Welsh literature Modron appears in Welsh Triad 70 Three Blessed Womb Burdens of the Island of Britain in which her children by Urien are named Owain mab Urien son and Morfydd daughter 18 and a later folktale have recorded more fully in the manuscript Peniarth 147 19 A fictionalised version of the historical king Urien is usually Morgan le Fay s husband in the variations of Arthurian legend informed by continental romances wherein their son is named Yvain Furthermore the historical Urien had a treacherous ally named Morcant Bulc who plotted to assassinate him much as Morgan attempts to kill Urien 20 Additionally Modron is called daughter of Afallach 21 a Welsh ancestor figure also known as Avallach or Avalloc whose name can also be interpreted as a noun meaning a place of apples 22 in the tale of Owain and Morfydd s conception in Peniarth 147 Modron is called the daughter of the King of Annwn a Celtic Otherworld 23 This evokes Avalon the marvelous Isle of Apples with which Morgan has been associated since her earliest appearances and the Irish legend of the otherworldly woman Niamh including the motif of apple in connection to Avalon like Otherworld isle of Tir na nog Land of Youth 24 As summarised by Will Hasty while this is difficult to establish with certainty the relationship between female figures such as these in the Arthurian tradition and the otherworldly goddesses sprites and nymphs of Irish and Welsh myths a relationship is assumed especially in the case of Morgan le Fay both groups demonstrate similar ambivalent characteristics they are by turns dangerous and desirable implicated alternately in fighting death sexuality and fertility 25 While many works make Morgan specifically human she almost always keeps her magical powers 26 and often also her otherworldly if not divine attributes and qualities 6 Some medieval authors refer to her as a fairy queen or even outright a goddess dea deesse gotinne 27 According to Gerald of Wales in his 12th century De instructione principis a noblewoman and close relative of King Arthur named Morganis carried the dead Arthur to her island of Avalon identified by him as Glastonbury where he was buried 28 Writing in the early 13th century in Speculum ecclesiae Gerald also wrote that as a result the fanciful Britons and their bards invented the legend that some kind of a fantastic goddess dea quaedam phantastica 29 30 had removed Arthur s body to the Isle of Avalon so that she might cure his wounds there for the purpose of enabling the possibility of King Arthur s messianic return 31 In his encyclopaedic work Otia Imperialia written around the same time and with similar derision for this belief Gervase of Tilbury calls her Morganda Fatata Morganda the Fairy 30 Morgan retains her early role as Arthur s legendary healer throughout later Arthurian tradition Medieval and Renaissance literature edit nbsp A detail of The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon by Edward Burne Jones 1898 showing Morgan with her sisters in her initial literary portrayal and role from Geoffrey of Monmouth s 12th century poem Vita Merlini nbsp A detail of How Four Queens Found Sir Lancelot Sleeping by William Frank Calderon 1908 featuring a later version of the character in a scene from Thomas Malory s 15th century compilation Le Morte d Arthur Geoffrey Chretien and other early authors edit Morgan first appears by name in Vita Merlini written by Norman Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth Purportedly an account of the life of Merlin it elaborates some episodes from Geoffrey s more famous earlier work Historia Regum Britanniae 1136 In Historia Geoffrey relates how King Arthur gravely wounded by Mordred at the Battle of Camlann is taken off to the blessed Isle of Apple Trees Latin Insula Pomorum Avalon to be healed Avalon Ynys Afallach in the Welsh versions of Historia is also mentioned as the place where Arthur s sword Excalibur was forged Geoffrey s Arthur does have a sister whose name is Anna but the possibility of her being a predecessor to Morgan is unknown 4 In Vita Merlini Geoffrey describes this island in more detail and names Morgen as the chief of the nine magical queen sisters who dwell there ruling in their own right Morgen agrees to take Arthur delivered to her by Taliesin to have him revived She and her sisters are capable of shapeshifting and flying 32 and at least seemingly 11 use their powers only for good 33 Morgen is also said to be a learned mathematician 34 and to have taught it and astronomy 35 to her fellow nymph nymphae 29 sisters whose names are listed as Moronoe Mazoe Gliten Glitonea Gliton Tyronoe Thiten Thitis and Thiton Thetis 36 37 She who is first among them is more skilled in the healing art and also surpasses her sisters in beauty Morgen is her name and she has learned what useful properties all the herbs contain so that she can cure the body ills She knows too the art by which to change her shape and to fly through the air like Daedalus on strange wings When she wishes she is now at Brest Brisiti now at Chartres Carnoti now at Pavia Papie and at will she glides down from the sky onto your shores Morgen received us with due honor She put the king in her chamber on a golden bed uncovered his wound with her noble hand and looked long at it At length she said he could be cured if only he stayed with her a long while and accepted her treatment We therefore happily committed the king to her care and spred our sails to favourable winds on return journey nbsp Morgan le Fay by Edward Burne Jones 1862 In the making of this arguably Virgin Mary type 4 character and her sisters Geoffrey might have been influenced by the first century Roman cartographer Pomponius Mela who has described an oracle at the Ile de Sein off the coast of Brittany and its nine virgin priestesses believed by the continental Celtic Gauls to have the power to cure disease and perform various other awesome magic such as controlling the sea through incantations foretelling the future and changing themselves into any animal 6 38 In addition according to a theory postulated by R S Loomis it is possible that Geoffrey has not been the original inventor of Morgan as character may have had already existed in Breton folklore in the hypothetical unrecorded oral stories that featured her as Arthur s fairy saviour or even also his fairy godmother her earliest shared supernatural ability being able to traverse on or under water Such stories being told by wandering storytellers as credited by Gerald of Wales would then influence multiple authors writing independently from each other especially since Vita Merlini was a relatively little known text 29 Geoffrey s description of Morgan is notably very similar to that in Benoit de Sainte Maure s epic poem Roman de Troie c 1155 1160 a story of the ancient Trojan War in which Morgan herself makes an unexplained appearance in this second known text featuring her 10 As Orvan the Fairy Orva la fee likely a corruption of a spelling such as Morgua a in the original text 39 there she first lustfully 40 loves the Trojan hero Hector and gifts him a wonderful horse but then pursues him with hate after he rejects her The abrupt way in which she is used suggests Benoit did expect his aristocratic audience to have been already familiar with her character 7 11 Another such ancient times appearance of a Morgan character can be found in the much later Perceforest 1330s within the fourth book which is set in Britain during Julius Caesar s invasions where the fairy Morgane lives in the isle of Zeeland and has learned her magic from Zephir Here she has a daughter named Morganette and an adoptive son named Passelion who in turn have a son named Morgan described as an ancestor of the Lady of the Lake 41 nbsp Henry Fuseli s Prince Arthur and the Fairy Queen c 1788 In Jaufre an early Occitan language Arthurian romance dated c 1180 Morgan seems to appear without being named other than introducing herself as the Fairy of Gibel fada de Gibel Gibel was the Arabic name of Sicily s Mount Etna that is also occurring in an Italian version of the Avalon motif in some later works Here she is the ruler of an underground kingdom who takes the protagonist knight Jaufre Griflet through a fountain to gift him her magic ring of protection 29 In the romance poem Lanzelet translated by the end of the 12th century by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven from a now lost French text the infant Lancelot is spirited away by a water fairy merfeine in Old High German and raised in her paradise island country of Meidelant Land of Maidens Ulrich s unnamed fairy queen character might be also related to Geoffrey s Morgen 16 as well as to the early Breton oral tradition of Morgan s figure especially as her son there is named Mabuz similar to the name of Modron s son Mabon ap Modron In Layamon s Middle English poem The Chronicle of Britain c 1215 Arthur was taken to Avalon by two women to be healed there by its most beautiful elfen aluen queen named Argante or Argane 7 42 it is possible her name had been originally Margan te before it was changed in manuscript transmission 43 The 12th century French poet Chretien de Troyes already mentions her in his first romance Erec and Enide completed around 1170 In it a love of Morgan Morgue is Guigomar Guingomar Guinguemar the Lord of the Isle of Avalon and a nephew of King Arthur a character derivative of Guigemar from the Breton lai Guigemar by Marie de France 16 Guingamor s own lai links him to the beautiful magical entity known only as the fairy mistress 44 who was later identified by Thomas Chestre s Sir Launfal as Dame Tryamour the daughter of the King of the Celtic Otherworld who shares many characteristics with Chretien s Morgan 45 46 It was noted that even Chretien earliest mention of Morgan already shows an enmity between her and Queen Guinevere and although Morgan is represented only in a benign role by Chretien she resides in a mysterious place known as the Vale Perilous which some later authors would say she has created as a place of punishment for unfaithful knights 38 47 She is later mentioned in the same poem when Arthur provides the wounded hero Erec with a healing balm made by his sister Morgan This episode affirms her early role as a healer in addition to being one of the first instances of Morgan presented as Arthur s sister Healing remains Morgan s chief ability but Chretien also hints at her potential to harm 48 nbsp Frank William Warwick s Voyage of King Arthur and Morgan le Fay to the Isle of Avalon 1888 Chretien again refers to Morgan as a great healer in his later romance Yvain the Knight of the Lion in an episode in which the Lady of Norison restores the maddened hero Yvain to his senses with a magical potion provided by Morgan the Wise Morgue la sage 27 11 Morgan the Wise is female in Chretien s original as well as in the Norse version Ivens saga but male in the English Ywain and Gawain While the fairy Modron is mother of Owain mab Urien in the Welsh myth and Morgan would be assigned this role in the later literature this first continental association between Yvain the romances version of Owain and Morgan does not imply they are son and mother The earliest mention of Morgan as Yvain s mother is found in Tyolet an early 13th century Breton lai 42 The Middle Welsh Arthurian tale Geraint son of Erbin either based on Chretien s Erec and Enide or derived from a common source mentions King Arthur s chief physician named Morgan Tud It is believed that this character though considered a male in Gereint may be derived from Morgan le Fay though this has been a matter of debate among Arthurian scholars since the 19th century the epithet Tud may be a Welsh or Breton cognate or borrowing of Old Irish tuath north left sinister wicked also fairy fay elf 49 50 There Morgan is called to treat Edern ap Nudd Knight of the Sparrowhawk following the latter s defeat at the hands of his adversary Geraint and is later called on by Arthur to treat Geraint himself In the German version of Erec the 12th century knight and poet Hartmann von Aue has Erec healed by Guinevere with a special plaster that was given to Arthur by the king s sister the goddess gotinne 29 Feimurgan Famurgan Fairy Murgan 51 When she began to demonstrate her magic powers she had very soon circumnavigated the world and come back again Both in the air and on the earth she could hover at her ease on the waves and beneath them She was totally indifferent as to whether she lived in the fire or just as much at her ease in the dew And when it took her fancy she could change a man into a bird or an animal Mighty was she in magic and her life was greatly in defiance of God for at her command were the birds in the wild in the woods and fields and what seems to me greatest those evil spirits that are called devils they were all at her command She was well capable of marvels for dragons had to bring from the air support in her affairs as well as the fish in the sea Moreover she had kin deep in Hell the Devil was her companion He sent her aid even from the fire as much as she wanted And whatever she would have from this earth she took without peril in ample measure all for herself The earth bore no root the power of which was not as familiar to her as the back of my hand is to me This earth never acquired a better mistress of magic arts than Feimurgan 52 nbsp Morgan Le Fay by John R Spencer Stanhope 1880 In writing that Hartmann might have not been influenced by Chretien but rather by an earlier oral tradition from the stories of Breton bards 29 Hartmann also separated Arthur s sister that is Feimurgan from the fairy mistress of the lord of Avalon Chretien s Guigomar who in his version is named Marguel 53 In the anonymous First Continuation of Chretien s Perceval the Story of the Grail the fairy lover of its variant of Guigomar here as Guingamuer is named Brangepart and the two have a son Brangemuer who became the king of an otherworldly isle where no mortal lived 54 55 In the 13th century romance Parzival another German knight poet Wolfram von Eschenbach inverted Hartmann s Famurgan s name to create that of Arthur s fairy ancestor named Terdelaschoye de Feimurgan the wife of Mazadan where the part Terdelaschoye comes from Terre de la Joie or Land of Joy the text also mentions the mountain of Famorgan 29 42 Jean Markale further identified a Morganian figure in Wolfram s ambiguous character of Cundrie the Sorceress later better known as Kundry through her plot function as mistress of illusions in an enchanted fairy garden 56 Speculatively Loomis and John Matthews further identified other perceived avatars of Morgan as the Besieged Lady archetype in various early works associated with the Castle of Maidens motif often appearing as usually unnamed wife of King Lot and mother of Gawain These characters include the Queen of Meidenlant in Diu Crone the lady of Castellum Puellarum in De Ortu Waluuanii and the nameless heroine of the Breton lai Doon among others including some in later works such as with Lady Lufamore of Maydenlande in Sir Perceval of Galles 57 Loomis also linked her to the eponymous seductress evil queen from The Queen of Scotland a 19th century ballad containing Arthurian material dating back to the year 1200 58 A recently discovered moralistic manuscript written in Anglo Norman French is the only known instance of medieval Arthurian literature presented as being composed by Morgan herself This late 12th century text is purportedly addressed to her court official and tells of the story of a knight called Piers the Fierce it is likely that the author s motive was to draw a satirical moral from the downfall of the English knight Piers Gaveston 1st Earl of Cornwall Morgayne is titled in it as empress of the wilderness queen of the damsels lady of the isles and governor of the waves of the great sea 59 Morgan Morganis is also mentioned in the Draco Normannicus a 12th century c 1167 1169 Latin chronicle by Etienne de Rouen which contains a fictitious letter addressed by King Arthur to Henry II of England written for political propaganda purpose of having Arthur criticise King Henry for invading the Duchy of Brittany 59 Notably it is one of the first known texts that made her a sister to Arthur as she is in the works of Chretien and many others after him 60 As described by Etienne Arthur gravely wounded sought the help of his sister who held the holy Isle of Avalon Morgan the everlasting nymph Morganis nympha perennis received her brother here cured him nourished him revived him and made him immortal He was presented the Antipodes as his kingdom The faerie folk being unarmed the great war leader comes to their aid he fears no battle 59 French prose cycles edit nbsp An illustration of the Vulgate Lancelot shows Morgan discovering her unfaithful lover with another lady at the Vale of No Return c 1480 nbsp Queen Morgan le Fay took the scabbard W H Margetson s illustration for Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Janet MacDonald Clark 1914 Morgan s role was greatly expanded by the unknown authors of the early 13th century Old French prose romances of the Vulgate Cycle also known as the Lancelot Grail cycle and its subsequent rewrite the Prose Tristan influenced Post Vulgate Cycle Both of these cycles are believed to be at least influenced by the Cistercian religious order which might explain the texts demonisation of pagan motifs and increasingly anti sexual attitudes 6 altrough some of these attitudes may be arguably shared with the pre Christian source material b Integrating her figure fully into the Arthurian world they also portray Morgan s ways and deeds as being much more sinister and aggressive than they are in Geoffrey or Chretien showing her undergoing a series of transformations in the process of becoming a much more chaotic and unpredictable character 7 63 Beginning as an erratic ally of Arthur and a notorious temptress opposed to his wife and some of his knights especially Lancelot doubling as her unrequited love interest in the original stories of the Vulgate Cycle Morgan s figure eventually often turns into an ambitious and depraved nemesis of King Arthur himself in the Post Vulgate stories A common image of Morgan becomes a malicious jealous and cruel sorceress the source of many intrigues at the royal court of Arthur and elsewhere In some of the later works she is also subversively working to take over Arthur s throne through her mostly harmful magic and scheming including manipulating men 35 64 Most of the time Morgan s magic arts correspond with these of Merlin s and the Lady of the Lake s featuring shapeshifting illusion and sleeping spells Richard Kieckhefer connected it with Norse magic 5 65 Some scholars even see the figure of the Lady or Ladies of the Lake as Morgan s split off literary double serving as a benevolent anti Morgan especially in the Post Vulgate tradition a largely but not entirely opposite character created using Morgan s copied traits 66 c Although Morgan is usually depicted in medieval romances as beautiful and seductive 68 the medieval archetype of the loathly lady is used frequently as Morgan can be in a contradictory fashion described as both beautiful and ugly even within the same narration 27 Family and upbringing edit nbsp W H Margetson s illustration for The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights 1908 She was known to have studied magic while she was being brought up in the nunnery 69 This version of Morgan usually named Morgane Morgain or Morgue first appears in the few surviving verses of the Old French poem Merlin which later served as the original source for the Vulgate Cycle and consequently also the Post Vulgate Cycle It was written c 1200 by the French knight poet Robert de Boron who described her as an illegitimate daughter of Lady Igraine with an initially unnamed Duke of Tintagel after whose death she is adopted by King Neutres of Garlot 7 70 Merlin is the first known work linking Morgan to Igraine and mentioning her learning sorcery after having been sent away for an education The reader is informed that Morgan was given her moniker la fee the fairy due to her great knowledge 71 A 14th century massive prequel to the Arthurian legend Perceforest also implies that Arthur s sister was later named after its fee character Morgane from several centuries earlier In the Huth Merlin version of Merlin Morgain and Morgue la fee are introduced as two different half sisters of Arthur who then become merged into one character later in the text 72 In a popular tradition Morgan is the youngest of the daughters of Igraine and her husband a Duke of Cornwall or Tintagel who today best known as Gorlois Her father dies in battle with the army of the British high king Uther Pendragon in a war over his wife Morgan s mother at the same moment as when Arthur is conceived by Uther who infiltrates Tintagel Castle with the half demon Merlin s magic aid In the poem s prose version and its continuations she has at least two elder sisters Various manuscripts list up to five sisters or half sisters of Arthur sometimes from different fathers and some do not mention Morgan being a bastard step child 7 In the best known version her sisters are Elaine Blasine and the Queen of Orkney sometimes known as Morgause the latter of whom is the mother of Arthur s knights Gawain Agravain Gaheris and Gareth by King Lot and the traitor Mordred by Arthur in some romances the wife of King Lot is called Morcades a name that R S Loomis argued was another name of Morgan 73 At a young age Morgan is sent to a convent after Arthur s father Uther marries her mother who later gives him a son Arthur which makes him Morgan s younger half brother There Morgan masters the seven arts and begins her study of magic going on to specialise in astronomie astronomy and astrology and healing 59 74 the Prose Merlin describes her as wonderfully adept and working hard all the time 59 The Vulgate Suite du Merlin narration describes Morgan s unmatched beauty and her various skills and qualities of character She was comely in body and features she stood straight and was wonderfully pleasant and a good singer She was the best worker with her hands that anyone knew about in any land and she was the cleverest of all And she had the fairest head of any suited for a woman and the most beautiful hands and her skin was softer than millet But she was the most lustful woman in all Great Britain and the lewdest And as long as she was in her right mind she was more courteous than any but when she was angry with anyone there was no need in trying to reconcile them 75 Schism with Guinevere and Arthur edit nbsp Queen Morgana Le Fey Howard Pyle s illustration from The Story of King Arthur and His Knights 1903 Uther or Arthur himself in the Post Vulgate 7 betroths her to his ally King Urien of Gorre Gore the realm described as an Otherworldly northern British kingdom possibly the historical Rheged early versions have alternatively named Morgan s husband as Nentres of Garlot who later was recast as the husband of her sister Elaine Now a queen but unhappy with her husband Morgan serves as a lady in waiting for the high queen Arthur s newly married young wife Guinevere At first Morgan and the also young Guinevere are close friends even wearing shared near identical rings However everything changes when Morgan is caught in an affair with her lover Guiomar derived from Chretien s Guigomar by Guinevere Usually Guiomar is depicted as Guinevere s cousin alternatively appearing there as Gaimar he is Guinevere s early lover instead of her relative in the German version Lancelot und Ginevra The high queen intervenes to break their relationship to prevent the loss of honor according to some scholarship possibly also because of Guinevere s perception of Morgan with her kinship and close relationship with Arthur as a rival in political power 76 This incident introduced in the Prose Merlin and expanded in the Vulgate Lancelot 77 and the Post Vulgate Suite du Merlin the Huth Merlin 7 begins a lifelong feud between Guinevere and Morgan who leaves the court of Camelot with all her wealth to seek out Merlin and greater powers The pregnant Morgan later gives birth to Guiomar s son who is not named in the story but is said to grow up to become a great knight 78 Morgan then either undertakes or continues her studies of dark magic under Merlin enamored for her the details of which vary widely depending on the telling 40 In the Prose Merlin for instance it is Morgan who finds Merlin whom she loves passionately 7 In the Livre d Artus where Morgan s first lover is a knight named Bertolais 79 it is rather Merlin who goes to live with Morgan and her two ladies for a long time following the betrayal of him by Niniane the Lady of the Lake with her other lover just as Morgan wished for him to do 7 40 In the Post Vulgate Suite Morgan had been tutored by Merlin even before her relationship with Guiomar and later she returns to learn more 7 They meet at Lot s funeral during the time when Morgan is pregnant with Yvain After Merlin teaches her so much she becomes the wisest woman in the world Morgan scorns and drives Merlin away by threatening to torture and kill him if he would not leave her alone which causes him great sorrow out of his foolish love fol amor for her 7 30 In the Vulgate Lancelot Morgan learns all her magic only from Merlin and not in the nunnery In any case having finished her studies under Merlin Morgan begins scheming her vengeance as she tries to undermine virtue and achieve Guinevere s downfall whenever she can nbsp Queen Morgan le Fay Beatrice Clay s illustration from Stories of King Arthur and the Round Table 1905 There was a time when great was her enmity towards King Arthur so that she plotted his ruin not once only nor twice and that is a strange thing for it is said that she herself was the kinswoman of the King 80 nbsp Morgan le Fay Casts Away Excalibur s Scabbard H J Ford s illustration for Andrew Lang s Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table 1902 While Morgan s antagonistic actions in the Vulgate Cycle have been motivated by her great hatred grant hayne toward Guinevere 81 in the Post Vulgate Cycle where Morgan s explicitly evil nature is directly stated and accented she also works to destroy Arthur s rule and end his life The most famous and important of these machinations is introduced in the Post Vulgate Suite where she arranges for her devoted lover Accolon to obtain the enchanted sword Excalibur as well as its protective scabbard which has been previously confided to Morgan by Arthur himself as he had trusted her even more than his wife replacing the real ones with fakes In a conspiracy with the villainous lord Damas Morgan plans for Accolon to use Arthur s own magic items against him in single combat so she and her beloved Accolon would become the rulers As part of her convoluted plan both Arthur and Accolon are spirited away from their hunt with Urien by a magical boat of twelve damsels Confident of her coming victory Morgan also attempts to murder her sleeping husband Urien with his own sword but in this act she is stopped by their son Yvain Uwayne who pardons her when she protests she has been under the devil s power and promises to abandon her wicked ways 78 After Arthur nevertheless mortally defeats Accolon in a duel arranged by Morgan her former mentor Merlin still having feelings for her saves her from Arthur s wrath by enabling her to escape 82 To avenge Accolon s death which caused her great sorrow Morgan again steals the scabbard from the sleeping king Pursued by Arthur for her betrayal Morgan throws the scabbard into a lake before temporarily turning herself and her entourage to stone the sight of which makes Arthur think they have been already punished by God That action of Morgan ultimately causes the death of Arthur who would otherwise be protected by the scabbard s magic in his final battle On her way out Morgan saves Arthur s knight named Manassen Manessen from certain death when she learns Accolon was Manessen s cousin and enables him to kill his captor In the same narrative having been banished from Camelot Morgan then retires to her lands in the magical kingdom of Gorre and then to her castle near the stronghold of Tauroc possibly in North Wales However her treacherous attempts to bring about Arthur s demise in the Suite are repeatedly frustrated by the king s new sorceress advisor Ninianne the Lady of the Lake An iconic case of Morgan s such further and very underhanded plots to kill Arthur in the Post Vulgate occurs when Morgan sends him a supposed offering of peace in the form of a rich mantle cloak but Morgan s messenger maiden is made put on the gift first by Ninianne a advice to Arthur for if she dies of it Morgan will be angrier than at anything else that could happen to her for she loves her with a very great love The girl indeed falls dead and Arthur has her body burned 83 It is possible that this motif was inspired by classical stories like that how Medea killed her rival for Jason s affection 84 or how Deianira sent a poisoned tunic to Hercules 85 The reasons for Morgan s hatred of her brother in the Post Vulgate narrative are never fully explained other than by just a natural extreme antipathy against goodness by the evil that she is an embodiment of 7 Lancelot Tristan and other knights edit Morgan is often emphasised as promiscuous even more than her sister Morgause as she is so lustful and wanton that a looser noble woman could not have been found 86 In some versions she also associates with two other lascivious enchantresses Queen Sebile Sedile and the unnamed Queen of Sorestan Together the three knew so much about magic they enjoyed one another s company and always rode together and ate and drank together Sebile and Morgan are particularly close companions working their magic together but they tend to fall into petty squabbles due to their rivalries and bad tempers including a conflict between them when they both seduce Hector de Maris in the late 13th century Propheties de Merlin Their friendship is further tested when a quarrel over a handsome widower named Berengier captured by Sebile after Morgan kidnapped his child ends in a violent attack by Sebile that leaves Morgan half dead Morgan swears revenge but their relationship is later restored 70 After Merlin s entombment by the Lady of the Lake Morgan and her three enchantresses also try to find and rescue him but they fail in that task 30 Morgan s other allies in the Propheties include the opponents of chivalry such as Mark and Claudas and she enlists the help of the latter in her failed attempt to eliminate the Lady of the Lake 87 nbsp Howard Pyle s illustration from The Story of the Champions of the Round Table 1905 She was clad in all the glory at her command and her appearance was so shining and radiant that when she came into that room Sir Launcelot knew not whether it was a vision his eyes beheld or whether she was a creature of flesh and blood 88 nbsp How Morgain granted Lancelot a leave from her prison to conquer Dolereuse Gard Lancelot en prose c 1494 or later nbsp How Morgan le Fay Gave a Shield to Sir Tristram by Aubrey Beardsley 1893 Morgan uses her skills in her dealings amorous or otherwise with several of Arthur s Knights of the Round Table It applies in particular to the greatest of them all Lancelot whom she alternately tries to seduce and to expose as Guinevere s adulterous lover Her magic aside Lancelot is always disempowered in his dealings with Morgan as he could never hurt a woman which coupled with her being his king s kin made the Vulgate s Morgan a perfect foil for Lancelot as the woman he most feared in the world 7 89 As told in the Prose Lancelot they first meet in her magical domain known as the Val sans Retour the Vale of No Return serving as an enchanted prison for false lovers since she took an unnamed knight as her lover but then discovered his affair with another woman 7 There Lancelot frees the 250 unfaithful knights entrapped by Morgan including her former lover Guiomar whom she has turned to stone for his infidelity 42 but Morgan then captures Lancelot himself under her spell using a magic ring and keeps him prisoner in the hope Guinevere would then go mad or die of sorrow She also otherwise torments Guinevere causing her great distress and making her miserable until the Lady of the Lake gives her a ring that protects her from Morgan s power 90 Since then Lancelot becomes Morgan s prime object of sexual desire but he consistently refuses her obsessive advances due to his great love of Guinevere even as Morgan repeatedly courts drugs enchants or imprisons the knight Their one sided relationship as well as interactions between her and Arthur 7 may evoke that of the goddess Morrigan and the Celtic hero Cu Chulainn 91 One time she lets the captive Lancelot go to rescue Gawain when he promises to come back but also keeping him the company of the most beautiful of her maidens to do whatever she could to entice him and he keeps his word and does return she eventually releases him altogether after over a year when his health falters and he is near death 92 On another occasion Lancelot captured in Cart Castle Charyot by Morgan and her fellow magical queens each of whom tries to make Lancelot her lover he refuses to choose either of them and escapes with the help of one of their maidservants Rocedon 42 Another of Morgan s illicit love subjects is the rescued but abducted young Cornish knight Alexander the Orphan Alisaunder le Orphelin a cousin of Tristan and Mark s enemy from a later addition in the Prose Tristan as well as the Propheties de Merlin whom she promises to heal but he vows to castrate himself rather than to pleasure her Nevertheless Alexander promises to defend her castle of Fair Guard Belle Garde where he has been held for a year and a day and then dutifully continues to guard it even after the castle gets burned down 42 93 this eventually leads to his death 34 Morgan s other fancied good knights include Alexander s relative Tristan but her interest in him turns into burning hatred of him and his true love Isolde after he kills her lover as introduced in the Prose Tristan In this story Morgan s paramours include Huneson the Bald Hemison in Malory s version who is mortally wounded when he attacks the great Cornish knight out of his jealously for her attention the knight soon dies after returning to her and the anguished Morgan buries him in a grand tomb In one variation Morgan then takes revenge as she takes possession of the lance that was used to kill Huneson enchants it and sends it to King Mark of Cornwall her possible lover 94 who years later uses it to slay Tristan 42 In the Prose Tristan wherein Morgan presents herself as Arthur s full sister 7 she delivers by Lamorak to Arthur s court a magical drinking horn from which no unfaithful lady can drink without spilling hoping to disgrace Guinevere by revealing her infidelity but it is Isolde whose adultery is disclosed instead With same intent when Tristan was to be Morgan s champion at a jousting tournament she also gives him an enchanted shield depicting Arthur Guinevere and Lancelot to deliver to Camelot in the Prose Tristan 90 In the Vulgate Queste after Morgan hosts her nephews Gawain Mordred and Gaheriet to heal them Mordred spots the images of Lancelot s passionate love for Guinevere that Lancelot painted on her castle s walls while he was imprisoned there Morgan shows it to Gawain and his brothers encouraging them to take action in the name of loyalty to their king but they decide not to do this 95 Later years and Avalon edit It is said that Morgan concentrates on witchcraft to such degree that she goes to live in seclusion in the exile of far away forests She learns more spells than any other woman gains an ability to transform herself into any animal and people begin to call her Morgan the Goddess Morgain la deesse Morgue la dieuesse 29 30 87 In the Post Vulgate version of Queste del Saint Graal Lancelot has a vision of Hell where Morgan still will be able to control demons even in afterlife as they torture Guinevere 96 In one of her castles Tugan in Garlot Morgan has hidden a magic book given to her by Merlin which actually prophesied the deaths of Arthur and Gawain and who would kill them but no one can read this passage without dying instantly 42 82 In the Vulgate La Mort le Roi Artu The Death of King Arthur also known as just the Mort Artu Morgan ceases troubling Arthur and vanishes for a long time and the king assumes her to be dead One day he and Sagramor wander into Morgan s incredibly beautiful castle while lost in a forest where Arthur is received extremely well and instantly reconciles with his sister Overjoyed with their reunion the king allows Morgan to return to Camelot but she refuses and declares her plan to move to the Isle of Avalon where the women live who know all the world s magic so she can dwell there with these unspecified other sorceresses 97 nbsp A detail of La Mort d Arthur The Death of Arthur by James Archer 1860 However disaster strikes Arthur when the sight of Lancelot s frescoes and Morgan s confession finally convinces him about the truth to the rumours of the two s secret love affair about which he has been already warned by his nephew Agravain This leads to a great conflict between Arthur and Lancelot which brings down the fellowship of the Round Table At the end of the Vulgate Mort Artu Morgan is the only one who is recognised among the black hooded ladies who take the dying Arthur to his final rest and possible revival in Avalon Depending on the manuscript she is either the leading lady usually being recognised by Griflet as the one holding Arthur s hand as he enters the boat a subordinate to another who is unnamed or neither of them are superior 98 The latter part of the Post Vulgate versions of Queste and Mort both seem to revert to Morgan s friendly attitude toward Arthur from the end of the Vulgate Cycle despite the Post Vulgate own characterisation of Morgan as thoroughly evil and the earlier fierce hostility between them As Arthur steps into her boat after Camlann but assures he is not going to return she makes no mention of Avalon or her intentions when taking him away His supposed grave is later said to be found mysteriously empty but for his helmet 7 Spanish poem La Faula has Morgan explain that by saying the tomb s purpose was to prevent knights from searching for Arthur 99 Malory and other medieval English authors edit nbsp Morgan and Accolon in Eric Pape s illustration for Madison Cawein s poem Accolon of Gaul 1907 With haughty wicked eyes and lovely face Studied him steadily a little space 100 nbsp Howard Pyle s illustration from The Story of the Grail and the Passing of King Arthur 1909 And Sir Bedivere stood upon the shore and looked upon the face of King Arthur as it lay within the lap of Queen Morgana and he beheld that the face of King Arthur was white like to the ashes of wood wherefore he wist that he was dead 101 Middle English writer Thomas Malory was the first to actually call her Morgan le Fay Malory follows Morgan s portrayals from the Old French prose cycles in his late 15th century seminal work of the selective compilation book Le Morte d Arthur The Death of Arthur though he reduces her in role and detail of characterisation in particular either removing or limiting her traditions of healing and prophecy and making her more consistently and inherently evil than she is in most of his sources just as he makes Merlin more good 7 He also diminishes Morgan s conflict with Guinevere since there is no mention of Guiomar and instead Accolon of Gaul is her first named lover in a much abbreviated version of his story 5 but does not clarify Morgan s motivations for her very antagonistic behaviour against Arthur 60 86 Overall up until the war between Arthur and Lancelot and the rebellion of Mordred it is the evil and chaotic Morgan who remains the main and constant source of direct and indirect threat to the realm 60 d In Malory s backstory Morgan has studied astrology as well as nigremancie which might actually mean black magic in general rather than necromancy 105 in the nunnery where she was raised before being married to Urien Uriens as a young teenager in this narrative she did not study with Merlin 60 Unlike Malory s good sorceress Nimue Morgan deals mostly in black rather than white magic employed usually through enchantments and potions 5 Her powers however seem to be inspired by fairy magic of Celtic folklore rather than by medieval Christian demonology 34 Morgan is widely feared and hated so much that many knights wished her burnt She is now the leader of the four not three witch queens who capture Lancelot the others being the Queen of the Northgales the Queen of Eastland and the Queen of the Outer Isles In an episode that had been first introduced by the anonymous writer of the earlier Prose Lancelot Lancelot rescues Elaine of Corbenic from being trapped in an enchanted boiling bath by Morgan and the Queen of the Northgales both envious of Elaine s great beauty echoing Circe s treatment of Scylla 7 Malory also reused the magic mantle assassination plot from the Huth Merlin in a slightly modified form resulting in Morgan s damsel instantly burnt to cinders by its curse when she is forced to take it on In one of later episodes Morgan plots an elaborate ambush in The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyons after learning of the death of one of her favourites in a tournament but Tristan ends up killing or routing thirty of her knights Malory mentions Arthur s attempts to conquer at least one of her castles which originally had been his own gift to her and which he could not retake apparently due to magical defences 103 Nevertheless despite all of their prior hostility towards each other and her numerous designs directed against Arthur personally and his own promise to get a terrible revenge on her as long as he lives 60 she is still redeemed and is one of the four grieving enchantress queens the others being Nimue marking the end of conflict between her and Morgan 106 and two of Morgan s allies the Queen of the Northgales and the Queen of the Wasteland who arrive in a black boat to transport the wounded king to Avalon in the end Unlike in the French and earlier stories on which Le Morte d Arthur is based and where Morgan and Arthur usually would either have first made peace or have just never fought to begin with here her change of attitude towards him is sudden and unexplained similar to the Post Vulgate 4 60 107 Arthur is last seen in Morgan s lap with her lament of sorrow referring to him as her dear brother dere brothir as they disappear from the work s narrative together nbsp Morte D Arthur by Daniel Maclise 1857 In the c 1400 English poem Alliterative Morte Arthure Morgan appears in Arthur s dream as Lady Fortune that is the goddess Fortuna with the Wheel of Fortune to warn Arthur prior to his fatal final battle foretelling his death 108 109 She also appears in some other English texts such as the early 13th century Anglo Norman Roman de Waldef where she is only name dropped as a minor character 110 Middle English romance Arthour and Merlin written around 1270 casts a villainous Morgan in the role of the Lady of the Lake and gives her a brother named Morganor as an illegitimate son of King Urien her wondrous castle Palaus is built mostly of crystal and glass 42 Conversely a 14th century Middle English version of the Vulgate Mort Artu known as the Stanzaic Morte Arthur makes Morgan an unquestionably good sister of Arthur concerned only about his honour in regard to the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere Entering her boat she is not named in the scene but addresses him as her brother Arthur believes he is going to be healed yet his tomb is later discovered by Bedivere 7 At the end of the 14th century Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight one of the best known Arthurian tales it is revealed that the entire Green Knight plot has been instigated by Gawain s aunt the goddess 111 Morgan le Fay Morgue la Faye Morgne the goddes 30 whose prior mentorship by Merlin is mentioned 112 Here she is an ambiguous trickster 113 who takes an appearance of an elderly woman contrasting from the beautiful Lady Bertilak in a role evoking the loathly lady tradition 114 as a test for Arthur and his knights and to frighten Guinevere to death Morgan s importance to this particular narrative has been disputed and called a deus ex machina 115 and simply an artistic device to further connect Gawain s episode to the Arthurian legend but some regard her as a central character and the driving force of the plot 27 76 Opinions are also divided regarding Morgan s intentions and whether she succeeds or fails 116 and how the story s shapeshifting and enigmatic Morgan might be or might be not also Lady Bertilak herself 107 e Other later portrayals in various countries edit Morgan further turns up frequently throughout the Western European literature of the High and Late Middle Ages as well as of the Renaissance She appears in a variety of roles generally appearing in works related to the literary cycles of Arthur the Matter of Britain or Charlemagne the Matter of France and written mostly in various Romance languages and dialects especially still in France but also in Italy Spain and elsewhere In the case of Spain even public edicts dating from the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century tell of the belief in Morgan continuing to enchant and imprison people at Tintagel and in the Valley of False Trickery 119 Later standalone romances often feature Morgan as a lover and benefactor of various heroes and yet she can also be their opponent especially when abducting those who turned down her amorous offers or working to separate true lovers Such texts may also introduce her additional offspring or alternate siblings or connect her closer with the figure of the Lady of the Lake For instance the fairy queen Lady Morgan Dame Morgue Morgue li fee shows up in Adam de la Halle s late 13th century French farce Jeu de la feuillee in which she visits a contemporary Arras 120 She arrives accompanied by two of her fay sisters named Arsile and Maglore to dispense enchantment gifts to and curses upon several characters including the author himself and in the course of the story reverts her love interest in the local mortal and unfaithful knight Robert to her previous lover Hellequin Hellekin a demonic prince of Faerie who has been trying to woo her back 121 122 Hellequin s character in this case may be connected in some way to Arthur who like him sometimes also figures as the leader of the Wild Hunt 123 124 In Thomas III of Saluzzo s Le Chevalier Errant the fairy Morgan la fee Morgane holds the eponymous Wandering Knight captive inside a magnificent castle in her forest realm Paienie Pagania until messengers from her brother Arthur arrive with a request to lift her enchantment and let him go to which she agrees 125 Loosely drawing from the Vulgate Cycle the Old French anonymous Li Romans de Claris et Laris better known as just Claris and Laris c 1270 126 has its Morgan Morgane la Faye as a fairy sister of Arthur as well as a former pupil of the Lady of Lake Viviane Ever lascivious and sexual Morgan lives in a splendid enchanted castle in the wilderness identified as Broceliande in a later manuscript with twelve other beautiful fairy ladies including the sorceress Madoine 29 127 128 There they lure and ensnare many hundreds of young and attractive knights who then spend the rest of their lives in the palace Morgana made several conquests and of course many enemies amongst the damsels who found themselves forsaken by their disloyal Knights The fairy gave proofs of her partial preference to the great Lancelot of the Lake which Genievre Arthur s beauteous consort bore very impatiently At last whether she took a dislike to the court or the court to her she thought proper to retire to the forest we speak of where at her command her invisible agents erected an enchanted palace She was followed in her delicious retreats by young and beautiful Varlets Esquires and as many Knights as preferred the inglorious but delightful pleasures that awaited them with Morgana to the honourable toils of knight errantry The fairy was also constantly attended by spirits and other familiars who gave her an exact account of what passed within a certain distance from her palace and assisted her in inveigling every traveller whom she best thought worth her notice 1780 English translation by Lewis Porney 129 nbsp Beatrice Clay Morgan le Fay with Excalibur 1905 nbsp How the Fairies Came to See Ogier the Dane by H J Ford 1921 And in tones more musical than mortals often hear she sang a sweet lullaby a song of fairyland and of the island of Avalon where the souls of heroes dwell 130 A human Morgan is named Dioneta in the 14th century Welsh fragment known as The Birth of Arthur where she is a sister of both Gwyar Morgause and Gwalchmei Gawain as well as of the other sisters Gracia and Graeria and is sent off by Uther to Avallach Avalon 131 The island of Avalon is often described as an otherworldly place ruled by Morgan in other later texts from all over Western Europe especially these written in Iberia In the 14th century French Crusadic fantasy Le Batard de Bouillon the island kingdom of Arthur and his fairy sister Morgan the Beautiful is hidden by a cloud in the Red Sea 132 where it is visited by King Bauduins Baldwin II of Jerusalem In his 14th century Catalan poem La faula Guillem de Torroella writes about having visited the Enchanted Isle and met Arthur who has been brought back to life by the fay Morgan Morgan la feya Morguan la fea 29 and they both are now forever young due to the power of the Holy Grail 133 In the 15th century Valencian romance Tirant lo Blanc the noble Queen Morgan searches the world for her missing brother Finally finding him entranced in Constantinople Morgan brings Arthur back to his senses by removing Excalibur from his hands after which they celebrate and leave to Avalon 134 135 The Castilian Arderique begins where the Mort Artu ends that is with the departure and disappearance of Arthur and his sister Morgaina described there as a fairy necromancer after the battle with Mordred 136 Another Spanish work Francisco de Enciso Zarate s Florambel de Lucea 1532 features a later appearance of Arthur together with his sister Morgaina better known as Morgana the fairy fada Morgana who explains how she saved her brother and gifts Excalibur to the eponymous hero Florambel 137 138 In Tristan de Leonis Morgana offers her love to Tristan 139 In the rondalla folk tale in Catalan La fada Morgana the protagonist Joana ends up marrying the fairy queen Morgana s son named Beuteusell after passing his mother s test with his help 140 141 In the legend of the Paladins of Charlemagne she is most associated with one of the Paladins the Danish folklore hero Ogier the Dane following his initial epics when he is 100 years old the fairy queen Morgan restores him to his youthful form but removes his memory then takes him to her mystical island palace in Avalon where Arthur and Gawain are also still alive to be her lover for 200 years She later protects him during his adventures in the mortal world as he defends France from Muslim invasion before his eventual return to Avalon 142 In some accounts Ogier begets her two sons including Marlyn Meurvin 42 143 In the 14th century pseudo chronicle Ly Myreur des Histors written by the French Belgian author Jean d Outremeuse one of their sons is a giant 29 and they live in a palace made of jewels 59 In the 13th century chanson de geste story of another Paladin Huon of Bordeaux Morgan is a protector of the eponymous hero and the mother of the fairy king Oberon by none other than Julius Caesar 144 In the 14th century Ogier le Danois a prose redaction of the epic poem Roman d Ogier Morgue la Fee lives in her palace in Avalon together with Arthur and Oberon who both seem to be her brothers 42 145 Variants of Ogier s and Huon s stories typically involve Morgan Arthur and Oberon Auberon all living in a fairyland where time passes much slower than in human world Such works include the 14th century s French Tristan de Nanteuil and the Chanson de Lion de Bourges the 15th century French Mabrien 146 147 and John Bourchier s 16th century English The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux in which Arthur s sister Morgan is mother of not Oberon but Merlin 148 In another French chanson de geste the early 13th century La Bataille Loquifer the fays 29 Morgan Morgue and her sister Marsion Marrion bring the Saracen hero Renoart Renouart Rainouart to Avalon where Arthur is the king Renoart falls in love with Morgan and impregnates her with his illegitimate son named Corbon Corbans a live devil who did nothing but evil 42 147 When Renoart jilts her and escapes to rescue his other son Maileffer Morgan sends her demonic monster servant Kapalu character derived from the Welsh legends Cath Palug 149 after him the shipwrecked Renoart ends up luckily rescued by a mermaid The 14th century Italian romance titled La Pulzella Gaia The Merry Maiden 150 features the titular beautiful young fairy daughter of Morgana Italian version of Morgan s name here too also a sister of the Lady of the Lake with Hemison In her own tale Morgana s daughter defeats Gawain Galvano in her giant serpent form before becoming his lover she and her fairy army then save Gawain from the jealous Guinevere who wants Gawain dead after having been spurned by him She then herself is imprisoned in a magical torment in her mother s glass and diamond magical castle Pela Orso because of how Morgana wanted to force her to marry Tristan Eventually Gawain storms the castle after three years of siege and frees her from a cursed dungeon also capturing her tyrannical mother for the same punishment 151 152 The 15th century Italian compilation of Arthur and Tristan legends La Tavola Ritonda The Round Table too makes Morgan a sister to the Lady of the Lake as well as to Arthur about the fate of whom it says Morgan brought him away to a little island in the sea and there he died of his wounds and the fairy buried him on that island 153 It is based on the French prose romances but here Morgan is a prophetic figure whose main role is to ensure the fulfilment of fate 94 Her daughter also appears as Gaia Donzella in the Tavola Ritonda where she is kidnapped by the knight Burletta of the Desert Burletta della Diserta who wants to rape her but she is rescued by Lancelot The Italian Morgana appears in a number of cantari poems of the 14th to 15th century Some of these are original new episodes such as the Cantari di Tristano group s Cantare di Astore e Morgana in which Morgana heals the wounded Hector de Maris Astore but turns him evil and gives him an armour made in Hell as well as a magical ship in her revenge plot against Gawain as well as Arthur himself and the Cantari del Falso Scudo that features her evil fairy son the Knight of the False Shield who ends up slain by Galahad Other include Lasencis a standalone version of the Tavola Ritonda story of the eponymous Corsican knight armed by Morgan with enchanted weapons to avenge his brother killed by Lancelot and a yet another telling of the familiar story of Morgana s good fairy daughter titled the Ponzela Gaia 154 155 156 157 158 Evangelista Fossa combined and retold some of those in his Innamoramento di Galvano Gawain Falling in Love c 1494 159 nbsp Fata Morgana Nude Study by John Macallan Swan 1905 Morgan le Fay or Fata Morgana in Italian has been in particular associated with Sicily as a location of her enchanted realm in the mythological landscape of medieval Europe at least since the Norman conquest of southern Italy 160 and local folklore describes her as living in a magical castle located at or floating over Mount Etna 42 As such she gave her name to the form of mirage common off the shores of Sicily the Fata Morgana since the 14th century 160 161 References linking Avalon to Sicily can be found in Otia Imperialia c 1211 and La faula as well as in Breton and Provencal literature for example in the aforementioned Jaufre and La Bataille Loquifer The 13th century Chretien inspired romance Floriant et Florete places Morgan s secret mountain castle of Mongibel also Montgibel or Montegibel derived from the Arabic name for Etna where in the role of a fairy godmother Morgane and two other fays 29 spirit away and raises Floriant a son of a murdered Sicilian king and the hero of the story Floriant with the help of her magic ship eventually reunites with Morgane at her castle when he returns there with his wife Florete 42 The 15th century French romance La Chevalier du Papegau The Knight of the Parrot gives Morgaine the Fairy of Montgibel Morgaine la fee de Montgibel as she is also known in Floriant et Florete 162 a sister known as the Lady Without Pride la Dame sans Orgueil whom Arthur saves from the evil Knight of the Wasteland similar to the story in the Tavola Ritonda Meanwhile the Fastnachtspiel Ain Hupsches Vasnacht Spill von Kunig Artus a German retelling of the enchanted horn episode moved Morgan s Mediterranean Sea island domain to the east of Sicily referring to her only as the Queen of Cyprus 163 nbsp Morgana and Orlando as painted by George Frederic Watts 1865 During the Italian Renaissance Morgan has been primarily featured in relation to the cycle of epic poems of Orlando based on Roland of the historical Charlemagne In Matteo Maria Boiardo s late 15th century Orlando Innamorato fata Morgana initially as lady Fortune 164 is beautiful but wicked fairy enchantress a sister of King Arthur and a pupil of Merlin Morgana lives in her paradise like garden in a crystal cavern under a lake plotting to eventually destroy the entire world There she abducts her favourites until she is thwarted by Orlando who defeats chases and captures Morgana destroying her underwater prison and letting her keep only one of her forced lovers a knight named Ziliante 165 In Ludovico Ariosto s continuation of this tale Orlando Furioso 1532 Morgana is revealed as a twin sister of two other sorceresses the good Logistilla and the evil Alcina Orlando again defeats Morgana rescuing Ziliante who has been turned into a dragon and forces Morgana to swear by her lord Demogorgon to abandon her plots The story also features the medieval motif where uses a magic horn to convince Arthur of the infidelity of his queen Geneura here successfully Bernardo Tasso s L Amadigi 1560 further introduces Morgana s three daughters Carvilia Morganetta and Nivetta themselves temptresses of knights 166 Morgan s other 16th century appearances include these of Morgue la fee in Francois Rabelais French satirical fantasy novel Les grandes chroniques du grand et enorme geant Gargantua et il publie Pantagruel 1532 167 and of the good Morgana in Erasmo di Valvasone s Italian didactic poem La caccia 1591 168 In Edmund Spenser s English epic poem The Faerie Queene 1590 Argante Layamon s name for Morgan is lustful giantess queen of the secret Ile evoking the Post Vulgate story of Morgan s kidnapping of Sir Alexander It also features three other counterpart characters Acrasia Duessa and Malecasta all representing different themes from Malory s description of Morgan 169 Morgan might have also inspired the characters of the healer Loosepaine and the fay Oriande in the Scots language poem Greysteil 170 possibly originally written in 15th century England Modern culture editMain article Morgan le Fay in modern culture The character Morgan le Fay has become ubiquitous in Arthurian works of the modern era spanning fantasy historical fiction and other genres across various mediums especially since the mid 20th century 171 See also editKing Arthur s family Medieval female sexuality Margot the fairyNotes edit Variant spellings of the name in the manuscripts include orua orna oua ornains orueins oruain ornais morgain moruein moran and moranz 39 Richard Cavendish wrote Christian writers may have found it hard to cope with such an ambivalent figure However this may be in most of the stories about her Morgan personifies the old and deep rooted male fear of the evilness of woman which is not confined to the Celtic background but exists in the Judaeo Christian and classical traditions to which Arthurian writers were also heir Woman s evilness is linked with voracious female sexuality felt to rob man of his dominance and reduce him to abject subjection It is connected with an old awareness of the irrational and overwhelming nature of passionate desire regarded as a supernatural force 61 According to Maureen Fries This character elaboration incidentally coinciding with the growth of women hatred in the latter Middle Ages turns Morgan from a nurturing ruler of a sea girt paradise into a destructive sorceress who entraps men sexually rather than healing them In spite of this murderous and adulterous career Morgan retains her nurturing function as Arthur s conductress to Avalon after his wounding But this good Morgan is overshadowed by the ubiquitous bad woman She is the most extreme villain of Arthurian romance even worse than the infamous Sir Breunz sans Pitie Her gradual change from a connector of life with healing as mistress of Avalon into a connector of death with illicit sex indicates the inability of male Arthurian authors to cope with the image of a woman of power in positive terms 62 For example Maureen Fries describing Morgan as the most influential Arthurian female counter hero wrote about how more beneficent splittings off from her original role emerge in the several Ladies of the Lake who later develop from her archetype literally watered down from Morgan whose name indicates her origins in the greater body of water the sea Fries wrote about this fluid figure always at least double and usually multiple in her manifestations Obviously the Lady has been retailored to represent the mostly nurturing side of the split mother image as Morgan has become the mostly devouring side A combination of these split images appears in the figure of Nimue also called Niniane and Viviane who first serves as a devourer and then as a restorer of Arthurian males Like her Excalibur giver sister avatar she is called the Lady of the Lake In a borrowing from Morgan s career she has the besotted Merlin teach her his magic but without yielding to him sexually But Nimue then becomes the devoted and influential friend of Arthurian society she saves the King and his knights from Morgan s death dealing and emerges as one of the three or more depending on the work queens who bear the King away to Avalon This last function allies her of course with her original Morgan le Fay 67 Elizabeth Sklar described Malory s version of Morgan s character as an essentially sociopathic personality respecting no boundaries and acknowledging no rules save those dictated by her own ambitions envy and lust 102 As noted by Mary Lynn Saul Curiously in spite of all her powers Morgan is rarely successful in any of her plots Nevertheless she remains a medieval symbol of the potential danger of uncontrolled female power 103 According to Corinne Saunders Malory s Morgan is also characterized as following the pattern of the otherworldly ruler who wishes both to destroy and to possess bodies She shapes herself as the faery mistress and her magic is partly directed towards the destruction of female rivals 5 Some modern researchers attribute Malory s personal misogyny 104 to his portrayal of Morgan as well as women in general For example Angela Carson proposed citing a dual nature of Morgan seen in the poem s sources that not only the two women are one and the same but also that Bertilak s true identity is Morgan s sometime husband Urien 117 According to Corinne Saunders Morgan is typically depicted as beautiful and seductive but here Bertilak s wife functions as the youthful desirable counterpart of the loathly old hag the poem separates out the two faces of the enchantress beautiful and monstrous 118 References editCitations edit Definition of FATA MORGANA www merriam webster com Retrieved 12 May 2019 Lot Ferdinand Morgue la Fee et Morgan Tud in Romania28 1899 pp 321 28 Koch John Celtic Culture ABC CLIO 2006 p 16 458 537 702 1602 a b c d Dalecky Elke 2008 Different Faces of Morgan le Fay The Changing Image of the Sorceress in Arthurian Literature PDF University of Vienna a b c d e f Mangle Josh 2018 Echoes of Legend Magic as the Bridge Between a Pagan Past and a Christian Future in Sir Thomas Malory s Le Morte Darthur Graduate Theses a b c d e Carver Dax Donald 2006 Goddess Dethroned The Evolution of Morgan le Fay Department of Religious Studies Georgia State University Atlanta a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Enstone Zoe Eve 2011 Wichecraft amp Vilaine Morgan le Fay in Medieval Arthurian Literature PDF University of Leicester Archived from the original PDF on 9 August 2017 Retrieved 18 June 2018 Fries Maureen 1994 From The Lady to The Tramp The Decline of Morgan le Fay in Medieval Romance PDF Arthuriana 4 1 18 doi 10 1353 art 1994 0018 S2CID 162377628 Retrieved 19 September 2015 Loomis Roger Sherman 1958 Objections to the Celtic origin of the Matiere de Bretagne Romania in French 79 313 47 77 doi 10 3406 roma 1958 3112 ISSN 0035 8029 a b Loomis Roger S 1945 Morgain La Fee and the Celtic Goddesses Speculum 20 2 183 203 doi 10 2307 2854594 JSTOR 2854594 S2CID 161308783 a b c d e Shearer John Christopher 2017 Masks of the Dark Goddess in Arthurian Literature Origin and Evolution of Morgan le Fay Eastern Kentucky University Richmond Curley Michael J Geoffrey of Monmouth Cengage Gale 1994 p 119 Koch John Celtic Culture ABC CLIO 2006 p 146 Hofeneder Andreas Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen Von Cicero bis Florus Austrian Academy of Sciences Press 2008 p 273 Faral Edmond La legende arthurienne etudes et documents Des origines a Geoffroy de Monmouth H Champion 1929 pp 303 307 a b c Perez The Myth of Morgan la Fey p 95 Charlotte Spivack Roberta Lynne Staples Morgan le Fay Goddess or Witch The Company of Camelot Arthurian Characters in Romance and Fantasy Archived 18 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine Greenwood Press 2000 pp 32 45 ISBN missing Bromwich Trioedd Ynys Prydein p 195 Preserved in Peniarth 147 See Bromwich Trioedd Ynys Prydein pp 449 451 Guest Charlotte 1877 The Mabinogion From the Llyfr Coch O Hergest the Red Book of Hergest with an English Translation and Notes Koch John T Minard Antone 2012 The Celts A H ABC CLIO ISBN 978 1 59884 964 6 Bromwich Trioedd Ynys Prydein pp 274 275 Harward Vernon J 1958 The Dwarfs of Arthurian Romance and Celtic Tradition E J Brill 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Goodrich Peter H 2004 Merlin A Casebook Routledge pp 149 150 ISBN 978 1 135 58340 8 Perceforest The Prehistory of King Arthur s Britain DS Brewer 2011 ISBN 978 1 84384 262 0 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Bruce Christopher W 1999 The Arthurian Name Dictionary Taylor amp Francis ISBN 978 0 8153 2865 0 Retrieved 24 May 2010 Faedo Avalon Revisited p 135 Perez The Myth of Morgan la Fey pp 73 75 Hebert Shapeshifter p 47 Figg Kristen Crane Susan January 2014 Animal Encounters Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain Arthuriana doi 10 1353 art 2014 0022 S2CID 161664560 Retrieved 7 September 2015 Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 40 Hebert Shapeshifter p 44 Paton Lucy Allen Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance Ginn 1903 pp 259 274 Loomis Roger Sherman Arthurian Tradition and Chretien de Troyes Columbia University Press 1949 p 488 Aue Hartmann Von 1982 Erec U of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0 8032 7329 0 Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 11 Vivian Kim 1 November 2010 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Enchantresses pp 42 43 Martins Ana Rita 2015 Morgan le Fay The Inheritance of the Goddess PDF Universidade de Lisboa Faculdade de Letras ULICES Hebert Shapeshifter p 69 Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 88 a b Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 83 Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 45 Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 24 Lacy Norris J 21 February 2010 Lancelot Grail The death of Arthur Boydell amp Brewer Ltd ISBN 978 1 84384 230 9 via Google Books Sommer H Oskar Heinrich Oskar The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances Volume 6 Carnegie Institution of Washington via Internet Archive Zimo Ann E Sprecher Tiffany D Vann Reyerson Kathryn Blumenthal Debra 2 March 2020 Rethinking Medieval Margins and Marginality Routledge ISBN 978 1 000 03484 4 via Google Books Accolon of Gaul Robbins Library Digital Projects d lib rochester edu Retrieved 1 February 2019 Pyle Howard 1910 The Story of the Grail and the Passing of King Arthur New York Public Library New York 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Miguel de Cervantes Hook The Arthur of the Iberians p 184 Perdomo Maria del Rosario Aguilar 2004 Florambel de Lucea primera parte libros I II y III Valladolid Nicola Tierri 1532 guia de lectura in Spanish Centro Estudios Cervantinos ISBN 978 84 88333 97 1 Hook The Arthur of the Iberians p 289 Bramimonda i els cavallers carolingis 778 dBalears in Catalan 1 February 2004 Archived from the original on 23 September 2020 Retrieved 9 March 2019 El tractament de la dona com a pensadora en l Aplec de rondaies mallorquines d Antoni M Alcover docplayer es in Spanish Retrieved 9 March 2019 Silverberg Robert The Realm of Prester John by Robert Silverberg 1972 Online Research Library Archived from the original on 3 October 2015 Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 94 Sion C M H translated Saints and She Devils Foundation Werkplaats Wetenschap NL Rubicon Press 1987 ISBN 0 948695 06 4 Keightley Thomas 1828 The Fairy Mythology Lulu com ISBN 978 1 365 61978 6 The Arthur of the French The Arthurian Legend in Medieval French and Occitan Literature University of Wales Press 15 October 2020 ISBN 978 1 78683 743 1 via Google Books a b Ludlow John Malcolm Forbes 6 August 1865 Popular Epics of the Middle Ages of the Norse German and Carlovingian Cycles Macmillan and Company via Google Books Wade J 23 May 2011 Fairies in Medieval Romance Springer ISBN 978 0 230 11915 4 Apollinaire Guillaume 1972 L enchanteur pourrissant Ed etablie presente et annotee par Jean Burgos in French Lettres modernes Rajna Pio ed 1893 Pulzella Gaia Cantare Cavalleresco in Italian 1893 ed Firenze Varanini Giorgio 1959 Il manoscritto quattrocentesco della Ponzela Gaia Scriptorium in Italian 13 1 70 79 doi 10 3406 scrip 1959 3001 ISSN 0036 9772 Busby Keith Thompson Raymond H 8 November 2005 Gawain A Casebook Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 78351 7 Murgia Giulia 2017 La Tavola Ritonda Magic and the Supernatural Handbook of Arthurian Romance pp 355 372 doi 10 1515 9783110432466 023 ISBN 978 3 11 043246 6 Cantari arturiani Maria Bendinelli Predelli 11 July 2016 Retrieved 14 January 2019 Lacy Norris J Ashe Geoffrey Ihle Sandra Ness Kalinke Marianne E Thompson Raymond H 2013 The New Arthurian Encyclopedia New edition Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 60633 5 Tether Leah McFadyen Johnny 2017 Handbook of Arthurian Romance King Arthur s Court in Medieval European Literature Walter de Gruyter GmbH amp Co KG ISBN 978 3 11 043246 6 The Arthur of the Italians The Arthurian Legend in Medieval Italian Literature and Culture University of Wales Press 15 April 2014 ISBN 978 1 78316 051 8 Jongen Ludo Onderdelinden Sjaak 1 April 1997 Der muoz mir suezer worte jehen liber amicorum fur Norbert Voorwinden Rodopi ISBN 90 420 0363 4 via Google Books FOSSA Evangelista in Dizionario Biografico treccani it in Italian Retrieved 14 January 2019 a b Adeleye Gabriel Acquah Dadzie Kofi Sienkewicz Thomas J McDonough James T 1999 World Dictionary of Foreign Expressions a Resource for Readers and Writers Bolchazy Carducci Publishers p 142 ISBN 978 0 86516 423 9 Green Thomas 2009 Arthuriana Early Arthurian Tradition and the Origins of the Legend PDF The Lindes Press Larrington King Arthur s Enchantresses p 93 Therese SAINT PAUL THE MAGICAL MANTLE THE DRINKING HORN AND THE CHASTITY TEST A STUDY OF A TALE IN ARTHURIAN CELTIC LITERATURE PDF Era lib ed ac uk Retrieved 5 March 2022 Bane Theresa 30 August 2013 Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology McFarland ISBN 978 1 4766 1242 3 Cavallo Jo Ann 1993 Boiardo s Orlando Innamorato An Ethics of Desire Fairleigh Dickinson University Press p 108 ISBN 978 0 8386 35346 Cavallo Jo Ann 2004 The Romance Epics of Boiardo Ariosto and Tasso From Public Duty to Private Pleasure University of Toronto Press ISBN 978 0 8020 8915 1 Taylor Jane H M 2014 Rewriting Arthurian Romance in Renaissance France From Manuscript to Printed Book Boydell amp Brewer Ltd ISBN 978 1 84384 365 8 La caccia PDF in Italian Hebert Shapeshifter pp 110 116 Caldwell James R 1965 A Medieval Romance of Friendship Eger and Grime Mabel van Duzee Speculum 40 1 170 172 doi 10 2307 2856494 JSTOR 2856494 Thoroughly Modern Morgan Morgan le Fey in Twentieth Century Popular Arthuriana Sklar Elizabeth S in Popular Arthurian Traditions pp 24 32 ISBN 0 87972 562 1 Bibliography edit nbsp Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article Morgan the Fay Bromwich Rachel 1963 Trioedd Ynys Prydein The Triads of the Island of Britain University of Wales Press ISBN 978 0 7083 1386 2 Faedo Maria Jose Alvarez ed 2007 Avalon Revisited Reworkings of the Arthurian Myth Literary Criticism Peter Lang ISBN 978 3 03911 231 9 Fenster Thelma S ed 1996 Arthurian Women A Casebook Garland Publishing published 2015 ISBN 978 0 203 76081 9 Thebert Jill Marie 2008 Shapeshifter The Manifestations of Morgan le Fay Western Michigan University ISBN 978 0 549 75664 4 Hook David 2015 The Arthur of the Iberians The Arthurian Legends in the Spanish and Portuguese Worlds University of Wales Press ISBN 978 1 78316 243 7 Larrington Carolyne 2006 King Arthur s Enchantresses Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition I B Tauris ISBN 978 1 78453 041 9 Perez Kristina 2014 The Myth of Morgan la Fey Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 1 137 33298 1 External links editMorgan le Fay at The Camelot Project nbsp Media related to Morgan le Fay at Wikimedia Commons Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Morgan le Fay amp oldid 1223259226, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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