Crystal"s Palace Of Herbs

Morgan Le Fay

Alternative Names: Morgaine, Modron, Morgian, Morgan le Fee, Fata Morgana,

Titles and Positions:The Orcades Queen, the Rheged Queen, Princess/Queen/Priestess of Avalon, daughter of Duke Gorlois of Cornwall

Commonly in the Matter of Britain she is Morgan, the daughter of Igraine and Gorlois, and therefore half-sister of Arthur. She is often his mortal enemy because Arthur's father, Uther, killed her own father in battle over her mother. She is frequently shown as conspiring against Arthur, but seducing him in his youth, in order to give birth to the child Mordred, who will ultimately destroy his father. Usually diametrically opposed to Arthur and the shining values of Camelot, she is portrayed as a force of evil and is the focus of much strife.

Morgan also gave her name to the mermaids of Brittany called Maries Morgan or Morganes and the mermaids of Wales called Morgen. The treachery of these aquatic females was so renowned that storytellers carried the fame of these demons as far as Italy, where mirages over the straights of Messina are to this day called Fata Morganas.

Element: Water, Fire and Air

Origin: Morgan Le Fay was a malign fairy or sorceress who appeared in many guises throughout Arthurian legend. A mysterious figure, she has been related to the Irish death queen, Badb, and to the celtic mistress of death and war, Morrigan. She had eight sisters and mothered three children by Urien, an ancient Brettonic deity of war and minstrelsy. In British legend, Morgan le Fay was related to King Arthur.

Powers: Endowed with supernatural skills in the art of herbal medicine, and occult magic powers, Morgan was one of the most powerful sorceress of her time. The popular tales mentions the source of Morgan's magic knowledge. She was the mistress of Merlin, and had been trained by the great magician in her youth.

Appearance: Either beautiful or with a deformed face, Morgan can shapeshift into a variety of human and animal forms. If so, her beauty could be only a charm. In the legend of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, Morgan appears as a vicious hag, but in the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, she was an imposing crone and remained in the background until she was revealed as 'Morgan the goddess'. In Ireland she assumed the shape of a wolf-bitch or a heifer, crowned with a silver crescent instead of horns. If she was insulted in any manner, she took on the form of a crow that swooped down and stole children.

Lore: Morgan is the ruler of an underwater paradise, the island Avalon but inhabited at times other places besides Avalon. Her chief fortress was Mongibel in England, and she was the mistress of a castle full of beautiful but wicked fairy servants near Edinburgh, called the castle of the Maidens. But her main home always remained Avalon, where she resided with her demon husband, Guingamar.

Story: In Malory's La Mort D'Arthur, Morgan plotted constantly against her half-brother, Arthur, and once succeeded in stealing his magic sword, Excalibur. Ironically, it was she who took Arthur to her island retreat to cure him of his wounds after the fatal battle of Camlan. Another medieval writer described Avalon, which meant the isle of apples, with the following words:

'Avalon, which men call the Fortunate Isle, is so named because it produces all things of itself. The fields there have no need of farmers to plow them, and nature alone provides all cultivation. Grains and grapes are produced without tending, and apple trees grow in the woods from the close-clipped grass...Thither after the battle of Camlan we took the wounded Arthur...with the Prince we arrived there and Morgan receved us with becoming honour. In her own chamber she placed the King on a golden bed, with her own hand uncovered the wound, and gazed at it long. At last she said that health could return to him, if her were to stay with her for a long time and wished to make use of her healing art.'

The Morrigan, also known as the Morrigu, is a Triple Goddess consisting of the crone Goddesses depicting war, battle, death, and destruction. A Triple Goddess is worshipped in pagan cultures as eternal but in a continual state of flux. Like the moon which represents her, she remains the same yet shows a different face throughout her eternal cycle. She is the Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Morrigan represents the Crone aspect of this Triple Goddess, which is represented by the old woman.

According to Celtic tradition, as they entered into battle, the Morrigan flew in shrieking overhead in the form of a raven or crow. Once the battle had ended the soldiers would leave the remaining dead on the field until dawn, in order for the Morrigan to claim her own trophies, their heads (note the crow gouging out the eyes of the man's head in the picture above).

Morgan le Fay is, in Malory's Morte d'Arthur, Arthur's half sister, the daughter of Arthur's mother Igraine and her first husband, the Duke of Cornwall. She is also presented as an adversary of Arthur's: she gives Excalibur to her lover Accolon so he can use it against Arthur(a story retold in Madison J. Cawein's poem Accolon, and, when that plot fails, she steals the scabbard of Excalibur which protects Arthur and throws it into a lake. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight she is presented as the instigator of the Green Knight's visit to Arthur's court, partly motivated by her desire to frighten Guinevere. Her enmity towards Guinevere has its origin in the Vulgate Lancelot, where Morgan is having an affair with Guiomar, Guinevere's cousin, and Guinevere puts an end to it. Despite the motif of Morgan's enmity towards Arthur and Guinevere, she is also presented as one of the women who takes Arthur in a barge to Avalon to be healed. This view of Morgan as healer has its roots in the earliest accounts of her and perhaps to her origin in Celtic mythology. In the Vita Merlini (c. 1150) Morgan is said to be the first of nine sisters who rule The Fortunate Isle or the Isle of Apples and is presented as a healer as well as a shape-changer. It is to this island that Arthur is brought (though Morgan awaits him and heals him rather than actually fetching him herself). Morgan proclaims that she can heal Arthur if he stays with her for a long time. Morgan is also said to be the wife of King Uriens and the mother of Yvain, Morgan rarely appears in post-medieval works--until the twentieth century when there is a renewed interest in her character. Sometimes she is conflated with Morgause and made to be the mother of Mordred, as is the case in John Boorman's movie Excalibur and a number of modern novels. Fay Sampson has made her the central figure in five novels. One of the most interesting modern portrayals of Morgan appears in Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex where, after a life devoted to evil, she decides to become a nun because of her belief that "corruption were sooner brought amongst humankind by the forces of virtue." Morgan actually does become a defender of good in modern stories like Roger Zelazny's "The Last Defender of Camelot" and Sanders Anne Laubenthal's Excaliibur.

The problem with tracing any single character throughout the hundreds of years worth of literature is the subtle changes that each rendition introduced, not to mention that the collection itself is so vast is is nearly impossible to catalogue. She is also considered the daughter of LeFay, a Welsh sea Goddess; indeed, the root of her name (mor) means sea and she was a sea Goddess standing where one must cross to reach the isle of the otherworld. She may very well have once been a Goddess of Glastonbury Tor which is sacred to Pagan ritual as a gateway to the otherworld.

Important Announcement The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More
Crystal"s Palace Of Herbs	[email protected]