Morgan le Fay

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

Morgan le Fay, by Anthony Frederick Sandys (1829 - 1904), 1864 (Birmingham Art Gallery): A spell-brewing Morgaine distinctly of Tennyson's generation

Morgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgaine, Morgain, Morgana and other variants, is a powerful sorceress and sometime antagonist of King Arthur and Guinevere in the Arthurian legend.

The early works featuring Morgan do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a fay or magician. She became much more prominent in the later cyclical prose works such as the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle, in which she is said to be the daughter of Arthur's mother, the Lady Igraine, and her first husband, Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall; Arthur is her half brother by Igraine and Uther Pendragon. Morgan has at least two older sisters, Elaine and Morgause, the latter of whom is the mother of Gawain and the traitor Mordred. In Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and elsewhere, she is married, unhappily, to King Urien of Gore and Ywain is her son. Though she becomes an adversary of the Round Table when Guinevere discovers her adultery with one of her husband's knights, she eventually reconciles with her brother, and even serves as one of the four enchantresses who carry the king to Avalon after his final battle at Camlann.

Origins

As her name indicates, the figure of Morgan appears to have been originally a fairy rather than a human woman. Later transformed into a woman, and King Arthur's half sister, she became an enchantress to continue her powers. Inspiration for her character came from earlier Welsh mythology and literature; she has often been compared with the goddess Modron, a figure derived from the continental Dea Matrona featured with some frequency in medieval Welsh literature. Modron appears in Welsh Triad 70, in which her children by Urien, Owain and Morvydd, are called one of the "Three Blessed Womb-Burdens of the Island of Britain", and a later folktale preserved in Peniarth MS 147 records the story behind this conception more fully. Urien is Morgan le Fay's husband in the continental romances, while Owain mab Urien is the historical figure behind their son Ywain. Additionally, Modron is called "daughter of Avallach," a Welsh ancestor deity whose name can also be interpreted as a noun meaning "a place of apples"; in fact, in the story of Owain and Morvydd's conception in Peniarth 147, Modron is called the "daughter of the king of Avallach". This is similar to Avalon, the "Isle of Apples" with which Morgan le Fay has been associated since her earliest appearances. Additional speculation sometimes connects Morgan with the Irish goddess Morrígan, though there are few similarities between the two beyond the spelling of their names.

Morgan first appears by name in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini, written about 1150. Purportedly an account of the wizard Merlin's later adventures, it elaborates some episodes from Geoffrey's more famous earlier work, Historia Regum Britanniae. In the Historia, Geoffrey explains that after Arthur is seriously wounded at the Battle of Camlann, he is taken off to Avalon, the Isle of Apples, to be healed. In the Vita Merlini he describes this island in more detail and names "Morgen" as the chief of nine magical sisters who dwell there. Morgan retains this role as Arthur's otherworldly healer in much later literature.

Before the cyclical Old French romances, appearances of Morgan are few. Chrétien de Troyes mentions her in his first romance Erec and Enide, completed around 1170; he says one guests at the titular characters' wedding, a certain Guigomar, lord of the Isle of Avalon, is a friend of Morgan. She is later mentioned in the same poem when Arthur provides a wounded Erec with a healing balm made by his sister Morgan; this episode both affirms her early role as a healer and provides the first mention of Morgan as Arthur's sister. Chrétien again refers to Morgan as a great healer in his later romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, in an episode in which two ladies restore the maddened hero to his senses with a concoction provided by Morgan.

Later medieval literature

Morgan's role is greatly expanded in the 13th century Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate Cycle) and the subsequent works inspired by it. The youngest of Gorlois and Igraine's daughters, she is sent to a convent when Uther Pendragon kills her father and marries her mother. There she begins her study of magic, but is interrupted when Uther betrothes her to his ally Urien. Unhappy with her husband, she takes a string of lovers until she is caught by a young Guinevere, who expels her from court in disgust. Morgan continues her magical studies under Merlin, all the while plotting against Guinevere. In subsequent chapters she uses her skills to foil Arthur's knights, especially Lancelot, whom she alternately tries to seduce and to expose as Guinevere's adulterous lover. In the Prose Tristan, she delivers to Arthur's court a magic drinking horn from which no unfaithful lady can drink without spilling, hoping to reveal the infidelity.

Thomas Malory mostly follows the portrayal of Morgan in the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles in his book Le Morte d'Arthur, though he expands her role in some cases. Through magic and mortal means, she tries to arrange Arthur's downfall, most famously when she arranges for her lover Accolon to obtain the sword Excalibur and use it against Arthur in single combat. Failing in this, Morgan throws Excalibur's protective scabbard into a lake.

The Fay turns up throughout the High and Late Middle Ages, generally in works related to the cycles of Arthur or Charlemagne. At the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it is revealed that the entire supernatural episode has been instigated by Morgan as a test for Arthur and his knights, and to frighten Guinevere. In the legends of Charlemagne she is most famous for her association with Ogier the Dane, whom she takes to her mystical island palace to be her lover. In the chanson de geste of Huon de Bordeaux, Morgan is the mother of the fairy king Oberon by none other than Julius Caesar.

Popular culture

The modern image of Morgan is often that of a villain: a seductive, megalomaniacal sorceress who wishes to overthrow Arthur. Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court depicted her as a degenerate feudal lady, living a life of luxury while keeping helpless prisoners for decades in her castle's dungeons. Contemporary interpretations of the Arthurian myth sometimes assign to Morgan the role of seducing Arthur and giving birth to the wicked Mordred, though traditionally Mordred's mother was Morgause, another sister. In these works Mordred is often her pawn, used to bring about the end of the Arthurian age.

Starting in the later 20th century, however, some feminists adopted Morgan as a representation of female power; in this context she is sometimes connected to interpretations of Celtic feminine spirituality. Such is the case in Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, which presents a different view of Morgaine's opposition to Arthur, her actions stemming from her fight to preserve the pagan religion against what she sees as the treachery and oppression of Christianity.

In John Boorman's 1981 film Excalibur (in which she is played by Helen Mirren), Morgan takes up one of her traditional roles as Merlin's student, though her competition with her mentor assumes a new prominence in the film. In the 1998 made-for-television movie Merlin (where she is played by Helena Bonham Carter), Morgan is a hapless pawn of Queen Mab. She appears in Roger Zelazny's short story "The Last Defender of Camelot", helping an immortal Lancelot fight an age-crazed Merlin. She has been widely portrayed in comic books, for example Treasures of Britain by Simon Bisley, where she helps the hero Slaine recover her brother's lost artifacts. She has also appeared in comics from the two main comic book publishers in the United States: In DC Comics, "Morgaine le Fey" is a villainess who has battled The Demon and Wonder Woman, while Marvel Comics has long featured "Morgan le Fay" as one of their biggest female threats, with notable appearances in comics starring Spider-Woman and The Avengers.

She appears as the character Ru Fe Morgan in the anime film Oh My Goddess!, and showed up on the television series Stargate SG-1 as an ascended Ancient, who assists the characters in their search for a weapon left behind by Merlin (in Stargate continuity, another ascended Ancient). In 2006 she appeared in the middle-grade novel The Revenge of the Shadow King. Nancy Springer's I Am Morgan le Fay is told from her perspective, while she becomes a major antagonist in the Christian fantasy book series Dragons in Our Midst. She is mentioned prominently in the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne as a "good" character who serves as the librarian of Camelot.

Poul Anderson used her in Three Hearts and Three Lions, based on the Ogier the Dane story. In Anderson's vesrion, a modern Dane finds that he is the reincarnation of Ogier, and Morgan tries unsussfully to seduce him once again; he is tempted but resists her charms and sticks to his quest. In Anderson's depiction she is clearly on the side of "The Bad Guys" in the ongoing struggle, but is still given a rather symapathetic treatment (she has an overt interest in luring Ogier away to her island, but also seems quite a bit genuinely in love with him, and is truly saddened by his rejection).

See also

• Fata Morgana

References

• Briggs, Katharine (1978). Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 0-394-73467-X
• Bromwich, Rachel (1963). Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain. University Of Wales Press. ISBN 0-7083-1386-8.
• Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.) (1991). The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.

External links

• Morgan le Fey at the Camelot project, University of Rochester: brief text and images