http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_le_Fay
excerpts from wiki site:
Morgan le Fay by Anthony Frederick Sandys (1864)
Morgan le Fay /ˈmɔrɡən lə ˈfeɪ/, alternatively known as Morgan le Faye, Morgane, Morgaine, Morgana and other names, is a powerful sorceress in the Arthurian legend. 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 becomes an antagonist to King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.
Morgan is said to be the daughter of Arthur's mother, the Lady Igraine, and her first husband, Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, so that Arthur (son of Igraine and Uther Pendragon) is her half-brother. She has at least two elder sisters, Elaine and Morgause, the latter of whom is the mother of Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, Agravain, by King Lot and usually the traitor Mordred, by Arthur. 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.
The early accounts of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald of Wales refer to Morgan in conjunction with the Isle of Apples (later Avalon) to which the fatally wounded Arthur was carried. To the former, she was an enchantress, one of nine sisters; to the latter, she was the ruler and patroness of an area near Glastonbury and a close blood-relation of King Arthur. In the early romances of Chrétien de Troyes, she also figures as a healer. In later stories, Morgan becomes an adversary of the Round Table when Guinevere discovers her adultery with one of her husband's knights, though she eventually reconciles with her brother and even retains her original role, serving as one of the four enchantresses who carry him to Avalon after his final Battle of Camlann.
Origins
As her epithet "le Fay" (from the French la fée, meaning fairy) indicates, the figure of Morgan appears to have been originally a supernatural being. Her main name could be connected to the myths of Morgens, or Morgans or Mari-Morgans, which are Welsh and Breton water spirits. While later works make her specifically human, she retains her magical powers.[1] Inspiration for her character likely came from earlier Welsh mythology and literature; she has been compared with the goddess Modron, a figure derived from the continental Dea Matrona and featured with some frequency in medieval Welsh literature. Modron appears in Welsh Triad 70, in which her children by Urien, Owain and Morfydd, are called the "Three Blessed Womb-Burdens of the Island of Britain,"[2] and a later folktale preserved in the manuscript known as Peniarth 147 records the story behind these conceptions more fully.[3] 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".[4] In fact, in the story of Owain and Morfydd'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.
Voyage of King Arthur and Morgan le Fay to the Isle of Avalon by Frank William Warwick Topham (1888)
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 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 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 other-worldly 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 guest 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. However, while Modron is the mother of Owain in Welsh literature, and Morgan would be assigned this role in later French literature, this first continental association between Ywain and Morgan does not imply they are son and mother.
The Arthurian tale Geraint son of Erbin, based on de Troyes's Erec and Enide, mentions King Arthur's "chief physician", 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, elf").
Morgan Le Fay by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1880)
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 betroths 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 (including imprisoning him along
with her fellow enchantress friends Queen Sedile and the Queen of
Sorestan, each of whom wants to make him their lover[8]) 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.
Queen Morgana le Fey tossing the Excalibur's sheath to the Lady of the Lake, Howard Pyle's illustration from The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903)
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.
She 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. Morgan's importance to this particular narrative has been disputed and called a deus ex machina[9] and simply an artistic device to further connect Gawain's episode to the Arthurian story.
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.[10]
The Fata Morgana, As Observed in the Harbour of Messina (1884)
Morgan le Fay, or Fata Morgana in Italian, has been associated with Sicily since the Norman conquest of southern Italy.[13] As such she gave her name to the form of mirage common off the shores of Sicily, the Fata Morgana.[13] The medieval romance Floriant et Florete places Morgan's mountain home of Montegibel on Sicily, and later Italian folklore describes Morgan as living in Mount Etna.[1
wonderful/best characterization of Morgan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mists_of_Avalon
excerpts from wikipedia:
The Mists of Avalon is a 1983 novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which she relates the Arthurian legends from the perspective of the female characters. The book follows the trajectory of Morgaine (often called Morgan le Fay in other works), a priestess fighting to save her matriarchal Celtic culture in a country where patriarchal Christianity threatens to destroy the pagan way of life.[1] The epic is focused on the lives of Gwenhwyfar, Viviane, Morgause, Igraine and other women who are often marginalized in Arthurian retellings. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are supporting rather than main characters.
The Mists of Avalon is in stark contrast to most other retellings of the Arthurian tales, which consistently cast Morgan le Fay as a distant, one-dimensional evil sorceress, with little or no explanation given for her antagonism to the Round Table. In this case Morgaine is presented as a woman with unique gifts and responsibilities at a time of enormous political and spiritual upheaval who is called upon to defend her indigenous matriarchal heritage against impossible odds. The Mists of Avalon stands as a watershed for feminist interpretation of male-centered myth by articulating women's experiences at times of great change and shifts in gender-power. The typical battles, quests, and feuds of King Arthur's reign act as secondary elements to the women's lives.
The story is told in four large parts: Book One: Mistress of Magic, Book Two: The High Queen, Book Three: The King Stag, and Book Four: The Prisoner in the Oak. The novel was a best-seller upon its publication and remains popular to this day. Bradley and Diana L. Paxson later expanded the book into the Avalon series.
PROSE PIECE from Not Quite Tomas, revised poems by Pd Lyons
excerpts from wiki site:
Morgan le Fay
Morgan is said to be the daughter of Arthur's mother, the Lady Igraine, and her first husband, Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, so that Arthur (son of Igraine and Uther Pendragon) is her half-brother. She has at least two elder sisters, Elaine and Morgause, the latter of whom is the mother of Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, Agravain, by King Lot and usually the traitor Mordred, by Arthur. 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.
The early accounts of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald of Wales refer to Morgan in conjunction with the Isle of Apples (later Avalon) to which the fatally wounded Arthur was carried. To the former, she was an enchantress, one of nine sisters; to the latter, she was the ruler and patroness of an area near Glastonbury and a close blood-relation of King Arthur. In the early romances of Chrétien de Troyes, she also figures as a healer. In later stories, Morgan becomes an adversary of the Round Table when Guinevere discovers her adultery with one of her husband's knights, though she eventually reconciles with her brother and even retains her original role, serving as one of the four enchantresses who carry him to Avalon after his final Battle of Camlann.
As her epithet "le Fay" (from the French la fée, meaning fairy) indicates, the figure of Morgan appears to have been originally a supernatural being. Her main name could be connected to the myths of Morgens, or Morgans or Mari-Morgans, which are Welsh and Breton water spirits. While later works make her specifically human, she retains her magical powers.[1] Inspiration for her character likely came from earlier Welsh mythology and literature; she has been compared with the goddess Modron, a figure derived from the continental Dea Matrona and featured with some frequency in medieval Welsh literature. Modron appears in Welsh Triad 70, in which her children by Urien, Owain and Morfydd, are called the "Three Blessed Womb-Burdens of the Island of Britain,"[2] and a later folktale preserved in the manuscript known as Peniarth 147 records the story behind these conceptions more fully.[3] 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".[4] In fact, in the story of Owain and Morfydd'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.
Because her name and sometimes her traits resemble those of many supernatural women in Welsh and Irish tradition, many assume that Morgan is a remnant of a pagan Celtic goddess or spirit. Morgan’s Celtic genealogy may include war goddesses (Irish Morrigan and Macha) as well as waterfolk (Irish Muirgen, Welsh Modron, and Breton Morganes)—though none of these figures can be positively identified as her ancestor. About 1216 Gerald of Wales wrote that in the “fabulosi Britones” [tales of the Britons] an imaginary goddess named Morganis transported Arthur to Avalon to heal him. This is one of our few documented links between the Celtic oral tradition and the figure that would emerge in romance as Morgan le Fay.[5]
— Carl Lindahl, Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs
In medieval 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 guest 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. However, while Modron is the mother of Owain in Welsh literature, and Morgan would be assigned this role in later French literature, this first continental association between Ywain and Morgan does not imply they are son and mother.
The Arthurian tale Geraint son of Erbin, based on de Troyes's Erec and Enide, mentions King Arthur's "chief physician", 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, elf").
She 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. Morgan's importance to this particular narrative has been disputed and called a deus ex machina[9] and simply an artistic device to further connect Gawain's episode to the Arthurian story.
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.[10]
In folklore
wonderful/best characterization of Morgan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mists_of_Avalon
excerpts from wikipedia:
The Mists of Avalon is a 1983 novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which she relates the Arthurian legends from the perspective of the female characters. The book follows the trajectory of Morgaine (often called Morgan le Fay in other works), a priestess fighting to save her matriarchal Celtic culture in a country where patriarchal Christianity threatens to destroy the pagan way of life.[1] The epic is focused on the lives of Gwenhwyfar, Viviane, Morgause, Igraine and other women who are often marginalized in Arthurian retellings. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are supporting rather than main characters.
The Mists of Avalon is in stark contrast to most other retellings of the Arthurian tales, which consistently cast Morgan le Fay as a distant, one-dimensional evil sorceress, with little or no explanation given for her antagonism to the Round Table. In this case Morgaine is presented as a woman with unique gifts and responsibilities at a time of enormous political and spiritual upheaval who is called upon to defend her indigenous matriarchal heritage against impossible odds. The Mists of Avalon stands as a watershed for feminist interpretation of male-centered myth by articulating women's experiences at times of great change and shifts in gender-power. The typical battles, quests, and feuds of King Arthur's reign act as secondary elements to the women's lives.
The story is told in four large parts: Book One: Mistress of Magic, Book Two: The High Queen, Book Three: The King Stag, and Book Four: The Prisoner in the Oak. The novel was a best-seller upon its publication and remains popular to this day. Bradley and Diana L. Paxson later expanded the book into the Avalon series.
Reception
The Mists of Avalon is lauded as one of the most original and emotional retellings of the familiar Arthurian legend. Bradley received much praise for her convincing portrayal of the main protagonists, respectful handling of the Pagan ways of Avalon and for telling a story in which there is neither black and white or good and evil, but several truths. Isaac Asimov called it "the best retelling of the Arthurian Saga I have ever read", and Jean Auel noted "I loved this book so much I went out and bought it for a friend, and have told many people about it."[5] The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls the book "a convincing revision of the Arthurian cycle," and said that the victory of Christianity over the "sane but dying paganism" of Avalon "ensures eons of repression for women and the vital principles they espouse." It won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and spent four months on the New York Times best seller list in hardcover. The trade paperback edition of Mists of Avalon has ranked among the top five trade paperbacks on the monthly Locus bestseller lists for almost four yearsPROSE PIECE from Not Quite Tomas, revised poems by Pd Lyons
Dharma le Fay
What
if I told you; instead of healing - I killed? In order to heal the
land I killed the man? He sleeps no sleep of dreams that's for sure.
But think, what came after? The land replenished, nourished well all those who lived upon it. Their power grew and spread. Places I
never knew existed, owed allegiance to that tiny land.
But
now these days, here we go again. But this time no worthy sacrifice.
Besides I'm tired of it all. Maybe they should learn the lessons of
their own history. Either way they'll not get me involved this time.
I'm much too tired to go through all that again. And for what? I did
the best that could be done and all I ever got was a bad rap for
being the woman.
Maybe
I'll go find that Merlin.. I'm sure he'll still go for me and after
that? Couldn't we lay together for a while, wrapped in each others
arms, perchance to dream and dream and dream again? Ah well. Now,
where was it I left him? A tree? A cave? Or was it under some stone
stuck like a sword, waiting once more for my strong and guiding
hands…
.
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