Morgan le Fay A sorceress or FAIry who possessed the art of magic herbal Healing and who was either the sister or half-sister of the legendary King Arthur. According to some legends, morgan le Fay (“morgan the Fairy”) was the mistress of Merlin, who taught her Magic. Malory said she learned her arts in a nunnery.
Morgan plotted against Arthur to steal his Talisman sword, Excalibur or otherwise bring him down. Yet she also came to his aid: when Arthur was mortally wounded in the battle of Camlan, she was one of the four queens who spirited him away to the Isle of Avalon, where she used her magic to save his life.
Sometimes described as a goddess, Morgan seems to be a composite character derived from various Celtic myths and deities. In Welsh folklore, she was related to lake fairies who seduce and then abandon human lovers; in Irish folklore, she lived in a fairy mound from which she flew out in hideous guises to frighten people. In English and Scottish lore, morgan lived either on Avalon or in various castles, including one near Edinburgh that was inhabited by a bevy of wicked fairies. She also is related to the mermaids of the Breton coast, called morganes, mari morgan or morgan, who enchanted sailors. Depending on the story, the sailor either went to their deaths or were transported to a blissful underwater paradise. In Italy, mirages over the Straits of messina are still called the Fata morganas.
Morgan was sometimes portrayed as an evil hAg or crone, as in the stories of Sir Lancelot and the Lake and Gawain and the Green Knight. She is not, however, the “Lady of the Lake” in the Arthurian legend by that name. morgan was said to have a prodigious sexual appetite and was constantly capturing knights to satisfy her desires.
FURTHER READING:
- Briggs, Katherine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies. New York: Pantheon, 1976.
SOURCE:
The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca – written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley – Copyright © 1989, 1999, 2008 by Visionary Living, Inc.