First named as the chief of nine sisters ruling the Isle of Apples, skilled in healing and flight
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini, c. 1150.
Myth · Celtic & Arthurian
Morgan le Fay
Arthurian legend — enchantress and healer
The enchantress of Arthurian legend, and the king's own half-sister. She begins, in Geoffrey of Monmouth, as a benign healer — chief of nine sisters on the island where the wounded king is taken — and is progressively blackened by French romance into his most dangerous enemy, before reappearing at the end in the barge that carries him to Avalon.
How to spot them
- ▸Half-sister of the king and wife of Urien of Rheged
- ▸Both the plotter against him and one of the queens who bears him away at the end
- ▸Chief of nine sisters ruling the island of apples in her earliest appearance
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Vita Merlini', 'the Val sans Retour', 'Fata Morgana', 'the goddess of the Green Knight poem'
Stories & episodes
Stole the scabbard of the king's sword, which kept its bearer from bleeding, and threw it into a lake
In Malory she substitutes a counterfeit and arms her lover Accolon against him.
Sent a poisoned mantle as a gift, which burned to ashes the girl made to try it on
One of several attempts on the king's life in Malory.
Named in the last stanzas of a Middle English poem as the one who sent the green challenger to Camelot
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: she is 'Morgne the goddess', half-sister to the king.
Trapped faithless lovers in a valley from which they could not escape
The Val sans Retour of the Vulgate Lancelot.
One of the queens in the black barge that carries the dying king away to be healed
The romance tradition's reconciliation of healer and enemy.
A mirage seen over the Strait of Messina is named after her
Fata Morgana, from her Italian name in the Sicilian tradition.
Quick-fire facts
- •She is first named in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini (c. 1150) as Morgen
- •In Malory she is a daughter of Igraine and Gorlois, and so Arthur's half-sister
- •Her husband is King Urien of Rheged and her son is Yvain (Owain)
- •In the Vulgate cycle she is a pupil of Merlin
- •She is revealed as the mover behind the plot in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- •Her sister Morgause, not she, is the mother of Mordred in Malory — a common confusion
- •The Fata Morgana mirage over the Strait of Messina takes its name from her
- •Any connection to the Irish war goddess the Morrigan is disputed and probably only a resemblance of names
- •She appears in Boiardo and Ariosto as the fairy Morgana, and in Sicilian folklore
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Sir Thomas Malory — Le Morte d'Arthur
- Jill M. Hebert — Morgan le Fay: Shape-shifter