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June 26, 2006
"In pools among the rushes / That scarce could bathe a star"
These links, like yesterday's, are research for a long-term creative writing project.
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.
Wikipedia on Morgana:
The character first appears as "Morgen" in the 12th century Latin Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin) by Geoffrey of Monmouth, where she is the first of nine sisters who rule Avalon, The Fortunate Isle or the Isle of Apples (cf. Garden of the Hesperides), where in fact she is the sole sister with a definite presence. Geoffrey presents her as a typical fay, a healer and even a shapeshifter. In early tales she is generally a benevolent presence; her healing ointment is used to cure the hero in Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain, le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain, the Knight of the Lion). In Geoffrey's earlier Historia Regum Britanniae he claimed Arthur had sailed off to Avalon after receiving mortal wounds at the Battle of Camlann; later authors link Morgan to this event. Even the authors of the prose romances, who typically use Morgan as a villain, maintain her benevolence in this case.
The Welsh Triads preserve an interesting story about the birth of Owain mab Urien (Ywain), known in later writings as the son of Morgan. King Urien finds a beautiful fairy woman standing in a ford, bound to wash clothes there until she conceives a child by a Christian king. He has his way with her, and returns a year later to find his infant children, Owain and his twin sister Morvydd. The woman was Modron, a figure known elsewhere as a Welsh goddess whose father (Avalloc) is king of an otherworld very much like Avalon. This may represent a link between the Arthurian Morgan and authentic Welsh tradition, but it must be noted that Morgan appears alongside Urien and Ywain in the French romances for decades before a familial connection was made, and that the Triads' manuscripts date well after this association had been established in French.
While frequently assumed to be related to the Irish war goddess the Morrigan because of their similar names, Arthurian scholars agree that she is more likely descended from Modron, a mother goddess of Celtic myth, and the strong fay tradition among the Celts. A group of Breton water fairies is called the Morganes.
Modern interpretations of the Arthurian myth sometimes assign to Morgan the role of seducing Arthur and giving birth to the wicked Mordred, though originally (as in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur) it was Morgause who did this.
Wikipedia on changelings:
In Wales the changeling child (plentyn newid) initially resembles the human it substitutes, but gradually grows uglier in appearance and behaviour: ill-featured, malformed, ill-tempered, given to screaming and biting. It may be of less than usual intelligence, but again is identified by its more than childlike wisdom and cunning.
The common means employed to identify a changeling is to cook a family meal in an eggshell. The child will exclaim, "I have seen the acorn before the oak, but I never saw the likes of this," and vanish, only to be replaced by the original human child. Alternatively, or following this identification, it is necessary to mistreat the child by placing it in a hot oven, by holding it in a shovel over a hot fire, or by bathing it in a solution of foxglove.
It has been hypothesized that the changeling legend may have developed, or at least been used to, explain the peculiarities of children who did not develop normally, probably including all sorts of developmental delays and abnormalities. In particular, it has been suggested that children with autism would be likely to be labeled as changelings or elf-children due to their strange, sometimes inexplicable behavior. This has found a place in autistic culture. Some high-functioning autistic adults have come to identify with changelings (or other replacements, such as aliens) for this reason and their own feeling of being in a world where they don’t belong and of practically not being the same species as the "normal" people around them.
Wikipedia on The Voyage of Bran:
In Irish Mythology, Bran, son of Febal, embarks upon a quest to the Other World. One day while Bran is walking, he hears beautiful music, so beautiful, in fact, that it lulls him to sleep. Upon awakening, he sees a beautiful silver branch in front of him. He returns to his royal house, and while his company is there, a strange woman appears, and sings to him a poem about the land where the branch had grown. In this Otherworld, it is always summer, there is no want of food or water, and no sickness or despair ever touches the perfect people. She tells Bran to voyage to the Land of Women across the sea, and the next day he gathers a company of men to do so.
After two days, he sees a man on a chariot speeding towards him. The man is Manannan mac Lir, and he tells Bran that he is not sailing upon the ocean, but upon a flowery plain. He also reveals to Bran that there are many men riding in chariots, but that they are invisible.
All the people upon the Isle of Joy laugh and stare at him, but will not answer his calls. When Bran sends a man ashore to see what the matter is, the man starts to laugh and gape just like the others.
For one whole year, although it seemed like many more, the men feasted happily in the Land of Women until Nechtan Mac Collbran felt homesickness stir within him. The leader of the women was reluctant to let them go, and warned them not to step upon the shores of Ireland.
Bran and his company sailed back to Ireland. The people that had gathered on the shores to meet him did not recognize his name except in their legends. Nechtan Mac Collbran, upset, jumped off the boat onto the land. Immediately, Nechtan Mac Collbran turned to ashes.
Posted by Jon Rubin at June 26, 2006 11:37 PM
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