legendary island of Arthurian legend
Avalon
Avalon is a legendary island linked to the Arthurian legend and to Celtic mythology, where the stories place the resting place of King Arthur after his final battle. Over time it became one of the best-known symbols of Arthurian myth, almost as recognisable as Camelot.
The myth
The island first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136, as a place of magic where Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged. Later, after the king is gravely wounded at the Battle of Camlann, he is taken there to recover. According to the tradition, his guide is Morgan, a sorceress and the king's half-sister, who rules the island with other enchantresses. In the Vita Merlini, Geoffrey makes her the chief of nine sisters. In some versions, only three fairy queens escort the king in a black boat, and he rests on a golden bed while Morgan watches over his body.
The endings vary from author to author. In the Vera historia de morte Arthuri, Arthur vanishes into a mist during a storm, and his death is never confirmed. In the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, Morgan hands the body to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who buries it at Glastonbury. In the Gesta Regum Britanniae, Morgan keeps his healed body for herself and they live together. Other works link Avalon with the Holy Grail or with the Island of Brasil, which Lope García de Salazar says was hidden forever in mist by Morgan's enchantment.
Worship and religion
Avalon had no religious cult of its own. Its connection to veneration runs through Glastonbury Abbey, which in the Middle Ages presented itself as the place where Arthur's tomb had been discovered. The supposed find drew pilgrims until the Anglican Reformation. Today the story is generally regarded as a fraud created by the abbey itself to enhance its reputation.
Legacy
Avalon remains a symbol of Arthurian literature and appears in novels, poems and films. Some scholars have placed it on the Ile Aval off the coast of Brittany, while others have proposed Burgh-by-Sands or Castlesteads, near Hadrian's Wall. The novelist Robert Graves argued in The Golden Fleece that the true Avalon was on Mallorca. The name is also linked to the optical phenomenon of the Fata Morgana, a mirage that European folklore connected with the king's sister.
Ancient sources: Geoffrey of Monmouth describes it in the Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) and the Vita Merlini (c. 1150), while Pliny the Elder mentions a mysterious island called Avallus, where amber could be found.
In art
