Geoffrey of Monmouth According to Geoffrey in the
Historia, and much subsequent literature which he inspired,
King Arthur was taken to Avalon (
Avallon) in hope that he could be saved and recover from his mortal wounds following the tragic
Battle of Camlann. Geoffrey first mentions Avalon as the place where Arthur's sword
Excalibur (
Caliburn) was forged. Geoffrey dealt with the subject in more detail in the
Vita Merlini, in which he describes for the first time in Arthurian legend the fairy or fae-like enchantress
Morgen (i.e. Morgan) as the chief of
nine sisters (including Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe and Thiten) who together rule Avalon. Geoffrey's telling, in the in-story narration by the bard
Taliesin to
Merlin, indicates a sea voyage was needed to get there. The description of Avalon, which is heavily indebted to the early medieval Spanish scholar
Isidore of Seville (having been mostly derived from the section on famous islands in Isidore's work
Etymologiae, XIV.6.8 "
Fortunatae Insulae"), shows the magical nature of the island: In
Layamon's
Brut version of the
Historia, Arthur is taken to Avalon to be healed there through means of magic water by a distinctively
Anglo-Saxon version of Morgen: an
elf queen of Avalon named Argante. In the
Didot-Perceval,
Perceval's
Grail Quest adventures include him fighting a flock of ravens that turn out to be fairy maidens from Avalon, sisters of the wife of one Urbain of the Black Thorn, in a story likely representing Geoffrey's shapeshifting Morgen and her sisters as inspired by the Welsh
Modron (Urbain thus being Modron's husband
Urien) and possibly also influenced by the Irish
Mórrigan. Geoffrey's Merlin not only never visits Avalon but is not even aware of its existence, until told about it after Arthur's delivery there by Taliesin. This would change to various degrees in the later Arthurian prose romance tradition that expanded on Merlin's association with Arthur, as well on the subject of Avalon itself.
Later medieval literature (1860) In many versions of Arthurian legend, including
Thomas Malory's compilation ''
Le Morte d'Arthur'',
Morgan the Fairy and several other magical queens (numbering either three, four, or "many") arrive after the battle to take the mortally wounded Arthur from the battlefield of Camlann (
Salisbury Plain in the romances) to Avalon in a black boat. Besides Morgan, who by this time had already become Arthur's supernatural sibling in the popular romance tradition, they sometimes come with the
Lady of the Lake among them. The others may include the Queen of Northgales (North Wales) and the Queen of the
Wasteland. In the
Vulgate Queste, Morgan tells Arthur of her intention to relocate to Avalon, "where the ladies who know all the magic in the world are" (
ou les dames sont qui seiuent tous les enchantemens del monde ), not long before his final battle. Its Welsh version also claims, within its text, to be a translation of old Latin books from Avalon, as does the French
Perlesvaus. In Lope Garcia de Salazar's Spanish summary of the
Post-Vulgate Roman du Graal, Avalon is conflated with (and explicitly named as) the mythological
Island of Brasil, said to be located west of Ireland and afterwards forever hidden in mist by Morgan's enchantment. In some texts, Arthur's fate in Avalon is left untold or uncertain. In the
Vera historia de morte Arthuri ("True story of the death of Arthur"), for instance, Arthur is taken by four of his men to Avalon in the land of
Gwynedd (north-west Wales), where he is about to die but then mysteriously disappears in a mist amongst sudden great storm.
Lanzelet tells of
Loholt (
Loüt) having left with Arthur to Avalon "whence the Bretons still expect both of them evermore." Other times, Arthur's eventual death is explicitly confirmed, as it happens in the
Stanzaic Morte Arthur, where the
Archbishop of Canterbury later receives the dead king's body from Morgan and buries it at
Glastonbury. In the telling from
Alliterative Morte Arthure, relatively devoid of supernatural elements, it is not Morgan but the renowned
physicians from Salerno who try, and fail, to save Arthur's life in Avalon. Conversely, the
Gesta Regum Britanniae, an early rewrite of Geoffrey's
Historia, states (in the present tense) that Morgan "keeps his healed body for her very own and they now live together." In a similar narrative, the chronicle
Draco Normannicus contains a fictional letter from King Arthur to
Henry II of England, claiming Arthur having been healed of his wounds and made immortal by his "deathless (eternal)
nymph" sister Morgan in the holy island of Avalon (
Avallonis eas insula sacra) through the island's miraculous herbs. This is reminiscent of the British tradition mentioned by
Gervase of Tilbury as having Morgan still healing Arthur's wounds opening annually ever since on the Isle of Avalon (
Davalim). In the
Didot-Perceval, Arthur's sister Morgan is left to tends his mortal wounds in Avalon while the Britons wait for him (as told by him to do) for 40 years before electing another king. The author then adds that some people still hope that Arthur did not die and would return as he had promised, and tells of a legend according to which he has been
seen since out hunting in the forests. 's relief panel at
2 Temple Place in London In
Perlesvaus, the bodies of Guinevere and her young son
Loholt are already buried in Avalon by Arthur himself during his reign.
Erec and Enide, an early Arthurian romance by
Chrétien de Troyes, mentions at the wedding of Arthur and Guinevere a "friend" (i.e. lover) of Morgan as the Lord of the Isle of Avalon,
Guingomar (manuscript variants
Guinguemar,
Guingamar,
Guigomar,
Guilemer,
Gimoers). In this appearance, he might have been derived from the fairy king
Gwyn ap Nudd, who in the Welsh Arthurian tradition figures as the ruler of Avalon-like
Celtic Otherworld,
Annwn. The German
Diu Crône says the Queen of Avalon is the goddess (
göttin) Enfeidas, Arthur's aunt (sister of
Uther Pendragon) and one of the guardians of the Grail. In
Gottfried von Strassburg's
Tristan,
Petitcrieu is a magical dog created by a goddess in Avalon. The Venician
Les Prophéties de Merlin features the character of an enchantress known only as the Lady of Avalon (''Dame d'Avalon''), a Merlin's apprentice who is a fierce rival of Morgan as well as of
Sebile, another of Merlin's female students. In the late Italian
Tavola Ritonda, the lady of the island of Avalon (''dama dell'isola di Vallone
, likely the same as the Lady of Avalon from the Propheties'') is a fairy mother of the evil sorceress
Elergia. An unnamed Lady of the Isle of Avalon (named as Lady Lyle of Avalon by Malory) appears indirectly in the Post-Vulgate Cycle story of
Sir Balin in which her damsel brings a cursed magic sword to
Camelot. Avalon has been also occasionally described as a valley. In ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', for instance, Avalon is called an isle twice and a vale once (the latter in the scene of Arthur's final voyage, oddly despite Malory's adoption of the boat travel motif). Notably, the vale of Avalon (''vaus d'Avaron'') is mentioned twice in
Robert de Boron's Arthurian prequel as a place located in western
Britannia, to where a fellowship of early Christians started by
Joseph of Arimathea brought the Grail after its long journey from the
Holy Land, finally delivered there by Bron, the first
Fisher King.
Escavalon In his final romance,
Perceval, the Story of the Grail, Chrétien de Troyes featured the sea fortress of Escavalon, ruled by the unspecified King of Escavalon. The name Escavalon might be simply a corruption of the word Avalon that can be literally translated as "Water-Avalon", albeit some scholars proposed various other developments of the name Escavalon from that of Avalon (with
Roger Sherman Loomis noting the similarity of the evolution of Geoffrey's Caliburn into the Chrétien's Escalibur in the case of Excalibur), perhaps in connection with the Old French words for either Slav or
Saracen. Chrétien's Escavalon was renamed as Askalon in
Parzival by
Wolfram von Eschenbach, who might have been either confused or inspired by the real-life Middle Eastern coastal city of
Ascalon. It is possible that the Chrétien-era Escavalon has been turned or split into the Grail realm of
Escalot (Malory's
Astolat) in later prose romances. Nevertheless, the kingdoms of Escalot and Escavalon both appear concurrently in the Vulgate Cycle. There, Escavalon is ruled by King Alain, whose daughter Florée is rescued by Gawain and later gives birth to his son
Gingalain. The character of Alain may have been derived from Afallach (
Avallach) of Avalon.
Post-Arthurian stories Morgan features as an immortal ruler of a fantastic Avalon, sometimes alongside the still-alive Arthur, in some subsequent and otherwise non-Arthurian
chivalric romances. These include
Tirant lo Blanch, as well as the tales of
Huon of Bordeaux, where the faery king
Oberon is a son of either Morgan by name or "the Lady of the Secret Isle", and the legend of
Ogier the Dane, where Avalon may be described as an enchanted fairy castle (''chasteu d'Auallon
), as it is also in Floriant et Florete
. In his La Faula
, Guillem de Torroella claims to have visited the Enchanted Island (Illa Encantada
) and met Arthur who has been brought back to life by Morgan and they both of them are now forever young, sustained by the Holy Grail. In La Bataille Loquifer'', Morgan and her sister Marsion bring the hero Renoart to Avalon, where Arthur now prepares his return alongside Morgan,
Gawain,
Ywain, Perceval and
Guinevere. Such stories, which also include
Lion de Bourges,
Mabrien,
Tristan de Nanteuil, and others, typically take place centuries after the times of King Arthur. The tales of the half-fairy
Melusine also have her grow up in the isle of Avalon.
Connection to Glastonbury Though no longer an island in the 12th century, the high conical bulk of
Glastonbury Tor in today's South-West England. Today, it is a rock outcrop in the town of
Glastonbury, situated about 15 miles (25 kilometres) from the sea, but had been surrounded by marsh before the draining of
fenland in the
Somerset Levels. In ancient times,
Ponter's Ball Dyke would have guarded the only entrance to the island.
The Romans eventually built another road to the island. Glastonbury's earliest name in Welsh was the Isle of Glass, which suggests that the location was at one point seen as an island. At the end of the 12th century, Gerald of Wales wrote in
De principis instructione: 's
Britannia (1607) Around 1190, monks at
Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have discovered the bones of Arthur and his wife Guinevere. The discovery of the burial is described by chroniclers, notably Gerald, as being just after King
Henry II's reign when the new abbot of Glastonbury,
Henry de Sully, commissioned a search of the abbey grounds. At a depth of 5 m (16 feet), the monks were said to have discovered an unmarked tomb with a massive
treetrunk coffin and, also buried, a lead cross bearing the inscription: {{fs interlinear|lang=la|indent=2 Accounts of the exact inscription vary, with five different versions existing. One popular today, made famous by Malory, claims "Here lies Arthur, the king that was and the king that shall be" (
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus), also known in the now-popular variant "the once and future king" (
rex quondam et futurus). The earliest is by Gerald in
Liber de Principis instructione c. 1193, who wrote that he viewed the cross in person and traced the lettering. His transcript reads: "Here lies buried the famous
Arthurus with
Wenneveria his second wife in the isle of Avalon" (
Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus cum Wenneveria uxore sua secunda in insula Avallonia). He wrote that in the coffin were two bodies, whom Giraldus refers to as Arthur and "his queen"; the male body's bones were described as gigantic. The account of the burial by the chronicle of
Margam Abbey says three bodies were found, the other being that of
Mordred;
Richard Barber argues that Mordred's name was airbrushed out of the story once his reputation as a traitor was appreciated. The story is today seen as an example of
pseudoarchaeology. Historians generally dismiss the find's authenticity, attributing it to a publicity stunt performed to raise funds to rebuild the Abbey after it had been destroyed by a 1184 fire.
Leslie Alcock in his ''Arthur's Britain'' postulated a theory according to which the grave site had been originally discovered in an ancient mausoleum sometime after 945 by
Dunstan, the Abbot of Glastonbury, who reburied it along with the 10th-century stone cross; it would then become forgotten again until its rediscovery in 1190. In 1278, the remains were reburied with great ceremony, attended by King
Edward I and Queen
Eleanor of Castile, before the High Altar at Glastonbury Abbey. They were moved again in 1368 when the
choir was extended. The site became the focus of pilgrimages until
the dissolution of the abbey in 1539. The fact that the search for the body is connected to Henry II and Edward I, both kings who fought major
Anglo-Welsh wars, has had scholars suggest that propaganda may have played a part as well. Gerald was a constant supporter of royal authority; in his account of the discovery aims to quash the idea of the possibility of
King Arthur's messianic return: in 2014 The burial discovery ensured that in later romances, histories based on them and in the popular imagination, Glastonbury became increasingly identified with Avalon, an identification that continues strongly today. The later development of the legends of the Holy Grail and Joseph of Arimathea interconnected these legends with Glastonbury and with Avalon, an identification which also seems to be made in
Perlesvaus. The popularity of Arthurian romances has meant this area of the Somerset Levels has today become popularly described as the Vale of Avalon. Modern writers such as
Dion Fortune,
John Michell,
Nicholas Mann and
Geoffrey Ashe have formed theories based on perceived links between Glastonbury and Celtic legends of the Otherworld in attempts to link the location firmly with Avalon, drawing on the various legends based on Glastonbury Tor as well as drawing on ideas like
Earth mysteries,
ley lines and even the myth of
Atlantis. Arthurian literature also continues to use Glastonbury as an important location as in
The Mists of Avalon,
A Glastonbury Romance, and
The Bones of Avalon. Even the fact that
Somerset has many apple orchards has been drawn in to support the connection. Glastonbury's reputation as the real Avalon has made it a popular site of tourism. Having become one of the major
New Age communities in Europe, the area has great religious significance for
neo-Pagans and
modern Druids, as well as some Christians. Identification of Glastonbury with Avalon within
hippie subculture, as seen in the work of Michell and in the
Gandalf's Garden community, also helped inspire the annual
Glastonbury Festival.
Sicily and other locations peak above clouds in 2008 Medieval settings for the location of Avalon ranged far beyond Glastonbury. Besides the mentioned examples of Gwynedd and Brasil, they included
paradisal underworld realms equated with the other side of the Earth at the
antipodes. Italian romances and folklore explicitly link Morgan's and sometimes Arthur's eternal domain with
Mount Etna (Mongibel) in Sicily, and the
Strait of Messina, located to the north of Etna and associated with the optical mirage phenomenon of
Fata Morgana ("Morgan the Fairy").
Pomponius Mela's ancient Roman description of the island of
Île de Sein, off the coast of Brittany, was also notably one of Geoffrey of Monmouth's original inspirations for his Avalon. (Ynys Enlli) seen from
Aberdaron (Braich y Pwll) in 2009 In modern times, similar to the search for Arthur's mythical capital Camelot, a variety of sites across Britain, France and elsewhere have been put forward as being the "real Avalon". Such proposed locations include
Greenland or other places in or across the Atlantic, the former Roman fort of
Aballava (known as Avalana by the sixth century) in Cumbria,
Bardsey Island off the coast of Gwynedd, and
Lady's Island in Ireland's Leinster. Geoffrey Ashe championed an association of Avalon with the town of
Avallon in Burgundy, as part of a theory connecting King Arthur to the
Romano-British leader
Riothamus who was last seen in that area.
Robert Graves identified Avalon with the Spanish island of Majorca (
Mallorca), ==See also==