Editing Avalon (section)

===Geoffrey of Monmouth===
{{See also|Land of Maidens}}

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 [[Morgan le Fay|Morgen]] (i.e. Morgan) as the chief of [[Nine sorceresses|nine sisters]] (including Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe and Thiten)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=biQ6iC_ua9AC&pg=PA263|title=The History of the Kings of Britain|first=Geoffrey of|last=Monmouth|date=11 December 2007|publisher=Broadview Press|isbn=9781770481428 |via=Google Books}}</ref> 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 "''[[Fortunate Isles|Fortunatae Insulae]]''"),<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Walter |editor1-first=Philippe |editor2-last=Berthet |editor2-first=Jean-Charles |editor3-last=Stalmans |editor3-first=Nathalie |title=Le devin maudit: Merlin, Lailoken, Suibhne: textes et étude |publisher=ELLUG |location=Grenoble |year=1999 |page=125 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Lot |first=Ferdinand |title=Nouvelles études sur le cycle arthurien |journal=Romania |volume=45 |year=1918 |issue=177 |pages=1–22 (14) |doi=10.3406/roma.1918.5142 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Faral |first=Edmond |title=La Légende arthurienne, études et documents: Premiere partie: Les plus anciens textes |volume=2 |publisher=H. Champion|year=1993 |edition=reprint |pages=382–383 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Cons |first=Louis |title=Avallo |journal=Modern Philology |volume=28 |issue=4 |year=1931 |pages=385–394 |doi=10.1086/387918 |s2cid=224836843 }}</ref> shows the magical nature of the island:

{{quote box|align=center|quote=The Isle of Fruit Trees which men call the Fortunate Isle (''Insula Pomorum quae Fortunata uocatur'') gets its name from the fact that it produces all things of itself; the fields there have no need of the ploughs of the farmers and all cultivation is lacking except what nature provides. Of its own accord it produces grain and grapes, and apple trees grow in its woods from the close-clipped grass. The ground of its own accord produces everything instead of merely grass, and people live there a hundred years or more. There nine sisters rule by a pleasing set of laws those who come to them from our country.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/vm/index.htm|title=Vita Merlini Index|work=sacred-texts.com|access-date=1 April 2016}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|By comparison, Isidore's description of the [[Fortunate Isles]] reads: "The Fortunate Isles ''(Fortunatarum insulae)'' signify by their name that they produce all kinds of good things, as if they were happy and blessed with an abundance of fruit. Indeed, well-suited by their nature, they produce fruit from very precious trees [''Sua enim aptae natura pretiosarum poma silvarum parturiunt'']; the ridges of their hills are spontaneously covered with grapevines; instead of weeds, harvest crops, and garden herbs are common there. Hence the mistake of pagans and the poems by worldly poets, who believed that these isles were Paradise because of the fertility of their soil. They are situated in the Ocean, against the left side of [[Mauretania]], closest to where the sun sets, and they are separated from each other by the intervening sea."<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Barney |editor1-first=S. |editor2-last=Lewis |editor2-first=W. J. |editor3-last=Beach |editor3-first=J. A. |editor4-last=Berghof |editor4-first=O. |title=The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville |url=https://archive.org/details/etymologiesisido00barn |url-access=limited |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=2006 |isbn=9780521837491 |page=[https://archive.org/details/etymologiesisido00barn/page/n307 294] }}</ref> In ancient and medieval geographies and maps, the Fortunate Isles were typically identified with the [[Canary Islands]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Tilley |first=Arthur Augustus |title=Medieval France: A Companion to French Studies |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=2010 |page=176 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Sobecki |first=Sebastian I. |title=The Sea and Medieval English Literature |url=https://archive.org/details/seamedievalengli00sobe |url-access=limited |publisher=D. S. Brewer |location=Cambridge |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-84615-591-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/seamedievalengli00sobe/page/n93 81] }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Kagay |editor1-first=Donald J. |editor2-last=Vann |editor2-first=Theresa M. |title=On the Social Origins of Medieval Institutions: Essays in Honor of Joseph F. O'Callaghan |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |year=1998 |isbn=9004110968 |page=61 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=McClure |first=Julia |title=The Franciscan Invention of the New World |location=Basingstoke |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2016 |isbn=9783319430225 |page=66 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Aseguinolaza |editor1-first=Fernando Cabo |editor2-last=González |editor2-first=Anxo Abuín |editor3-last=Domínguez |editor3-first=César |title=A Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula |location=Amsterdam |publisher=John Benjamins |volume=1 |year=2010 |isbn=9789027234575 |page=294 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Beaulieu |first=Marie-Claire |title=The Sea in the Greek Imagination |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia |year=2016 |isbn=9780812247657 |page=12 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Honti |first=John T. |title=Vinland and Ultima Thule |journal=Modern Language Notes |volume=54 |issue=3 |year=1939 |pages=159–172 (168) |doi=10.2307/2911893 |jstor=2911893 }}</ref>|group="note"}}}}

In [[Layamon]]'s [[Layamon's Brut|''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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/ohiou1307121254/inline|title=Argante of Areley Kings: Regional Definitions of National Identity in Layamon's Brut|publisher=Ohio State University|access-date=17 October 2017|archive-date=18 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018133629/https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/ohiou1307121254/inline|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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 [[The Morrígan|Mórrigan]].<ref>Roger Sherman Loomis, "More Celtic Elements in Gawain and the Green Knight." ''The Journal of English and Germanic Philology'' 42 (1943), pp. 173-174.</ref><ref>Roger Sherman Loomis, "The Combat at the Ford in the Didot Perceval." ''Modern Philology'' 43 (1945), pp. 65-71.</ref> 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.