Avalon

“The Temple of the Grail could, with reason, be seen as a masculine enclave, though it certainly acknowledges the sacred feminine. But there is another place, peopled by otherworldly women, which balances the foursquare towers of the Grail with the shadowy presence of an older world. Among all the hundreds of names attached to the Celtic otherworld, that of Avalon is one of the most evocative. It is the place to which tradition ascribes the last resting place of Arthur, where he waits for the day when he is called back to serve the needs of the land, to begin again the work that was left unfinished after the ending of the Grail Quest and the bloody slaughter of the Round Table Fellowship at Camlan. Many have sought to discover the whereabouts of this fabled place, and tradition has, since the Middle Ages, associated it with the Somerset town of Glastonbury, which has been called “this holiest earth.” Here Joseph of Arimathea is believed to have come, bearing the precious Grail, and to have established the first Christian community within living memory of Christ. Here saints such as Patrick, Brigit, and Columba are said to have lived for a time. It may be unwise to seek a physical place for something as elemental as Avalon, but before Glastonbury (a Saxon name), the site was known by another name, Yniswitrin, which can be interpreted to mean “the Island of Glass,” ruled over by Avalach, who is also called Rex Avalonis, King of Avalon. It is he who is the father of Morgan (later Morgan le Fay), described in another text as “the Royal Virgin of Avalon,” a title that can only refer to a hereditary guardian. So Yniswitrin became Avalon, the Island of Apples, a place of wonder and mystery where it was known that some great and mysterious object was kept—guarded, perhaps, by a college of priestesses (as suggested by Dion Fortune) under the leadership of Morgan, she who was elsewhere known as Arthur’s sister and perhaps a goddess herself. Thus another aspect of the inner landscape was outlined within the Arthuriad. It was part of a larger whole, known as Logres, the mystical heart of Britain, with its castles at Camelot, Caerleon, and Carlisle, its great forests in which the Fellowship of the Round Table wandered in search of adventure, and its magical springs and wells guarded by otherworldly maidens of surpassing beauty. And at the center lay Avalon, the magical isle that was a doorway onto the lands of Faery, to the people of the Sidhe, who sent forth their representatives into the lands of men to try and test them—and sometimes to lead them back into the deep places of the earth, where the Old Gods still dwelled, as they had done since the beginning of time. The Arthurian kingdom was thus always on the edge of Faery. When Arthur set forth in his ship Prydwen with his band of warriors, as described in the Prieddeu Annwfn, they sailed to an island where the Cauldron of Rebirth was kept, guarded by nine muses and by the warriors of the otherworld. This is strongly reminiscent of another island ruled by Morgan and her sisters, where a vessel was housed that could give life and healing to those in need. But Avalon was (and is) more than this. It was (and is) a place where eternity touched the earth, where anything could happen. It was (and is) both a gateway between the worlds and the home of the deepest mysteries of Britain. It was one of “the Fortunate Isles,” a place of apple trees and the perfume of flowers. Malory calls it “the Vale of Avilion,” and Geoffrey of Monmouth describes it in detail: The island of apples…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…Thither after the battle of Camlan we took the wounded Arthur…Morgan received us with fitting honour, and in her chamber she placed the king on a golden bed and with her own hand she uncovered his honourable wound and…at length she said that health could be restored to him if he stayed with her for a long time and made use of her healing art.

This Avalon is a place of healing, a realm of peace where the enmity between Morgan and Arthur no longer exists. Another text, the Gesta Regnum Britanniae, which actually post-dates Geoffrey by a few decades, describes Avalon in terms that link it even more explicitly to the realm of Faery: This wondrous island is girdled by the ocean; it lacks no good things; no thief, reiver or enemy lurks in ambush there. No snow falls; neither Summer nor Winter rages uncontrollably, but unbroken peace and harmony and the gentle warmth of unbroken Spring. Not a flower is lacking, neither lilies, rose nor violet; the apple-tree bear flowers and fruit together on one bough. Youth and maiden live together in that place without blot or shame. Old age is unknown; their is neither sickness nor suffering—everything is full of joy. No one selfishly keeps anything to himself; here everything is shared.”