Avalon- Celtic LocationLocation · Realm"Island of Apples"

The Fortunate Isle

Geoffrey of Monmouth described Avalon in his Vita Merlini as the Insula Pomorum, the Island of Fruit Trees. The earth produced crops without cultivation. Vines grew unpruned yet heavy with grapes. No farmer worked the fields, because the land provided everything of its own accord, and people who lived there lasted a hundred years or more. Nine sisters governed the island, all of them skilled in the healing arts. The chief among them was Morgen, who surpassed her sisters in beauty and knowledge. She knew the uses of every herb, could change her shape, and could fly through the air. Celtic tradition had long placed blessed islands in the western sea, their orchards bearing the fruit of immortality. Geoffrey gave that tradition a name and a queen.

Excalibur

Geoffrey states in the Historia Regum Britanniae that Arthur's sword Caliburnus was forged on the Isle of Avalon, making it a place of supernatural craft as well as healing. In Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the sword completes a circuit: forged on Avalon, carried through Arthur's wars, and returned at his death. The wounded Arthur commands Sir Bedivere to throw Excalibur into the lake. Twice Bedivere disobeys, unable to part with the blade. On the third attempt, he hurls it out over the water. A hand rises from the surface, catches the sword, brandishes it three times, and draws it beneath the waves.

The Barge

After the Battle of Camlann, where Arthur received his mortal wound from Mordred, the dying king was placed upon a barge. Sir Bedivere watched from the shore as the vessel carried Arthur away into the mist. Morgan le Fay and her sister queens received him aboard. In the Vita Merlini, Morgan placed Arthur on a golden bed in her own chamber, examined his wound, and declared she could heal him if he would stay and submit to her care.

Geoffrey says Arthur was carried to Avalon "so that his wounds might be tended." Wace, in his Roman de Brut of 1155, reports that Arthur still dwells there and that the Bretons await his return. The myth never confirms his death. It never confirms his healing either.

Glastonbury

In 1191, the monks of Glastonbury Abbey announced that they had discovered the graves of Arthur and Guinevere in their cemetery. Gerald of Wales visited shortly after and described the find: a massive hollowed oak coffin sixteen feet underground, the bones of a man of extraordinary size, and a lock of golden hair that crumbled to dust when a monk reached for it. A lead cross bore the Latin inscription: "Here lies the famous King Arthur, buried in the Isle of Avalon."

The abbey had recently burned, and the monks needed funds to rebuild. But Glastonbury had older claims to strangeness. The Tor rises steeply from the flat Somerset levels, and before drainage transformed the landscape, the surrounding wetlands gave it the character of an island. The locals had long regarded it as an entrance to the Otherworld.

The Sleeping King

Across Wales and England, caves and hollow hills are pointed out as places where Arthur and his knights lie sleeping: Craig y Dinas in the Neath Valley, the caves beneath Cadbury Castle. They are armoured and ready, their swords at their sides, waiting for the horn-blast or the bell that will summon them back. He is called the Once and Future King because the myth refuses to close. As long as Avalon remains hidden in its mist, the return remains possible.