Avalon
Avalon (/ˈævəlɒn/)[note 1] is a mythical island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 Historia Regum Britanniae as a place of magic where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was made and later where Arthur was taken to recover from being gravely wounded at the Battle of Camlann. Since then, the island has become a symbol of Arthurian mythology, similar to Arthur's castle of Camelot.
This article is about the legendary island. For other uses, see Avalon (disambiguation).Avalon
Avalon was associated from an early date with mystical practices and magical figures such as King Arthur's sorceress sister Morgan, cast as the island's ruler by Geoffrey and many later authors. Certain Briton traditions have maintained that Arthur is an eternal king who had never truly died but would return as the "once and future" king. The particular motif of his rest in Morgan's care in Avalon has become especially popular. It can be found in various versions in many French and other medieval Arthurian and other works written in the wake of Geoffrey, some of them also linking Avalon with the legend of the Holy Grail.
Avalon has often been identified as the former island of Glastonbury Tor. An early and long-standing belief involves the purported discovery of Arthur's remains and their later grand reburial in accordance with the medieval English tradition, in which Arthur did not survive the fatal injuries he suffered in his final battle. Besides Glastonbury, several other alternative locations of Avalon have also been claimed or proposed. Some medieval sources also occasionally described the place as a valley, and Italian folklore connected it with the phenomenon of Fata Morgana in relation to Mount Etna.
Etymology[edit]
Geoffrey of Monmouth in his pseudo-chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae ("The History of the Kings of Britain", c. 1136) calls the place Insula Avallonis, meaning the "Isle of Avallon" in Latin. In his later Vita Merlini ("The Life of Merlin", c. 1150), he calls it Insula Pomorum, the "Isle of Fruit Trees" (from Latin pōmus "fruit tree"). The name is generally considered to be of Welsh origin (a Cornish or Breton origin is also possible), from Old Welsh, Old Cornish, or Old Breton aball or avallen(n), "apple tree, fruit tree" (cf. Welsh afal, from Proto-Celtic *abalnā, literally "fruit-bearing (thing)").[1][2][3][4][5]
The tradition of an "apple" island among the ancient Britons may also be related to Irish legends of the otherworld island home of Manannán mac Lir and Lugh, Emain Ablach (also the Old Irish poetic name for Isle of Man),[2] where Ablach means "Having Apple Trees"[6]— from Old Irish aball ("apple") — and is similar to the Middle Welsh name Afallach, which was used to replace the name Avalon in medieval Welsh translations of French and Latin Arthurian tales. All are related to the Gaulish root *aballo "fruit tree" (found in the place name Aballo/Aballone) and are derived from Proto-Celtic *abal- "apple", which is related at the Indo-European level to English apple, Russian яблоко (jabloko), Latvian ābele, et al.[7][8]
In the early 12th century, William of Malmesbury claimed the name of Avalon came from a man called Avalloc, who once lived on this isle with his daughters.[9] Gerald of Wales similarly derived the name of Avalon from its purported former ruler, Avallo.[10] The name is also similar to "Avallus", described by Pliny the Elder in his 1st-century Naturalis Historia as a mysterious island where amber could be found.[11]