Here's what I've found about her earliest appearances:
Morgan first appears by name in Vita Merlini, written by Norman-Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth about 1150. Purportedly an account of the wizard Merlin's later adventures, it elaborates some episodes from Geoffrey's more famous earlier work, Historia Regum Britanniae (1136). In Historia, Geoffrey relates how King Arthur, seriously wounded by Mordred at the Battle of Camlann, is taken off to the blessed Isle of Apple Trees (Latin Insula Pomorum), Avalon, to be healed. In Vita Merlini, he describes this island in more detail and names Morgen as the chief of nine magical queen sisters who dwell there, capable of shapeshifting and flying,[13] and using their powers only for good.[14] Her sisters' names are Moronoe, Mazoe, Gliten, Glitonea, Gliton, Tyronoe, Thiten and Thiton.[15][16][17] Morgan retains this role as Arthur's other-worldly healer in much later literature, and Geoffrey might have been inspired by the 1st-century Roman cartographer Pomponius Mela, who described an oracle at the Île de Sein off the coast of Brittany and its nine virgin priestesses believed by the Gauls to have the powers of curing disease and performing various other marvelous magic, such as controlling the sea through incantations, foretelling future, and changing themselves into any animal.[18] In Layamon's The Chronicle of Britain, written about 1215, Arthur was taken to Avalon to be healed there by its most beautiful elfen queen named Argante;[19] it is possible her name has been originally Margant(e) before it was changed in manuscript transmission.[20]
Prior to the cyclical Old French prose, the appearances of Morgan are few. The 12th-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes mentions her in his first romance Erec and Enide, completed around 1170. In it, a love of Morgan is Guinguemar, the Lord of the Isle of Avalon and a nephew of King Arthur, a derivative of the legendary Breton hero Guingamor.[21] Guingamor's own tale by Marie de France has him in relation to the beautiful magical entity known only as the "fairy mistress",[22] who was later identified by Thomas Chestre's Sir Launfal as Dame Tryamour, the daughter of the King of the Otherworld, and who shares many characteristics with Chrétien's Morgan.[23][24] It was noted that even Chrétien' earliest mention of Morgan already shows an enmity between her and Queen Guinevere, and althrough Morgan is represented only in benign role by Chrétien, she resides in a mysterious place known as the Vale Perilous (which some later authors say she has created as a place of punishment for unfaithful knights).[18][25] She is later mentioned in the same poem when Arthur provides the wounded hero Erec with a healing balm made by his sister Morgan. This episode both affirms her early role as a healer and provides the first mention of Morgan as Arthur's sister; healing is Morgan's chief ability, but Chrétien also hints at her potential to harm.[26] Chrétien again refers to Morgan as a great healer in his later romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, in an episode in which the Lady of Norison restores the maddened hero to his senses with a magical potion provided by Morgan the Wise. While Modron is the mother of Owain mab Urien in Welsh literature, and Morgan would be assigned this role in later French literature, this first continental association between Sir Ywain and Morgan does not imply they are son and mother; she is first mentioned as Ywain's mother in the early 13th-century Breton lai Tyolet.[19]
The Arthurian tale Geraint son of Erbin, based on Chrétien's Erec and Enide, mentions King Arthur's chief physician, Morgan Tud; it is believed that this character, though considered a male in Gereint, may be derived from Morgan le Fay, though this has been a matter of debate among Arthurian scholars since the 19th century (the epithet Tud may be a Welsh or Breton cognate or borrowing of Old Irish tuath, "north, left", "sinister, wicked", also "fairy (fay), elf").[27][28] In his version of Erec, the 12th-century German knight and poet Hartmann von Aue describes the sorceress Famurgan (Feimurgan, Fairy Murgan) as a deceased mistress of dark magic who has lived her life "in defiance of God" and was capable of raising the dead and turning people to animals at will, commanding wild beasts, evil spirits and dragons, and having the devil in Hell as a trusted companion.[29] Hartmann has Erec healed by Guinevere with a special plaster that Famurgan has given to her brother Arthur before she died and all of her wondrous knowledge was lost with her. In the 13th-century romance Parzival, another German knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach inverted her name to create that of Arthur's fairy ancestor named Terdelaschoye de Feimurgan, the wife of Mazadan, where the part "Terdelaschoye" comes from Terre de la Joie, or Land of Joy.[19] A great sorceress Morgaine also appears in the few surviving verses of Robert de Boron's poem Merlin, described therein as an illegitimate daughter of Lady Igraine and an unnamed Duke of Tintagel, married to King Neutres (Nentres) of Garlot.[30] It is the first known appearance linking Morgan to Igraine and mentioning her learning sorcery after having been sent away for an education. She masters seven arts and goes on to specialize in astronomie (astronomy and astrology) and healing.[31][32]
A recently discovered moralistic manuscript written in Anglo-Norman French is the only text in medieval Arthurian literature presented as being composed by Morgan herself. This late 12th-century text is purportedly addressed to Morgan's court official and tells of the story of a knight Piers the Fierce (it is likely that the author's motive was to draw a satirical moral from the downfall of the English knight Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall); Morgan (Morgayne) is titled in it as "empress of the wilderness, queen of the damsels, lady of the isles, and governor of the waves of the great sea."[31] She is also mentioned in the Draco Normannicus, a Latin chronicle written by Stephen of Rouen, which contains a letter from King Arthur to Henry II of England, written around the same time for political propaganda purposes, in which Arthur criticizes Henry for invading Brittany and claims that he has been healed of his wounds and made immortal by his "deathless nymph" sister Morgan on Avalon.[31]
Mark Moore
The Unofficial Captain N Home Page
Online since 02/27/97
http://ldloveszh.tripod.com
reply
share
pol-edra
8 years ago
You could have just linked to the wiki entry from which you copy-pasted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_le_Fay
It is a pretty good article, although a bit misleading at times. The "recently discovered moralistic manuscript written in Anglo-Norman French" actually contains many other non-Arthurian things, not necessarily in Anglo-Norman, and only a letter about ten lines long that is made to look as if it were written by Morgan herself. The manuscript itself was not recently discovered, its location and main contents have long been well known. The letter however, which was added in the original manuscript, like many other notes, using blank space on some pages, has recently been studied.
"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."
reply
share