by Bob Curran
This notion has been developed into the doctrine of original sin as held by certain Christian groupings. By disobeying God in the Garden, and eating of the Tree of Conscience, Mankind brought sin into the world, and it was to atone for this original sin, committed in the Garden, that Christ died on the cross. This idea fits in well with what has become known as “Born Again Theology.” All Mankind shares in Adam’s sin, and so each individual must accept Christ and be “reborn” through Him into a more perfect state—only in that way can Paradise be achieved, and only after death. Many such people elevate the notion of the Garden of Eden as an ideal of the life to come, and, as such, forms the core of their theology.
So is the Garden of Eden an actual place, hidden away from human eyes, or is it no more than an ideal, hope, or inspiration? In many respects it doesn’t matter. The idea of Eden has provided the template for religion, poetry, and art. (For example, the 16th century German religious painter Lucas Cranach in his beautiful representation of the Fall of Man.) Perhaps the true perfection lies not in the reality of the Garden, but in the inspiration that it can bring us.
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Avalon
The idea of an Otherworld—a country or land that lies unseen just beyond mortal gaze—has been a central element in the definition of many mystical realms, particularly in Celtic perception. One such land may be Avalon, an unseen kingdom of perpetual tranquillity and beauty, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Fairyland, the Spirit World, or Paradise. According to most thinking, Avalon was an island, located somewhere in one of the world’s western oceans, invisible to all but a few sea travelers.
The name Avalon itself has two possible sources: One is the Celtic word annwyn or annwn, which was an ancient name for the Otherworld itself, and, until recently, was still used in Wales to denote a subterranean kingdom ruled by elves and demons. The other root may be the Celtic word abal, which means “an apple.” This is because in some mythologies, Avalon was supposedly covered in apple trees, which gave the sweetest fruit imaginable. It was in many respects a garden island, not unlike Eden or the Garden of the Hesperides.
Avalon’s Origins
Although Avalon is generally considered to be Celtic in theme, some have argued that the roots of the belief lie in Greek tradition. It is thought that the island itself may well have been one of the Isles of the Blessed or Fortunate Isles, which appear in Greek folklore. These were a number of Paradise-like islands that were inhabited by gods and spirits who welcomed the souls of worshippers to their beautiful domain after death. They were said to be located somewhere in the western ocean, lying toward Britain or the Strait of Gibraltar. The ancient writer Flavius Philostratus (c. 172) located them somewhere near the Libyan coast, but others equated them with Madeira or the Canary Isles. Still others asserted that the main island in the group, Avalon, lay somewhere close to the coast of Britain. Some thinkers seem to have equated it with the island of Anglesey in Wales, which, at one time, was a stronghold of the Druids during the Roman occupation. This would give the island a sort of mystical, magical connection that would continue right down through the ages. Gradually, the tradition arose that Avalon was an extension or annex of the Otherworld, and it was a place populated by great bards and heroes who went there when they died. It was, in effect, another expression of Paradise. The ideas of perfection and ancient wisdom also began to coalesce in the thinking—if Avalon had indeed been a Druid Isle, then it might also be a repository of strange knowledge, sacred to magicians and witches. This idea seemed most prominent in the Celtic world—particularly amongst British Celts. What may have started out as a Greek ideal was now becoming a largely Celtic one.
Arthurian Concept
It was as part of the Arthurian Cycle (the legends and stories surrounding the figure of King Arthur of Britain) that the concept of Avalon came to major prominence. The Arthurian concept, which flourished in the Middle Ages, rose out of the more ancient Celtic beliefs, probably giving them greater definition and shape. Avalon had been a mystical and enchanted isle, which had existed either on or off the coast of Britain during the Dark Ages, following the collapse of the Roman occupation there. It was the abode of Arthur’s half-sister Morgan (or Morgana) le Fay (a woman whose surname betrays her fairy origins) who was widely regarded as a powerful enchantress or witch. Using her great magic, she could shut her island off from mortal gaze; therefore, it was spared the numerous invasions that wracked Britain at the time.
Morgan le Fay
The name Morgan le Fay may have been a variant of the Irish Celtic name of Morrigane or Morrigu, who was an ancient goddess. Therefore, the concept of Avalon may have referred to an island on which she was worshipped, and on which she may have had a shrine. Such an island could have been spared in the various waves of invasions of Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries.
However, in a series of works containing French and British myths relating to Arthur, and known by scholars as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Morgan le Fay takes on greater depth and color. Although Arthur’s half-sister, she becomes the implacable enemy of the king and Queen Guinevere, constantly trying to do them harm. It is from her island stronghold in Avalon that she plots and contrives to overthrow Arthur’s reign. And yet, at some point, both she and her half-brother seem to have become reconciled for, following Arthur’s death at a battle against his son Mordred in the Vale of Camlan, it is Morgan le Fay who heads the sibyls (wise women) to carry the dying king away to the resting place for heroes in distant Avalon. This has led to the idea that Arthur is not actually dead, but is merely sleeping in Avalon, waiting until England is in grave danger and needs him again. In this he is the once and future king, and Avalon is his royal seat.
Arthur’s Resting Place
So persistent was the idea that Arthur had been buried in Avalon that, during the 11th century, a rumor emerged linking the enchanted isle with Glastonbury Tor, located in Somerset, England, where his grave was reputed to lie. The legend was probably spread by the monks of Glastonbury Abbey in order to raise the profile of and revenue for their foundation, but it had the effect of bringing a Pagan concept right into the Christian tradition. Although today, the ruined monastery at Glastonbury stands on the top of a steep hill, there is no doubt that in former times the surrounding flatlands were once fen and bog, and the tor itself resembled an island in the middle of it. This, said the legends, was indeed the fabled Isle of Avalon which lay, not off the coast of Britain, but actually in Britain. It was to Avalon, they said, that Joseph of Aramethea, the wealthy Jew who had donated his tomb to the body of Jesus, had come after becoming a Christian and shortly after the Crucifixion. It was here that he reputedly brought some of Jesus’ relics (some legends even say that Jesus himself visited the island) and founded a church there—reputedly the oldest Christian church in Britain. Because of the sanctity of the place, it was considered an eminently fitting site for the great Arthur to be laid to rest.
The idea of Avalon as Arthur’s final resting place may well have come from the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who compiled a work known as A History of the Kings of Britain around 1136. Slightly later, Geoffrey would write another work titled The Life of Merill (Merlin), which stated that Arthur had not been killed, but had been mystically transported to Avalon where he had been revived by the sorceries of Morgan le Fay and two other ancient queens. It claimed that he lay sleeping on a golden bed waiting for a time when England would once again need a great hero, and when he would ride into battle once more. Confusingly, there is also mention of a tomb on Avalon above which the following legend has been carved: Hic iacet Arthurus, Rex quandum Rexque futurus (Here lies Arthur, the once and future king).
Around 1237, another text appeared linking Arthur and Avalon. This was La Mort le roi Artu (the Death of the King Arthur) and it was on this that Sir Thomas Malory is thought to have based his more famous work La Mort d’Arthur (written in 1469 and originally printed in 1485 by William Caxton). This work is part of a larger medieval
French prose work that scholars have styled the Prose Lancelot or the Post-Vulgate Cycle. The author of this collection is unknown, but it is thought to have been composed by at least three (unknown) writers. Following his fatal injuries at Camlann, according to this text, Arthur is carried off to the Isle of Avalon by three queens: Morgan le Fay, the Queen of the Northlands, and the Queen of the Waste, the latter two possibly very ancient figures. It was in Avalon that he was to be revived and healed. Although French in origin, the legend concerning Avalon was thought to place it somewhere in England; however, the precise location is never specified. Many links were made in the popular mind to Glastonbury—a tradition that still remains alive today. The linkage between Arthur, ancient king of the Britons, and Avalon, then, seems to have been well established, certainly by the early 11th century.
The legend connecting Arthur, the Isle of Avalon, and Glastonbury Tor seems to have developed and taken shape around the late 10th and 11th centuries, as some of the area around the tor (known as the Somerset Levels) began to be drained for agriculture.
Further Investigations
According to the writer Gerald of Wales (late 11th century), one of the abbots of Glastonbury—Henry de Blois—was so taken with the story that he ordered an investigation to be carried out and certain excavations to be made. This investigation allegedly took place during the reign of King Henry II (1154–1189) and occurred during the writer’s (Gerald’s) own lifetime. Gerald goes on to state that he was told that the monks had unearthed a massive oaken casket, lying about 16 feet below ground, which bore a curious inscription: Hic jacet sepultus inclitus Rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia (Here lies King Arthur in the Isle of Avalon). The Abbot now declared that this was indeed the grave of Arthur, and that Glastonbury Tor had indeed been the mystical Isle of Avalon to which the body was transported following the Battle of Camlann. Further legends grew up around the place—it was specially blessed by Joseph of Aramethea who had also deposited the Staff of Christ there and other such tales—and Glastonbury became one of the principal English places of pilgrimage until the Reformation. Indeed, it was alleged that, during the reign of Edward I (1272–1307) the oaken casket was exhumed and reburied, together with another body that was taken to be Arthur’s queen, Guinevere, in front of the high altar of Glastonbury Abbey in the presence of the king. This made the abbey appear even more sacred, and it became more of a focus for religious devotion.
The story of the finding of the casket was almost certainly a fraud, and was probably perpetrated by Henry de Blois and his monks to give their abbey great status and importance in the developing Christian world. The idea that Glastonbury Tor was in fact the mystical Isle of Avalon served to unite both Pagan and Christian mythologies, and made the abbey more appealing to those who were dubious about the Christian faith. Scholars have pointed out that the Latin inscription on the alleged coffin is something of an anachronism in the period known as the Dark Ages, when Celtic would have been the common linguistic form. They also point out that the description of the grave in which the coffin was found appears to be a Romano-Christian site rather than one suited for a Celtic chieftain or king. If the story of Arthur’s grave is a fraud, they continue, then so must the association of Glastonbury Tor with the Isle of Avalon. The Tor was certainly a place of Pagan and Celtic (and probably pre-Celtic) significance, but was it in fact Avalon? There have been numerous claims for a number of other sites scattered all throughout England, which are connected with the Arthurian tradition.
The most frequent of these is the village of Burgh (pronounced Bruff rather than Burg) by Sands on the Solway Firth in Cumberland, close to the town of Carlisle. This is said to be extremely close to the site of the Battle of Camlann where Arthur was mortally wounded, and from which he was taken to die. The area around the village may well have been an island, and it is known that a Roman garrison was quartered there at a fortress known as Aballava in the latter days of the Roman occupation of Britain. This was a garrison that was supposed to guard part of Hadrian’s Wall from invasion from the Picts and Scots. Many of these soldiers may have come from areas in North Africa and may have been considered as “strange or foreign looking” by locals. These strange-looking soldiers may well have given the impression of “some other place” or “some other country,” such as the Isle of Avalon, and may have added to the legend in the North of England.
The Isle of Avalon also appears off the coast of Brittany where it is equated with L’Isle d’Daval. This location is also connected into Arthurian legend because it was widely regarded as the dwelling place for the sorceress Vivian, who was the lover of the wizard Merlin. It was Vivian, or Vivienne, who eventually spurned Merlin’s love, and who turned him into an oak tree. Another name for her is the Lady of the Lake. She is the spirit figure who gave Arthur his enchanted sword Excalibur; she claimed it again when the king died at Camlann. Interestingly, she is reputedly one of the three mystical queens who carried the body of the dying monarch off to Avalon. Yet another name for this enchantress is Ninue, or Mneme, which may be a shorted form of Mnemosyne, one of the nine spirit Muses who gave weapons to the Greek hero Perseus prior to the Trojan War. She, too, lived on an island that may have been a Greek prototype for the idea of Avalon. It is also interesting that in the medieval text La Mort le roi Artu the name of one of the queens who tends to the wounded Arthur is also given as Ninue; suggesting a tentative link between Celtic/medieval legend and Greek tradition.
The name Vivian, or Vivienne, may, however, denote another more Celtic goddess. The original name may be Vi-vianna, which may also be a version of Ci-vianna, an ancient British goddess also known as Coventina. She was an ancient Celtic water goddess whose cult was rather widespread across parts of Western Europe; she has been equated with the Romano-Greek deity Dianna, and with another Celtic goddess, Rhiannon. She has also been associated with Merlin’s actual wife Gwendoline, and it may be that the Isle of Avalon was her stronghold, or at least a site dedicated to her worship.
References to Avalon
There is another connection between Avalon and medieval Arthurian cycles, for the blessed island appears in another romantic work from that period. Reference to it appears in a cycle of works known as The Lais de Marie de France, written around 1160–1170. Nothing is known about the author except that she was a woman, and she was, in all probability, a member of the aristocracy—it has even been suggested that she was a half-sister of the English king Henry II. Not even her nationality is known because she wrote in Anglo-Norman, which was certainly spoken in England, but was also spoken in large areas of northern France. So she was, in all probability, either French or English. She wrote a series of 12 lais, or poems, which were widely read in the medieval world, some of which drew upon old stories and beliefs from previous times. One of these—Lanval—is Arthurian in tone and concerns the knight Lanval, who has offended Queen Guinevere and, as a result, was thrown into a deep dungeon. There he is visited by a fairy or spirit in the guise of a beautiful woman who is greatly taken with him. She helps him to escape, and together they flee to Avalon—the country of the blessed—which is the home of all good spirits and may well be a part of the Otherworld. Lanval is never heard from again and presumably continues to live there forever. The lais serve to demonstrate the transition between more ancient traditions of the Otherworld (and possibly of ancient Celtic, Greek, and Roman myths concerning a beatific alternative reality) into the medieval and more Christianized era.
And Christian mythology was not slow to claim Avalon for its own. Besides having been the place where Joseph of Aramethea landed in England, and the place where he founded the first Christian church in the country, other references began to also creep in. For example, in parts of Brittany it was imagined that Avalon was the place where the Virgin Mary had gone when she fled from the Middle East following the Crucifixion. She was portrayed as one of the “queens” of that mysterious realm, and was equated with the three magical women who carried off Arthur. Not unconnected
to this belief is another tradition that the Isle of Avalon is the repository of the Holy Grail, the mystical cup that Christ used at the Last Supper, which also may have served as a receptacle for His blood. The Grail itself is supposed to rest in a church upon the Isle and can only be discovered and seen by the pure of heart. It was supposedly guarded by three angels (representing the three queens) who can confuse and obfuscate those who try to discover it and are unworthy of doing so. The Isle itself remains invisible to all but the eyes of the blessed.
The Meaning of Avalon
Similar to the Garden of Eden, the Isle of Avalon represents both an extension of the Pagan Otherworld and the representation of an earthly Paradise that was later taken over by the Christian tradition. Its roots may lie in early Celtic (even Greek and Roman) traditions, but these have been amended and molded, especially during the medieval period, in order to fit in with other beliefs and tales—particularly that of King Arthur. And, in a sense, Avalon is real, for if it is the home of the Muses and inspirational spirits (as most traditions hold that it is), then it has certainly inspired much poetry and prose stretching down from early medieval times to the present day. Even today, Avalon is featured in many modern fantasy novels such as the celebrated writer Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon Series. Perhaps the idea of some mystical island paradise still holds both a timeless fascination and attraction, even for the modern mind. And perhaps, too, the idea of Avalon still holds that psychological connection for us to some former, less complex and more romantic time—an ideal (whether true or not) which, for some at least, the passage of the years can never erase.