Morgaine of the Faeries
(Morgan La Fey)



In Blanco's Earth Tails # 1, Morgaine joined
other great and influential humans throughout time (like Lao Tzu,
Helen Keller, Jesus, Saraswati...) in a boy named Lars Ravenkeep's
dream one night. They all gathered around Big Tree to show Lars
and the rest of humanity that there should be no divisions between
people because of their skin color or religion.

In the legends of King Arthur, Morgaine was called 'Morgan La Fey'.
She was King Arthur's half sister and a priestess of Avalon. Avalon
was the last area in Britain where the 'old religion' was practiced, and
in the last days of Arthur's reign, Morgaine became the 'Lady of the
Lake' - the spiritual leader to those who still practiced the old ways.
I prefer to see Morgaine as the character in Marion Zimmer Bradley's
amazing book The Mists of Avalon, rather than the evil witch she
was said to be in traditional Arthurian legend...

During the time of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, a
great change was happening all over Britain. A few monks peacefully
brought Christianity to the island a couple hundred years before Arthur.
They were kind and honored the traditions that already existed, and
lived in peace with the natives. But, eventually the Romans came
to Britain and pushed Christianity on the people by force. Much like
the crusades throughout Europe, they tried to destroy everything that
was non-Christian. While turning many of the pagan symbols into
'workings of the Devil', the Christians also absorbed many of the
traditional pagan rituals into their own dogma. The fertility festival
of Beltane became associated with Easter and Pentecost, the winter
solstice became Christmas. Morgaine was responsible for
keeping the old traditions alive and holding Arthur to a promise
he'd made to become king of all Britain. He promised to honor
Avalon and its traditions equally to Christianity. In the beginning
of his reign, Arthur kept his promise. But, after he achieved peace
across the land (through many years of war with the Saxon
invaders), he started to outlaw pagan practices and forced
Christianity on the people again. His famous sword Excalibur,
given to him by an earlier Lady of the Lake, was a
symbol of his connection to Avalon. It gave him strength
in battle and protected him from harm. When he moved
away from the ways of Avalon, Morgaine took it upon
herself to take back Excalibur - to return the holy sword
to the lake of Avalon. The attempts she made to do this are
what gave her a bad reputation in the old legends. She was
portrayed as an old, evil pagan witch who wanted to destroy
Arthur and Christianity. While Morgaine certainly had a
strong dislike for Christianity and what it had done to her
religion, she came to understand that what was really
happening was that the religion of Avalon wasn't being
wiped out - it was finding a way to hide inside Christian
symbols and traditions.

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