Morgan le Fay
Morgan le Fay , also known as Morgaine , Morgain or Morgana and under other names, such as in Middle High German: Feimorgan or Famurgan , is an important female figure in the mythology of King Arthur , the Arthurian legend . At times she is even an antagonist of Arthur and an opponent of Guinevere . She is Arthur's half-sister.
Literature in the Middle Ages
In the 12th century, Morgana is named in the Latin Vita Merlini ("Life of Merlins") as the oldest of nine sisters who rule The Happy Islands or The Apple Islands (similar to the Garden of the Hesperides ). By Geoffrey of Monmouth it is presented both as a healer and as someone who could change into different shapes. Following Geoffrey, later writers such as Chrétien de Troyes expanded the subject to include Morgan caring for and healing Arthur on the island of Avalon .
Morgan was the daughter of Arthur's mother Igraine and her first legitimate husband, Gorlois , Duke of Cornwall ; so Arthur, the son of Uther Pendragon and Igraine, fathered in the second marriage , was their half-brother. Morgan has two sisters, Morgause and Elaine, both daughters of Igraine and Gorlois. Modern interpretations of the Arthurian legend often give Morgan the role of Arthur's seductress and mother of the wicked Mordred , who emerged from the sibling incest , although this was originally (for example in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur ) Morgause (according to the legend, Mordred grew apart from Arthur's court, namely with his half-sister or elsewhere also Aunt Morgause, killed his father and ended the Arthurian legend). But King Urien of Rheged is also named as Morgan's husband and through her father Owein fab Uriens .
The Legends find Morgan on good terms with Arthur, but in an argument with Guinevere because she ended their relationship with a lover. On the other hand, she tried Lancelot to seduce and make his affair with the queen publicly, both probably through magical means. In the Tristan story (see Tristan and Isolde ) she brought a magical drinking horn to King Arthur's court, from which no man whose wife was unfaithful or had such thoughts could drink without spilling something.
Following the legends of the Arthurian legend, Malory gives a motive for Morgan's argument with Arthur that he killed one of her lovers. She tries to bring about his fall through magic and lethal means, best known when she acquires the Excalibur sword for her lover Accolon so that he can kill Arthur in a duel. After failure, Morgan throws Excalibur's protective scabbard into a lake.
At the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , it becomes apparent that the entire story was instigated by Morgan as a test for Arthur and his knights.
Morgan le Fay is sometimes equated with Morrígan from the Celtic myths.
Modern literature / films
In Alcina , an opera by Georg Friedrich Handel , the figure Morgana appears as the sister of the powerful sorceress Alcina.
In the course of the fantasy boom at the end of the 20th century, the figure or even the name of Morgans was used again and again in various forms.
In the tenth season of Stargate - Command SG-1 , Morgan was shown as an Ancient, a being who lives on a higher plane of existence and provides valuable clues to the heroes of the series in order to save humanity from an alien threat. In the episodes "Ritter MacGyver I + II" ("Good Knight MacGyver"), also with Richard Dean Anderson , Morgana appeared in the context of Arthur. In this fictional episode, she is credited with the discovery of black powder .
In addition, Morgan is the protagonist in Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon and has been seen more and more frequently as the representative of the archetypal goddess in Celtic mythology in recent years . Furthermore, she also appears as an opponent of Merlin , from whom she wants to elicit his secrets. She is Morgian Merlin's aunt in Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon saga.
Morgan also appears as the super villain in hero comics . She is a main antagonist of The Demon in DC Comics and an opponent of the Avengers in Marvel Comics .
Morgana appears again and again as a character in cartoon series. For example, the truly magical lover of the cartoon hero Darkwing Duck is also called Morgana.
In the radio play series Revelation 23 there is a character called Morgan la Fay, Fata Morgana or Morgane. She is an important character and at the beginning of the series the antagonist of Ian G.
In the PC adventure Tales of Monkey Island by Telltale Games , one of the main characters is the pirate hunter and femme fatale Morgan Le Flay ( to flay means something like “skin by whipping”). At the end of the series it is revealed that she too cooperates with supernatural powers ( voodoo ).
In the film Duell der Magier (2010) with the leading actor Nicolas Cage , she is called Morgana le Fay. Here, too, she is portrayed as an evil sorceress and archenemy of Merlin.
In the television series Winx Club (season 4) Morgana plays the queen of the earth fairies, who initially wants to take revenge on people because they no longer believe in magic. In the end, however, she had calmed her thirst for revenge because her daughter Roxy asked her to.
In the British fantasy series Merlin - The New Adventures , she appears as Lady Morgana played by Katie McGrath , the foster daughter of Uther Pendragon . At the beginning of the series, Morgana is portrayed as a warm-hearted and just character, but in the later episodes she develops into a selfish and cold-hearted sorceress and becomes more and more similar to her stereotypical image as an antagonist.
Morgaine also appears in the four episodes of Excalibur's Legacy (English Battlefield ) of the British television series Doctor Who from 1989 as an opponent of the seventh Doctor.
Others
The term Fata Morgana is derived from the fee (lat. Fata) Morgane.
The Swedish heavy metal group Morgana Lefay was named after the mythological figure Morgan le Fays. There was also a heavy metal band from Düsseldorf called Morgan Le Fay.
There is also a song by the band E Nomine called Morgane Le Fay. It is sung from the point of view of Morgan le Fay.
The band Grave Digger released the concept album "Excalibur" in 1999, which revolves around the Arthurian legend and includes the song "Morgane Le Fay". It tells their story.
Morgan rescues books for the library in Camelot from libraries that have been destroyed over the centuries by traveling back in time with the help of the children Anne and Philipp in Mary Pope Osborne's " The Magic Tree House ".
In addition, a champion in the computer game League of Legends is named after Morgana, the fallen angel. In the game, too, she has magical powers.
literature
- EW Funcke : Morgain and her sisters. In: Acta Germanica. 18: 1-64 (1985). (not viewed)
- Cola Minis : Fâmurgân. In: Neophilologus , Volume 30, 1945, pp. 65-68.
- Leander Petzoldt : Small lexicon of demons and elementals. 3. Edition. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49451-X , p. 70 (Lemma Fata Morgana ).
- Hendricus Sparnaay: Feimurgân. In: Hendricus Sparnaay: On the language and literature of the Middle Ages. Groningen 1961, pp. 231-238.
- Marion Zimmer Bradley : The Mists of Avalon. 25th edition. Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-596-28222-5 .
See also
Web links
- Morgan le Fay in the Camelot Project at the University of Rochester (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Morgan Le Fay in the Metal Archives , accessed July 29, 2020