Avalon

Avalon, also Avalun ( related to the Indo-European root * aballo - for " apple " ), is a mystical place, which is known from the sagas of King Arthur.

Etymology and Mythology

Geoffrey of Monmouth called Avalon in his Historia Regum Britanniae (1135 ) in Latin Insula Avallonis. In his 1150 written Vita Merlini the place Insula pomorum " Apple Isle " is called. Avalon comes from welsh abal ( "Apple" ) or aball ( " apple tree"), mittelkymrisch Afallach, neuwalisisch afal, also afall (see also Afallach ). Other spellings are Ynis Avalach and Ynys yr Afallon.

To assume is also an influence by the Irish legends Manannán mac Lir and Lugh, where the location of Emain Ablach ( " owning apples " of Ablach ) is, what a name for the Isle of Man was in the old Irish mythology at the same time, see also Immram Brain " Brans seafaring ". The Gallo - Indo-European root is * abal "apple", see also Avallon in Burgundy.

The Arthur legend, later, the Grail story to Avalon was the residence of King Arthur after being wounded. After Chrétien de Troyes Morgan le Fay, the healer should have cared for and healed on the island of Avalon her half-brother. In the Vita Merlini Morgan is known as the oldest of nine sisters who rule the Avallon.

Attempts to locate

The Glastonbury in England rises since 1191 claims to be the legendary Avalon. King Henry II decreed in 1184 the reconstruction of the destroyed by fire department. 1191 discovered the monks at the renovations on their cemetery a tree coffin. The two skeletons were lying therein referred to as an alleged grave of King Arthur and his wife Guinevere, as a lead cross with the inscription

"Here lies the famous King Arthur with his second wife Wenneveria on the island of Avalon buried. "

Should have lain there, as Giraldus Cambrensis to have seen with my own eyes. The archivist and historian William Camden describes 1607 also this cross, however, called in the inscription, the wife of Arthur not. King Edward I had the grave opened again and found huge and very beautiful bone ([... ] ossa dicti regis Mirae grossitudinis, et Gwunnarae regina Mirae pulcritudinis [ ...]), who were buried again before the high altar. A medieval forgery " in the service of truth " in the sense of a " fictional science" would also be possible.

In Croatia, close to Split grave plates Lucius Artorius Castus one were found. Hence his actions and the name King of Britain could decipher what gives certain, but not provable, similarities with the Personnel of King Arthur.

For the theory that the Celts of the British Isles and the Gauls believed their ancestors came from a continent that had sunk in the western sea, there is no hard evidence in the written tradition. The Welsh call a place that as an island in a lake ( Avallonia, Avallach ) or as Iceland Bardsey ( Ynys Enlli ) in the Bay of Pwllheli ( Avallun ) is described.

Attempts to bring Avalon to the lost city of Atlantis in conjunction, which sank, according to Plato, " during a single bad day and one bad night " in the sea, are sporadically present in esoteric circles.

Abalus in the North Sea, described by Pliny the Elder. Pytheas of Massilia, and was known to the seafaring Mediterranean peoples since the Bronze Age as a supplier of amber and copper. Helgoland is often viewed as a residual Abalus ', which is assumed much larger.

Avalon in the literature

One of the oldest versions told Sir Thomas Malory in his Le Morte d' Arthur of 1470, which has affected most of the later narrators.

The most famous re-telling of the modern age is the fantasy novel The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Other works on the subject are Pendragon Cycle by Stephen Lawhead and Avalon's return, Thomas A. Barron's The Great Tree of Avalon trilogy ( The magic of Avalon ) and Gunter Arentzens 2003 published book The Chalice of Avalon.