The Nine Morgens of Avalon

Lady of Avalon by Caroline Gully Lir

 Avalon is ruled by the Lady of Avalon, a Goddess of love, beauty, power and wisdom, a Lady of Light and Darkness who appears in several forms and under several names.  Among the most ancient are those of the Ninefold Sisterhood of the Morgens, whose names were recorded by the Welsh poet Taliesin in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th Century Vita Merlini. The names of these Morgens were Moronoe, Mazoe, Glitonea, Gliten, Cliton, Tyronoe, Thitis, Thetis and Morgen la Fey, all of which appear tio be largely unknown, except to the latter, who was much maligned in Arthurian legend and only recently somewhat redeemed in Marian Zimmer Bradley's inspired retelling of the tale in The Mists of Avalon.

These Nine Morgen sisters encompass all the qualities of the Goddess on the continua between light and darkness, sweetness and sour, positive and negative, creative and destructive.  The Morgens are famous for their learning and knowledge of the seven liberal arts, particularly of astronomy, astrology, mathematics and physic.  They are renowned for their healing arts and skill in herbal lore, for their beautiful music and sensuality, for prophecy and the ability to shapeshift, to appear in different places in a moment in time.

In legend they are nine women, three triple Goddesses ranging in age from Maiden to Mother to Crone. They are nine dark cloaked figures who sit in circle with the cauldron of inspiration, immortality and rebirth, in a cave deep beneath Glastonbury Tor in the Underworld of Annwn. Or they are nine huge shimmering beings visible in the ethers surrounding the top of the Tor.

Sometimes they are seen in the forms of the willow trees that guard the magical isle and as shadowy figures hiding behind the trees in the apple orchards of Avalon. Occasionally they may be glimpsed by mortals as they disappear away into the mists that often surround the sacred Isle. In Glastonbury's natural landscape they appear in the forms of black crows, white doves, green woodpeckers and hawks.

When the legendary King Arthur was dying of his fatal wounds from the battle of Camlan, he was taken to the shores of the waters surrounding the Isle of Avalon. He was placed in the black barge of Avalon and ferried through the mists by the boatman Barinthus - he who knows the patterns of the waters and of the stars of the heavens.

On their passage they were accompanied by three Faery Queens: the Queen of Northgalis, the Queen of the Waste Lands and Morgen la Fey, Arthur's half sister, who is Morgen the Faery or Morgen the Fate, the third of the three Fates.

Source: "In the Nature of Avalon" by Kathy Jones