Created for: The Sims 3

Different images of the famous magicians of medieval Arthurian legends: Morgan le Fay and Merlin Ambrosius of Avalon.
Dedicated to Steph and Merlin the Cat

Morgan le Fay, according to the ancient medieval writings, is the older half sister of the illustrious King Arthur of the Round Table. They both share the same mother, Igraine, but while Arthur's father was Uther Pendragon, Morgane the Fairy was one of three children (inc. Morgause, mother of Arthur's killer Mordred, and the unimportant Elaine of Garlot) born through Igraine's first marriage to Goloris of Cornwall. Uther had fallen in love with Igraine, and conspired with the wizard Merlin to have her. Having fortold the birth of the Once and Future King, savior of Britain from the Saxons, Merlin agreed to cast a spell on Uther to give him Goloris' likeness so that he could approach Igraine at home while the real Goloris was away in battle. Once the spell has worn off, Igraine realizes that she has been duped--her real husband is now dead, and she is pregnant with Uther's child, Arthur. After Uther is killed by the Saxons (his well water poisoned) and Arthur is King in Camelot, Morgan le Fay rises to prominence as one of the Knights of the Round Table's chief antagonists. The Queen of Avalon, she uses her considerable skills as a sorceress to cause the knights nothing but trouble and mischief during heir quests after Queen Guinevere exposed her infidelities against her husband (with whom she had been unhappily forced to wed) with another Round Table Knight, and it is she who is responsible for stealing Exacilbur from Arthur and having the protective scabbard of invincibilty into a lake, which might have spared him from the fatal wound delivered by his son and half-brother Mordred at Camlann. She also is the one whose spells gave similar invincibilty to the Green Knight in his battle against Gawain, in the hopes that the event might scare Guinevere to death. Still, the embittered Morgane loved her brother, and was one of the four iconic grieving women (including the Queen of the Northgales, the Queen of the Wasteland, and Nimue the Lady of the Lake) who carried Arthur's mortally wounded body beyond Glastonbury and into Avalon to treat his wounds, where King Arthur mysteriously vanishes from history.

The most famous pre-Harry Potter wizard of all time, Merlin Ambrosius, may have had his origins in ancient Celtic lore about the real life Wild Man of the Woods, Myrddin Wyllt or Aurelius Ambrosius -- a lunatic, usually shell-shocked or guilt ridden war veteran who retreated to the woods to avoid the outside world and the people in it. Whatever his origins, the Arthurian Merlin's birth was nothing less than extraordinary. He is said to have been fathered by an incubus (and mothered by a nun, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth's medieval accounts), and it is this that gave him supernatural powers that allowed him to walk and talk and prophecize even days after his own birth. He fortold the clashing of the British and the Saxons, Arthur's failed marriage to Guinevere, his loss of Excalibur to Morgan le Fay, the births of Lancelot du Lac and the hero Tristain, and instigated many important events in Arthurian legends, including King Arthur's birth, and the creation of Stonehenge. Merlin's death is no less amazing, especially considering that he fortold this as well. Merlin encountered the Princess Nimue/Vivianne when she was hardly a teenager and fell in love with her, but the girl was disgusted by the elderly half-demon wizard and constantly rejected him, until she decided to return his love -- in return for Merlin teaching her all of his magic. Merlin educated Nimue well, and she ultimately became one of the most powerful magicians in the entire realm -- now known to all as the Lady of the Lake. Now armed with the incredible powers he had taught her, Nimue turned against her tutor. She sings him a song that puts him into an endless sleep, and according to various accounts she either has him imprisoned in a rock, invisible tower, cave, apple or hawthorn tree, bush, or tomb, where he sleeps to this day. King Arthur lost his greatest advisor, and so Nimue took Merlin's place at his side, going on to become the foster mother of Lancelot du Lac.

My favorite Arthurian book and movie, the Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, however, paints all of the characters with a FAR more sympathetic brush. One simply has to decide which story (snd there are plenty) that THEY favor more.

The murals include the following:
Morgan le fay by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys
The Last Sleep of Arthur by Edward Burne-Jones
The Mists of Avalon by Braldt Bralds
The Beguiling of Merlin by Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Merlin by Julek Heller
Celtic Wizard Fantastic by John Howe

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