Warrior Women of Arthurian Legend
Introduction
Despite warrior women being a mythic motif of ancient Celtic culture, there are very few female warriors in Arthurian legend. There are certainly many fascinating and complex female characters, but few of them took up arms or were renowned for their fighting skills like their Celtic counterparts. My research into my Fata Morgana book series which spans the life of Morgan le Fay – a true warrior in her own way and her own right – has taken me down numerous and unexpected paths, revealing many of the more obscure and fascinating tales of Arthurian legend. Although there are no female Knights of the Round Table in the same tradition as Celtic women warriors such as the historical Queen Boudicca and Elen Lluyddog or the mythic Scáthach and Aífe, in a few of these lesser-known stories there are women who distinguish themselves as warriors and/or questers and it is perhaps time that a light should be shone upon them.
The Grail Heroine
One female quester who deserves more fame is the woman known as the Grail Heroine. While most people are familiar with the knights of the Grail Quest, such as Sir Percival, Sir Galahad, and, to a lesser extent, Sir Bors, the Grail Heroine is largely ignored or forgotten. This could be owing to the fact that, from the first time this character appeared in the early 13th century Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, she is not even named in this or in most subsequent versions. There are contradictory assertions as to whether or not her name was Dindrane (or Dandrane), a character who appears in Perlesvaus or The High Book of the Grail of the same period, which is a continuation of Chrétien de Troyes’ unfinished Perceval, the Story of the Grail. Some claim that this sister of Percival is not the same as the sister of Percival who joined him, Galahad and Bors on the Grail Quest. Others suggest that this sister, unnamed in so many sources, is in fact Dindrane. Known as Agresizia in the Italian Arthurian work, La Tavola Ritonda, for the purposes of this post we will call her Dindrane.
During the Grail Quest, Dindrane meets Galahad at a hermitage and persuades him to accompany her, providing a girdle for his sword made from her own hair. The two travel to the coast where they find a white ship with Percival and Bors waiting for them, whereupon Dindrane reveals that she is Percival’s sister by their father King Pellinore. The four sail away to another land where Dindrane instructs them to seek out the Maimed King and to find a cure for his mysterious wound that will not heal. They arrive at a castle where the castle knights demand that Dindrane give a bowl of her blood to the lady of the castle to satisfy their tradition. Dindrane refuses, and a battle ensues between the questers and the castle knights, in which the latter are vanquished. Accepting defeat, the castle knights make their peace and invite the visitors to stay at the castle.
Later that night, Dindrane and her companions discover that the lady of the castle is dying of leprosy and that only the blood of a pure virgin who is the daughter of a king can save her. Filled with pity and despite the great risk to herself, Dindrane agrees to offer her blood, a decision which proves to be fatal. During her bloodletting, knowing that she is about to die, Dindrane asks Percival to place her body in the white ship and set it out to sea. She tells him that he will find her in the city of Sarras and asks him to bury her there. Foreseeing that Percival and Galahad will die soon after her, she instructs the three knights to part company until they find each other again at the castle of the Maimed King. Galahad and Bors leave, and the grief-stricken Percival writes an account of the life and adventures of Dindrane, places it beside his sister’s body on the white ship, and sets it to sail out to sea. Later, the three knights travel to Sarras, where, after Galahad has achieved the Grail and healed the Maimed King, he and Percival both die and are buried beside Dindrane, the Heroine who ultimately demonstrated the true, selfless meaning of the Grail by sacrificing her life for another.
Bradamante
One of the most wonderful aspects of the Arthurian legends is how extensive and vastly influential they are. Their influence can be found throughout European literature, particularly in the tales of Roland, who was originally a historical figure, one of Charlemagne’s Twelve Paladins (the equivalent of the Knights of the Round Table) and his nephew by his sister Bertha. Known as Orlando in Italian romance, he is the hero of two of the greatest works of Italian Renaissance literature: Orlando Innamorato (Roland in Love, 1484–1495) by Matteo Maria Boiardo and Orlando Furioso (Raging Roland, 1516) by Ludovico Ariosto. Both of these works feature a female Christian knight named Bradamante, who wears a suit of all-white armour, making her the first true White Knight. She wields a magical lance which unhorses every knight it touches and she is in love with a Saracen warrior named Ruggiero.
During her adventures, Bradamante rescues Ruggiero from the wizard Atlante, who is holding him prisoner in a glass dome atop Mount Carena in northern Africa to prevent him from converting to Christianity and becoming a knight of Charlemagne. After Bradamante rescues Ruggiero, he converts to Christianity but her parents still refuse to accept him as her suitor even after his conversion, and Bradamante herself declines to marry anyone who cannot prove himself her equal in combat and survive. Eventually, Ruggiero is able to do so and the two are married. The union of the great female Paladin Bradamante and her love Ruggiero is the beginning of the dynasty of the noble Italian House of Este, who were the patrons of both Boiardo and Ariosto.
Melora
Orlando has a direct connection with King Arthur in the 16th century Irish romance The Adventures of Melora and Orlando, in which Melora, Arthur’s daughter, falls in love with him. Sir Mador, a Knight of the Round Table who is in love with Melora, persuades the wizard Merlin to get rid of Orlando. Merlin imprisons Orlando within impenetrable spells that only three items can break and which no man born of woman can obtain. The items are the Holy Lance of Longinus that pierced the side of Jesus Christ; a precious stone belonging to Verona, daughter of the King of Narsinga; and oil from the pig of Túis, belonging to the King of Asia. After tricking Mador into revealing what has happened to her beloved Orlando, Melora takes up arms as a knight, disguising herself as the Knight of the Blue Surcoat, and sets off to obtain all three items.
On behalf of the King of Babylon, she defeats the King of Africa, and is rewarded with the Lance of Longinus and a servant named Levander. Melora and Levander are then taken captive by the King of Asia, but are helped to escape by a guard named Uranus, who also procures for them the oil of the pig of Túis. Finally, Melora and Levander disguise themselves as minstrels from King Arthur’s court, and use the King of Narsinga’s fascination with Arthur to lure him and Princess Verona onto their ship. But when Melora reveals the truth to the King, he gives her the precious stone freely to use as she will. Upon her return, Melora uses the Holy Lance to strike down a great rock in her path, the precious stone to dispel the darkness from the pit in which Orlando is imprisoned, and the pig’s oil to restore him to strength. Merlin and Mador are banished, and Melora and Orlando are happily wed, as are Levander and Verona, who have fallen in love.
Britomart
Perhaps the most famous warrior woman with ties to Arthur in English literature is Britomart, a female knight in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590–1596) and in many ways a parallel English version of the Italian Bradamante. A beautiful young maiden, daughter of King Rience of Wales, Britomart in The Faerie Queene is the embodiment of chastity and a representative of Queen Elizabeth I. After falling in love with a knight called Artegall who she sees in an enchanted mirror, she takes up arms as a knight and travels to Fairy Land to find him. Similar to Bradamante and her lance, Britomart carries a magic black spear which ensures she is never defeated in battle. In Fairy Land, she becomes a companion to Arthur, who in this version is a prince in love with Gloriana, the Fairy Queen. During her adventures, Britomart helps the Red Cross Knight escape from the Castle Joyous, meets Merlin and hears his prophecies about the future of Britain, and rescues the maiden Amoret who has been abducted and imprisoned by the sorcerer Busirane.
Amoret’s lover Scudamore is convinced that Amoret has run off with Britomart and is jealous. A tournament is held in which Britomart fights both Scudamore and Artegall, all wearing helmets with visors. Britomart defeats Scudamore but when her helmet falls off during her fight with Artegall, the latter falls in love with her, takes off his helmet and lays down his arms. Britomart recognises him as the man she saw in the mirror, and the two are quickly married. However, Artegall must complete a quest assigned to him by the Fairy Queen and leaves, while Britomart aids Scudamore and Arthur on a mission to find Amoret, who has been abducted again. On his quest, Artegall arrives at the city of the Amazons, ruled by the ruthless Queen Radigund, another warrior woman, who will not suffer any male knight to enter her realm and, after defeating them in combat, forces them become her slaves and to wear female clothes. When Britomart learns from the metal-man Talus that Artegall has been captured and taken as a slave by Radigund, she goes to the city herself and fights and kills Radigund in a mighty duel. The Amazons’ city falls to Britomart, and she and Artegall are happily reunited.
Conclusion
What distinguish the four warrior women of Arthurian described here are their extraordinary virtues of nobility, bravery, selflessness, and drive. Knightly deeds are as natural to them as they are to any male warrior in the legends, but these women warriors do not necessarily have characteristics stereotypically attributed to masculinity in order to be successful as knights. While Bradamante and Britomart eschew traditionally “feminine” pursuits, being trained in the use of weapons and combat from an early age, Dindrane and Melora have no such grounding before they embark on their adventures, the former being closeted in a hermitage and the latter being a princess, the daughter of King Arthur himself. None of them are queens like Guinevere, none of them are sorceresses like Morgan le Fay, none of them are damsels in distress like Elaine. They show us that, if we delve deeper into the legends and off the more famous beaten tracks, there is a wider spectrum and more diversity of female characters than we might previously have expected to discover.
Morgan Le Fay: Small Things and Great
Excerpt from Chapter I: The Deluge
Feeling very alone, Morgan hesitated. If she disobeyed Sebile again,
she knew she would be in trouble. She looked up again, but there was still no
sign of the Horned Man. Whatever was moving towards her in the sea was coming
closer. She had to know what it was. Instinctively, she ran towards the shore
and felt her way across the rocks that cut through the beach and the water.
There she stood upon a rock as the movement came into focus. Her heart began to
race once more and time returned to its normal pace as she looked, astounded,
upon a sight she had already seen in her mind.A little dark-haired boy of about her own age was swimming determinedly
towards the rocks. On his back, clinging to him was a little girl, who looked
almost exactly like him except for her slightly longer dark hair. The little
girl’s eyes were pure white with no colour to their centre, wide-open and
watery. She was blind.Morgan watched the two children with fascinated horror, unable to
believe what she was seeing. Were they real, this boy and girl from her dream?
How could she have dreamed about them without ever knowing them or seeing them
before? The boy’s wet hair was plastered to his head and his face was strained
with the effort of swimming to shore while carrying the girl. Morgan remembered
how he had refused to take her hand in her dream and how, after his refusal,
the sky in her nightmare had rained down blood. She recoiled from the memory
and for the first time in her life she hesitated whether to help or not. But
then the girl raised her head and her sightless eyes seemed to look directly at
Morgan. Still clinging to the boy, she pointed at her. The boy, still swimming,
followed the girl’s silent signal and saw Morgan. At once he almost
imperceptibly changed direction, swimming straight towards her.As they came closer, the pain and exhaustion on their faces was too
much for Morgan to bear.With the strange sense of having entered her dream and
done this before, she stepped to the edge of the rock, went down on her knees
and held out her hand. This time, however, the boy did not stop. He swam all
the way towards the rock until he reached her.“Help me with my sister,” was all he managed to gasp. Morgan leaned
over, grabbed the little blind girl’s arms and pulled. The boy pushed the girl
from the water until between the two of them they got her out. The girl lay on
the rock, her sightless eyes staring up into the sky. Morgan then held out her
hand to the boy. He didn’t hesitate, but took hold of her hand with one hand
and the rock with the other. With Morgan pulling his arm the boy hauled himself
up onto the rock and collapsed next to her.“Are you alright?” Morgan asked them both.
The boy, out of breath, did not answer for a few seconds. “I think so,”
he eventually replied.“What about you?” Morgan asked the girl, who was lying immobile but
breathing on the rock.“She can’t answer you,” the boy said, not looking at his sister. “She
doesn’t speak.”Morgan felt a surge of sadness for the little girl. “I’m sorry.”
The boy looked at Morgan. Morgan felt a cold stab when she saw his dark
eyes were exactly as she remembered in the dream. Before she could say
anything, the boy said, “I know you.”“What?” Morgan gasped.
The boy didn’t smile, just stated calmly, “I’ve seen you before.”
“Where? How?” Morgan demanded. The boy said nothing, but merely looked
at her.“Morgan!” came Sebile’s outraged voice.
Morgan started up and cried, “Sebile! I’ve found them! I’ve found the lady’s
children!”
“You saw our mother?” the boy asked, frowning. He tried to stand up, but his
legs gave way.Morgan grabbed his arm to stop him from falling. The boy reacted with
unexpected violence to her touch, almost as if she had wounded him. He pulled
his arm away roughly and took a step back from her, almost cringing. Morgan was
startled and hurt.“She’s alive. They’ve taken her to the castle,” Morgan told him warily.
The boy stood looking at Morgan, but this time, oddly, did not look into her
eyes. “She asked me to find you,” Morgan went on.“How did you know it was us?” the boy asked.
“I knew as soon as I saw you,” Morgan said. She couldn’t explain how;
she had just known. The boy then looked back at her again, appraisingly and
interestedly. This time it was Morgan who looked away.As Sebile came running up from the beach, Morgan negotiated her way
back across the rocks. “It’s them, Sebile!” she said breathlessly. “It’s her
children!”The fury on Sebile’s face subsided when she saw Morgan’s earnest,
pleading expression. She looked at the boy standing shakily on the rock and
Morgan heard her sharp intake of breath. Sebile then saw the girl lying without
moving, made her way across the rocks and picked her up. “Follow me,” Sebile
commanded Morgan and the boy, and they obeyed her. Together, Morgan and the boy
walked the remaining length of the beach, which was now empty save for a few
scattered remains of wreckage and clothing. The survivors and the dead alike
were being carried up the cliff path towards Tintagel as the light grew
brighter and the wind started to blow itself out.At the foot of the cliff path, Morgan turned to look back once more at
the sea. Like the wind, its anger and force were dissipating. The waves were
still high, but not as ferocious as before and not as strong. Morgan thought
with a shiver that it was as if the monster that was the sea had eaten until it
was full and was now happy with the wreck and its passengers that it had taken
that night.“So you’re Morgan,” the boy said. He had stopped with her and was looking
out at the sea as well.“Yes. My father’s the Duke of Belerion,” Morgan told him.
“I know.”
Morgan could not work out if the words were said with hostility or not.
Before she could think of a suitable retort, the boy indicated his sister, who
was being carried ahead of them by Sebile.“That’s Ganieda. She’s my twin.”
“And who are you?” Morgan asked coldly.
The boy looked directly at her and this time she held his gaze. At this,
the boy smiled for the first time. “I’m Merlin.”
Morgan Le Fay: Children of this World
Excerpt from Chapter V: Lights in the
DarkThe Jack o’Lantern suddenly went out, plunging them into total
darkness. Morgan turned in alarm. A smoke smell trailed into the air. Taliesin
had snuffed out the candle.“What did you do that for?” Morgan hissed.
“Look!”
Down on the beach bobbed another light. It was coming in their
direction. Towards Merlin, Morgan thought with a little shiver running down her
back.Adjusting their eyesight to the dark, they gradually saw that behind
the light on the beach walked the shadow of a man.“Myrddin,” Morgan heard Taliesin whisper.
“How did you know he’d be here?” Morgan whispered back.
“I told you. I followed him.”
“But he wasn’t on the path. We couldn’t see him.”
“It’s something Cadwellon’s been teaching me. It’s called sen-sor-y
in-vo-ca-tion.” Taliesin enunciated the words carefully, still in a whisper,
sounding proud of being able to say such big words. “You focus on someone or
something with your mind and you can find it or follow it.Track it down. That’s how I knew Myrddin had come along the path to
this place. I could feel him all along the way.”Morgan was fascinated and slightly envious, wishing again that she
could study with the Druids too. But she didn’t have time to think about that
right now.Taliesin was staring down at the dark cove. “I know this place,” he
said. “My father told me about it. He brought me here once. All the fishermen
know about it. It’s dangerous.”“Dangerous? Why?”
The boy pointed out to the black mass of sea. “There are lots of hidden
rocks out there. It looks calm because you can’t see them – they’re just under
the water. My father says boats get wrecked here in storms, or they’re caught
by the currents and run aground. They smash into rocks they don’t know are
there. Lots of people have drowned.”The memory of the big storm and the wreck of the Sea Queen came rushing
back into Morgan’s mind. The screaming, drowning people. The bodies strewn on
the beach. The groaning, dying ship.It was hard to imagine anything like that could happen in this
quiet-looking bay, its waves softly swooshing under the cover of darkness. She
shivered.“We have to get closer,” she said, trying to brush off her unease.
Taliesin didn’t answer, but nodded in agreement. The two of them
grasped each other’s hands and slowly began climbing down the slope, trying
hard not to make any noise. It was by no means easy in the dark, with no
lantern and almost no moonlight, but they persevered.Keeping an eye on her footing as they went down, Morgan watched what
was happening on the beach. In the dim, distant light of Myrddin’s lantern,
Merlin and his Druid Master approached each other. They talked together
briefly. Then Merlin lit a second lantern handed to him by Myrddin.Now there were two lights on the shore. Merlin and Myrddin parted ways
and began walking to opposite ends of the beach, each with their own lantern;
Merlin walking back towards the slope he had come from.Towards the very slope Morgan and Taliesin were climbing down.
“He’s coming back this way!” Morgan hissed urgently. “Quick! Lie down!”
She pulled Taliesin to the ground. The two of them lay there still
holding hands, flat on their backs against the slope, trying not to breathe.
Morgan felt her heart pounding fast. Don’t see us, she thought fiercely again,
watching Merlin walking towards them with the lantern.He didn’t see them. He seemed to be concentrating on the number of
steps he took. Finally, he stopped at a certain point on the beach and turned
away towards the ocean.“Ssssssssss.” Something sounding like a whisper wafted through the air.
Morgan heard it, but couldn’t understand it. She turned to Taliesin. “What did
you say?”She gasped.
Taliesin had disappeared. There was nothing and no one beside her. Only
the stones and shingle on the slope.But she could still feel his hand in hers.
“Taliesin!” she exclaimed softly. “Where are you?”
“What do you mean?” she heard Taliesin whisper back. “I’m here… what?”
“What do you mean, here? Where?”
“Morgan, where are you?” she heard Taliesin’s panicked voice over hers
in a low tone. “I’ve got your hand … but I can’t see you!”“I can’t see you, either!”
“What? No! What’s going on?”
Morgan wasn’t sure. She let go of Taliesin’s hand. As soon as she did
so, the boy reappeared next to her, out of the air, as if by magic. Just as he
had said she had done back on the path.“I can see you now!” Morgan exclaimed.
“Well, I can’t see you!” Taliesin sounded really scared. “Morgan, what
are you doing?”“I don’t know.” But she had an idea. Let Taliesin see me, she thought
hard.Taliesin gave a small cry and quickly covered his mouth. Morgan glanced
hastily down at the beach. Merlin still had his back to them. He hadn’t heard.“Can you see me now?” Morgan asked.
Taliesin nodded. Even through the darkness, Morgan could see the
normally pallid fair-haired boy was even whiter than usual.“You were invisible again. You just appeared out of the air.” Abruptly
his voice took on an unfriendly note that didn’t sound like him. “How are you
doing that?”“I don’t know.” Morgan said again. She tried to put what she thought
was happening into words.“It’s like … if I think I don’t want someone to see me, they don’t. I
can make myself invisible.” She wondered how long she had been invisible before
she had met Taliesin on the path. “But I don’t know how. I don’t try to make it
happen. It just does.”Taliesin let out his breath. “It sounds like what Cadwellon says,” he
said soberly. “The way he taught me sensory invocation. He says you can’t force
it. He’s always telling me you have to focus on the result, not the act
itself.” The friendliness crept back into his voice again. “That sounds like
what you’re doing.”“Ssssssshhhhhhhsssssss.”
It was the whisper again. Louder this time, but she still couldn’t
understand it.“Is that you?” Morgan said.
“Is what me?”
“That whisper. Didn’t you hear it?”
“No.” Taliesin sounded puzzled. And wary again. “I didn’t hear anything
… Wait, look!”Down on the beach something was happening. Merlin and Myrddin both held
up their lanterns facing out to the ocean. Myrddin was further away from them,
standing on a particular point on the other side of the beach.Morgan watched Merlin with interest. He had taken off his cloak. He
held up the lantern in one hand and with the other he used the cloak to cover
and uncover the lantern several times.“What’s he doing?” Taliesin whispered in bewilderment.
It was darker than ever. They could still just see the white-flecked
waves rising and falling on the sand, roaring softly as they washed ashore. The
sleepy-eye Moon was completely hidden. Only a few pinprick stars pierced the
misty black veil of clouds across the sky.Suddenly Morgan started. She clutched Taliesin’s arm, making him jump.
“Look! Look out there! Can you see it?”
A light appeared out on the night-darkened sea. It bobbed up and down,
then disappeared. Then after a few moments it reappeared again. Then it
blinked, going out, then flashed again, went out, then reappeared again.“It’s getting nearer!” Morgan whispered.
“It’s a boat!” Taliesin whispered back. “It has
to be. It’s coming in to land! I told you it was dangerous around here with the
hidden rocks. They’re using the lanterns to guide it in!”
Morgan Le Fay: Giants in the Earth
Excerpt from Chapter XI: The Treasure of
TrecobbenThe Giant’s foot was moving again. Morgan hoisted herself more tightly
into his bootlaces so she could ride on his boot without straining her limbs.
Trecobben went back into the courtyard and swung the boulder shut behind him
with a crash. He tramped back across the castle entrance and down the ramp,
striding across his massive columned hall. Janniper and the other woman were
scurrying back and forth like mice on the floor, up and down the ladders,
throwing the fleeces into the clay pot. They were soaked and stinking with urine,
their faces utterly miserable and desperate.Trecobben ignored them, left the hall, and strode into an immense
granite passageway lit with more bone-fire torches. Riding on Trecobben’s boot
near the floor, Morgan saw they were going past a series of huge chambers from
which she caught glimpses of more carved rock furniture and enormous, coloured
tapestries hanging high.She almost jumped out of her skin. Terrible, ear-splitting roaring was
coming from inside one of the chambers. It was hard to tell if it was angry
roaring or roars of pain. She heard Gargamotte’s voice, soothing and kind. Did
the Giants have some kind of wild animal in the castle? Or animalia? It sounded
like more than one.But Trecobben went straight past without stopping. Soon he was descending
another ramp, even narrower than the one at the entrance. He was going further
beneath Trencrom Hill, deeper into the earth. After a while the ramp came to a
dead end, blocked by a wide stone slab. Trecobben took one of the wall torches
from its sconce and with his other hand grabbed the side of the slab, pulling
it outwards. As the slab opened, a rush of freezing cold air escaped. Beyond, a
dark, high-ceilinged chamber glittered in the torchlight. For a second, Morgan
thought it was another crystal cavern, like the Spar-Stone Grave. But this was
a different kind of glitter.Trecobben lit several torches along the walls and the chamber came to
life in an astonishing blaze of light.Everything shone. Tall-as-trees steel swords with gilded hilts, glistening
hill-sized silver cauldrons,radiant golden chalices, shimmering embellished
scabbards, lustrous silk cloaks laden with sparkling jewels, gleaming bronze
shields emblazoned with glittering gemstones – every single object in the
chamber dazzled with opulence and light. Piles and piles of small round pieces
of metal – gold, silver and bronze – glimmered invitingly, stacked as high as
mountains. Resplendent ornate mirrors in all corners of the chamber multiplied
the brilliance of all the treasures a hundredfold.Magnificent beams of light
danced upon the high ceilinglike rays of sunshine, making the gloomy chamber as
bright as day.The glare was so blinding, the richness and beauty so overwhelming, it
was hard for Morgan to take in. What was all this treasure? Where did it come
from? Did it all belong to the Giants? Had they made it all themselves? Had
they stolen it?Trecobben was tramping across the chamber all the way to the other
side. Morgan ensconced herself tighter into his bootlaces so she wouldn’t fall
off. When the Giant stopped moving she looked upwards. Her mouth fell open.A single, slender, Giant-sized pole was leaning against the far wall.
Taller even than the Giant himself, it stood out from all the other treasures
in the chamber. Unlike the others, the light that emanated from the pole wasn’t
a reflection of the torches. It had its own light, radiating from within. Such
a simple, ordinary object, yet breathtaking, beautiful, incandescent; forged
from a lucent silver brighter than clear diamond and smoother than still water.
A silver that was almost white, like moonlight captured and made solid form.
Morgan struggled to breathe.She knew what it was. She’d seen it before. Not in life.In dreams.
It was the silver lance of her nightmare long ago. The silver lance
that had pierced an ocean full of screaming angels and drowning people,
wounding the very sea of life itself, turning water to blood.It was the silver spear that had hovered in a stormy sky as lightning
flashed and thunder crashed, as blood spilled out from the wounded land into
the sea. The silver spear that had floated in the air before her, just out of
reach. The silver spear that had driven her in her dream to leave the ground
and fly after it, but hadn’t allowed her to catch it.Artemis’ Spear. Diana’s Spear. The Sacred Spear.
The spearhead of which she carried in her satchel.
She heard Wodan’s voice, remembered what the Dark Huntsman had told
her. “The spear was but a small thing when compared to what she stole from me.
But now it has been stolen from me in return. I held on to the spearhead but
the silver shaft was taken.”And it was here. The silver shaft was here, in Trecobben Castle.And
attached to it was a spearhead of a different, darker metal, not the original,
the one that was meant to be.She heard a strange soft humming, felt a buzzing in the satchel across
her body. Looking down in alarm, she saw that she and everything on her were
still invisible. Everything except the spearhead. It was shining from inside
the satchel, breaking through her magic invisibility, seeming to appear from
nowhere at the Giant’s foot. In response, the silver spear shaft itself grew
even brighter, even more luminous, as if it were answering a call.“Eh?” Trecobben muttered under his breath. He’d stretched out his hand
to take hold of the spear shaft but pulled back as it grew brighter. In a
panic, Morgan tried to hide the shining spearhead, but she couldn’t do it with
her invisible hand.“What’s this?” the Giant grunted to himself. Fortunately, he wasn’t
looking down at his feet, so intent was he on the spear shaft. “Never liked
this thing. Always something funny about it.”Cautiously he reached out again and took hold of it. After a few
seconds, satisfied that it was safe, he picked it up and went back across the
chamber. With his other hand he took a torch and marched out of the doorway,
slamming the stone slab shut with a whoosh.
In her mind’s eye, Morgan could see all the
torches inside instantly blown out by the sudden draught. All of that fabulous
treasure, save for the spear, lay underground in total darkness.
About the Author:
graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an MA in languages and from the
University of Glasgow with an MPhil in media and culture. As a teacher, she has
spent much of her life travelling around the world. Her travels, together with
her lifelong passions for reading, writing and storytelling, inspired her to
embark upon her epic Fata Morgana series, about the life and adventures of
Morgan le Fay. Mythology, fairy tales, and Arthurian legends are all major
influences on her work, and her ongoing journeys to countries of great
landscapes and folklore are never-ending sources of inspiration.
