King Arthur, his sister, and a mystery

[Svartalf]

Hey people, are there any scholars of things Arthurian around here?

I have a problem. Morgan is called Le Fay, which means the faerie, not anything so mundane as the witch or the enchantress... yet, to my knowledge, she's the daughter of duke Gorlois of Cornwall and his wife Ygraine, both of whom are as fully human as you and I... can anybody puzzle that out for me?

[Brian Peacock]

Well if we're going to take mythology and fiction seriously then Morgan could've been charmed by the Faerie Queen or swapped at birth for a changeling.

[Svartalf]

Well, I take it seriously because that's how it was written, and words mean something, so if a given word is used, it's because it's more appropriate than another, except that in the mentioned context, I fail to see why the author chose that specific term.

Of course, it might have been a borrowing from the Norse, in which case it would mean she was accursed/doomed, but that fails to explain why French, and more specifically Champenois French which was the dialect of Chrestien de Troyes, also used the word Fée to refer to that, presumably human, character.

[Brian Peacock]

Because at that point it seemed necessary to the plot, or because he was recounting a fable that had been overlayed and altered during the history of it's telling to that point?

To be honest, given your interests you probably have a better handle in the whys and wherefores than anybody else.

[JimC]

The Once and Future king will return to save England in her greatest hour of need!

[Svartalf]

Not if the space Nazis nuke Glastonbury first

[L'Emmerdeur]

Like many subsidiary (and sometimes main) characters in old tales, it looks as if Morgan Le Fay morphed a number of times. According to Brittanica and Wikipedia anyway. I think it must have been natural that at least some bards would tire of retelling the rote tales and choose to play with the flow and color of the story. I can see somebody making sure to hit the main points of the story, what everybody expected and desired from it, while embroidering and even making an occasional major alteration.