Page "Morgan le Fay" Paragraph 9

Before the cyclical Old French romances, appearances of Morgan are few.

Chrétien de Troyes mentions her in his first romance Erec and Enide, completed around 1170 ; he says one guest at the titular characters ' wedding, a certain Guigomar, Lord of the Isle of Avalon, is a friend of Morgan.

She is later mentioned in the same poem when Arthur provides a wounded Erec with a healing balm made by his sister Morgan ; this episode both affirms her early role as a healer and provides the first mention of Morgan as Arthur's sister.

Chrétien again refers to Morgan as a great healer in his later romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, in an episode in which two ladies restore the maddened hero to his senses with a concoction provided by Morgan.

However, while Modron is the mother of Owain in Welsh literature, and Morgan would be assigned this role in later French literature, this first continental association between Ywain and Morgan does not imply they are son and mother.

The Arthurian tale, Geraint son of Erbin, based on Chretien de Troyes's Erec, mentions King Arthur's " chief physician ", Morgan Tud ; it is believed that this character, though considered a male in Gereint, may be derived from Morgan le Fay ( though this has been a matter of debate among Arthurian scholars since the 19th century.

The epithet Tud may be a Welsh or Breton cognate or borrowing of Old Irish tuath, " north, left, sinister, wicked ", also " fairy, elf ").