Morgan le Fay

Morgan Le Fay, alternately known as Morgaine, Morgain or Morgana and a slew of related nicknames, is an important female figure and sometime villainess in the mythology of King Arthur.

Morgan was the daughter of Lady Igraine and the Duke of Cornwell. She had an older sister named Morgause and a half-brother who was the child of Uther Pendragon and Lady Igraine—King Arthur. Because Arthur did not know his sisters, Morgan seduced him and gave birth to their son, the wicked inbreed Mordred. (According to the legend, Mordred grew to manhood away from Arthur's court, and eventually killed his father, bringing an end to the Arthurian age.)

Morgan le Fay is identified by some with the Morrigan of Celtic myth.

Morgan is the protagonist of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, and in recent years has been increasingly seen by feminist revisionists as the representation of the archetypical goddess element in pre-Norman English mythology.