About Avalon
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Avalon is popularly associated these days with Glastonbury but originally it was used to describe a concept as much as a place. That concept was expressed in the symbol of an everyday apple...red on the outside and white on the inside.... suggesting the meeting and interaction of two states of being...the red outer world and the white inner world. The association with Glastonbury becomes clear when we consider Glastonbury legends like the red and white springs which issue from the Tor, the white bodied ,red eared hounds of Gwynn ap Nudd, the Faery king of the Tor and the legend of Joseph of Arimathea bringing the two cruets of red and white liquid to Glastonbury |
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the red and white and apple concepts can be traced to the Welsh prophet
Mirdin or Myrddin (the original "Merlin" of later Arthurian
legend) and the association of the Welsh word for apple AFAL
(pronounced "Aval"). In the Welsh Black Book of Carmarthen
(right) Mirdin wanders in the forests of Cellydon after the battle of
Arfderydd, an historical battle in northern Britain fought in ad
573. He is suffering from what we would now call "post
traumatic stress", and living like a wild animal. After a time this
passes, as it is sometimes known to, into deep insight. He begins to have
prophetic visions and the Black Book of Carmarthen consists
of a number of his prophetic poems including those called Afallenau
("Apple Trees"). Other legends like the prophetic encounter of
the young Merlin with the Dark Age chieftain Vortigern, at Dinas Emrys in
Snowdonia, bring in the "Red and White " concept in describing
Merlin's vision of the red and white dragons. |
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To appreciate how Glastonbury became so much associated with the Avalon concept, we have to appreciate that as Ynysfitrin ("Isle of Glass") and Caer Wydyr it remained a part of Brythonic (proto welsh) speaking Britain until about 800ad. It's history as an ecclesiastical centre had early and potent associations with Dark Age saints like the Welsh David, Patrick and Collen and the Irish St Brighid. Additionally the (historically feasible!) Joseph of Arimathea legend marked it from a very early time as a centre of indigenous British/Welsh"Celtic" spirituality. This sat easily alongside Welsh and Irish otherworld myth, with the Tor being a principle point of entry to the Celtic Underworld (Annwn) and the Brighid cult embracing not only an early Christian dimension, but that saint's other role as a princess of the Faery race, the Tuatha de Danaan. These associations were maintained and elaborated throughout Glastonbury's later history, as, once Celtic, Brythonic/Welsh speaking, Britain became squeezed into the west, and finally Wales, by the incursion of Saxon language and culture. |  |
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can see the source material for the Arthurian legends in Welsh
tracts like the Mabinogion , and the Taliesin
and Triads material . The earliest mentions of Arthur,
Mirdin (Merlin) in the native Brythonic tongue, may be found in Y
Gododdin, part of the Canu Anerin ("The Song of
Aneirin") written after the Battle of Catraeth in 600ad, a
mere twenty seven years after the battle (probably involving the
same dynastic feud) which Mirdin had taken part in. Arthur's
name derives from the Welsh word Arth, meaning
"bear" and refers to the mythological
sovereignty of his dynasty vested in the circumpolar
constellations of the Little and Great Bear. As with the
mythology of other ancient kingship, Arthur is part of a
dynastic progression reflected in the movement of the Pole
Star...the astronomical phenomenum known as "the precession
of the Equinoxes". In the Welsh Mabinogi material he
can be seen to be associated with the Avalon/apple symbolism in
"The Dream of Rhonabwy" where he plays magical chess ("Gwyddbwyll")
with the Faery/Otherworld on a white mantle secured at each of
its corners by an apple. The white mantle, which, with the
apples, confers invisibility, is a sure sign of the Welsh
underworld, Annwn, and thus the white "inside" of the
apple. Almost everything that comes out of Annwn in the Welsh
texts, has the prefixes or suffixes to its name of Gwynn,
gwen, wen, wynn...the Welsh adjective which means
"white". For example Gwynn ap Nudd, the
Faery Lord of Glastonbury Tor, Arthur's ship Prydwen
which sails into Annwn, and the Welsh underworld cauldron
goddess Cerid-wen. Of most import, however, is the
name of Arthur's queen , Gwyn- hyfwyr (Guinevere) ,
suggesting that she is a Faery woman from Annwn, whose
Otherworld lineage validated Arthur's sovereignty.
It was from such source material that the Welsh Normanophile cleric, Geoffrey of Monmouth, appears to have written his "History of the kings of Britain", Prophecies of Merlin and Life of Merlin, giving Mirdin (he changed this to "Merlin") and the Arthurian material , with his own interpolations, a wider audience. The earlier association of the Arthurian material with Glastonbury, was subsequently utilised by the Plantagent /Norman English kings and by the Abbey itself to suggest that Arthur was buried there. This lead to the suspiciously convenient discovery of the tomb of Arthur and Guinevere (in a place still marked in the Abbey ruins) and consolidated Glastonbury's claim to be the surviving embodiment of the concept of Avalon. Taken in their original Brythonic/Welsh context, before the universalistion of the mythology by Malory and others, it is clear however that the Arthurian/Avalon material essentially describes the interaction of humankind with the Otherworld or Faery to, in its original context, validate sovereignty. This interaction is well shown in the geometric device of the interlocking circles of the vesica piscis, suggesting, like Celtic knotwork or the inner and outer rounds of the Avalonian apple, or the interlocking circles underlying the Qaballistic Tree of Life, an overlap and dialogue between differing modes of being. This device was found, by the architect and psychic researcher Frederick Bligh Bond, to be implicit in the design of the Mary Chapel, set over the site of the alleged original shrine at Glastonbury Abbey. It was later incorportaed into the design of the well cover for Chalice Well, where the "red" spring issues from the Tor, just across the road from the White Spring. It has become an enduring symbol for "Glastonbury as Avalon" . Consequently Glastonbury has become the place where the British folk soul, and the folk souls of more recent nations that sprang from it, have very often felt closest to their spiritual roots. Down the centuries, a succession of priests and priestesses, saints, mystics and teachers, both pagan and Christian, have nurtured those roots and endowed Glastonbury with the title of "the holiest earthe in England." |
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| Vesica Piscis seen in the ground plan of the Mary Chapel, Glastonbury Abbey, by Frederick Bligh Bond | Vesica Piscis, the interaction of worlds.. | Vesica Piscis in the wellcover design (1919) by Bligh Bond at the red spring in Chalice Well. |
Since prehistoric times, the British folk soul has both borrowed from and informed other mythologies and cultures. The great mystery religions of the ancient Middle East provide but one example of this. The Avalon tradition, as it has developed through the centuries, is a drawing together of many and diverse sacred threads embodied in all the great mystery traditions of the west, from Angelic to Faery, from Arthurian to "Atlantean," from Celtic to ancient Egyptian.
Whilst The Company of Avalon attributes due reverence to both Glastonbury and earlier “Celtic” expression of this concept in the ancient west, it is the timeless, yet currently relevant, understanding of Avalon as an inner state which we seek to mediate, rather than specific times or places in its illustrious history.
© Company of Avalon, 2003