ONE OF MY FAVORITE characters in my Twilight of Avalon trilogy is Isolde’s grandmother, Morgan. (Or Morgan le Fay, as she is commonly known in later versions of the Arthur legends). Morgan’s aging voice came to me very clearly as the narrator for the prologues of all three books. And after I’d finished writing the trilogy, she still haunted me. Myrddin (or Merlin), the famous enchanter of King Arthur’s court, rather haunted me as well, and I couldn’t stop wondering what Morgan and Merlin might have shared when they were young, before Morgan’s brother Arthur ever famously became King of Britain.
So here is Dawn of Avalon, the first part of their story and a prequel to my Twilight of Avalon trilogy. In Arthurian legend, Merlin is famous for ‘having lived time backward’ and being able to See the future as clearly as the past. In the earliest versions of the legend of the dragons at Dinas Emrys, Ambrosius Aurelianus, a famous war leader, digs up the dragons at King Vortigern’s command. Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose version of the King Arthur legends I loosely follow, changed Ambrosius Aurelianus to a mysterious enchanter Merlin, giving me the inspiration for the Merlin of Dawn of Avalon.
I hope you’ll enjoy reading Morgan and Merlin’s story. It was a pure joy to write, and I find now that I’m not quite so haunted by them anymore. I think (I hope) they’re happy with the prequel that I gave them, happy that they had the chance to live out their one perfect day.
Although the vast majority of my research comes from books, there are a couple of websites I can recommend to anyone curious to learn a bit more:
For more on the legends associated with Dinas Emrys (called Dinas Ffareon until renamed after Merlin), see:
www.celtnet.org.uk/legends/dinas_emrys.html
For more on the etymology of Merlin’s name, see:
medievalscotland.org/problem/names/myrddin.shtml
To learn more, visit me on the web at:
Happy reading!