Avalon Schedule

Did You Know?

The name is generally considered to be of Welsh origin, derived from Old Welsh abal "apple" or aball "apple tree" (Middle Welsh aval, avall; Modern Welsh afal, afall), though an Old Cornish or Old Breton origin is also possible.

The account of the burial by the chronicle of Margam Abbey says three bodies were found the other being of Mordred.

Of its own accord it produces grain and grapes, and apple trees grow in its woods from the close-clipped grass.

All are etymologically related to the Gaulish root *aballo- (as found in the place name Aballo/Aballone, now Avallon in Burgundy) and are derived from a Common Celtic *abal- "apple", which is related at the Proto-Indo-European level to English apple, Russian jabloko, Latvian abele, et al.According to Geoffrey in the Historia and much subsequent literature which he inspired, Avalon is the place where King Arthur is taken after fighting Mordred at the Battle of Camlann to recover from his wounds.

The discovery of the burial is described by chroniclers, notably Giraldus Cambrensis, as being just after King Henry II's reign when the new abbot of Glastonbury, Henry de Sully, commissioned a search of the abbey grounds.

In the later Vita Merlini he called it Insula Pomorum the "isle of apples".