Of Apples and Avalon
Avalon, the name comes from the word “aballo” which means “Apple“ and is also called Avalun, is an old and mystical location, best known from the Tale of King Arthur. It is also known as “Ynis Avalach” which means “Apple Island”. Supposedly, Avalon was where King Arthur fled after being injured.
Avalon is described as a location hidden in fog in Britain. The arrival to Avalon is only for those who are worthy of it and who have the power to call the holy bark to find their way through the fog. All others who are not given that power reach the Glastonbury Abbey. The Glastonbury Abbey is considered a passage to Avalon and the city of Glastonbury therefore sees itself as Avalon. As ‘proof’ they even have the grave of King Arthur and his wife Guinevere there as well as the graves of other holy men.
In Croatia a slate was found with the name of “Lucius Artorius Castus” found upon it. Upon it one could read the doings of a “King of Britain” and those doings have a certain correlation with the portfolio of King Arthur as well.
There are also transcripts from other cultures that describe an island in the Atlantic Ocean. For example the Celts and Gauls believed their ancestors came from a continent that had sunken into the western ocean, although there is no proof of this belief in any transcripts from the past. The Welsh call a place that is an island on a sea “Avallonia” or “Avallach”. In the scriptures of the Indians, Purunes and Mahabharata, a “white island” named “Attala” is mentioned, a continent in the western Ocean. Even the Aztec believed to originated from an island they called “Aztlán”, an island in the eastern Ocean.
So many of these scriptures hint towards a sunken Atlantis, that, according to Platon, had sunken in “one horrible day and in one horrible night” and its ruins are impossible to find due to the masses of mud that washed upon the ruins.
Avalon (roman “Abalus”), is an old Celtic/Germanic shrine in the North Sea. It was a red and white boulder and was well known amongst seafaring nations in the North. The Angle-Saxons knew it as well and one could imagine that, as the Angle-Saxons began to expand their influence towards the west after the fall of the Roman Empire, that the shrine was passed by many and was a stopover towards Britain. In the development of civilization movements throughout Europe and Christianization the knowledge of Abalus was lost and it became mystified by British people. Just as a roman mayor in Britain called Artorius became “King Arthur”.
Abalus, as described by Plinius the Elder and Pytheas of Marseille, was well known amongst seafaring nations since the Bronze Age and was a supplying island of Copper and Bernstein. The name of the formerly large island, now known as Heligoland, is in the territory of Germany.