I first encountered Morgan le Fay when I was 18. During my first year at university, a friend lent me her edition of The Mists of Avalon....

Gorlois, Duke of Belerion, Morgan’s father – Kevin McKidd Igraine, Duchess of Belerion, Morgan’s mother – Romola Garai Sebile, Morgan’s...

a huge film buff (I did a postgraduate Master of Philosophy in Film Studies), and I love to image who I would cast as the characters in...

The beginning of the second novel of Stewart’s Merlin trilogy, The Hollow Hills, has a pregnant Ygraine, now Queen and married to Uther,...

Wolfram von Eschenbach’s 13th century Parzival and Heinrich von dem Türlim’s Diu Krône (‘The Crown’) both tell similar stories and with...

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST: Uther persuades the wizard Merlin to cast a spell to make him look like Gorlois. He enters Tintagel...

As the mother of Morgan le Fay and Arthur, Igraine is a crucial figure in Arthurian legend, but it is important to remember that she is a...

Jo-Anne Blanco writes about her writing process in creating her Fata Morgana series

Following on from my blog post about the Muryans I have done some research into Caelia, Queen of the Muryans. In the Fata Morgana Series,...

This week I thought I'd answer a couple of questions I seem to get asked a fair amount as an author. 1 - How do I overcome writer's...

The Muryans are a specific type of tiny fairy native to Cornwall in the southwest of England. Known also the Small People, they appear on...

I am very much inspired by folk tales, legends, and mythology from all over the world – be they Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse, Persian,...

A fascinating, mysterious, and compelling figure in Celtic literature and legend, Taliesin is a composite character whose story blurs the...

In fairy lore, there is a phenomenon known as Ignis Fatuus, which means ‘the foolish fire’, and the name can be applied to several...

A somewhat ignored or overlooked figure from older works of Welsh and Arthurian literature, Ganieda definitely deserves to be better...

I thought I'd share some background about my series and the inspiration behind it this week. Q. How did you come up with the names of...

Perhaps the most notorious of all the Cornish Giants is Bolster, a vicious and tyrannical Giant who terrorised the people of the land...

There are two Giants in Cornish folklore known as Cormoran. The first is the name of the Giant in the fairy tale “Jack the Giant Killer.”...

Giants are a race of beings common to many mythologies, legends, folk tales and literature. The one thing that unites them across all...

There are four women with the name of Blanchefleur or Blancheflor (“White Flower”) in Arthurian legend. One was the mother of Tristan in...