A Rising Tide Lifts All (Reading) Notes: King Arthur and Morgan le Fay

King Arthur, Charles Ernest Butler (1903). Found of Wikimedia. 

King Arthur had a sister called Morgan le Fay. She has magic and the skill to use it. She hates her brother for killing her love in battle, but keeps acting like normal to ensure access to him. She got Queen Guenevere to let her go the the countryside with news. She went to the abbey where Arthur was resting after battle. She planned to take Excalibur as he slept. He was clutching it and she couldn't get to it without waking him, so she left with the scabbard. The nuns who let Morgan in were blamed by the king, and he took their fastest horse and set out after her. They end up in a horse chase scene like out of a movie (at least in my mind). He was catching up so she rode into a lake and tossed the scabbard far, to keep it from her brother. It sank quickly under the weight of the metal and jewels. She got out of the water and kept riding until she reached a stone filled valley. There, she turned herself, her men, and her her horses into stone. When Arthur rode up, he could not find them anywhere and thought that something had happened in the vein of karma. He searched for the scabbard but couldn't not find it. He left and Morgan turned herself and her company back into their original state. They left for the country of Gore where they prepared for the possibility of battle with Arthur by reinforcing towns and castles. Arthur went back to the abbey and rested again before heading back to Camelot. He told all of his Knights and his Queen of Morgan's betrayal. They wanted her dead, burned for treason. A woman showed up to Camelot the next day with a mantle and a note asking for forgiveness, that she meant no offense. This was pleasing to the king, but the Lady of the Lake advised him not to put it on until the woman who brought it put it on. She tried to back out of wearing it first, but she eventually put it on and was burned to ashes beneath it.

This story comes from King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1902).