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For other meanings of the term Avalon please see Avalon (disambiguation)
Avalon is a legendary island some where in the British Isles.
It is sometimes refered to as the legendary location where Jesus vistied the British Isles with Joseph of Arimathea and that it was later the site of the first church in Britain. This location of the Isle of Avalon is usually associated with present day Glastonbury.
It is also said to be the place where the body of King Arthur is buried. He was supposedly brought there via boat by his half sister, Morgan le Fay. According to some legends Arthur merely sleeps there, to awaken at some future time.
According to one theory the word is an anglicisation of the Celtic "Annwyn", the realm of fairies, or netherworld. Geoffrey of Monmouth interpreted the name as the "isle of apples".
As early at least as the beginning of the 11th century the tradition that Arthur was buried at Glastonbury Tor appears to have taken shape. Before the surrounding fenland in the Somerset Levels was drained, Glastonbury's high round bulk rose out of the water-meadows like an island. In the reign of Henry II, according to the chronicler Giraldus of Cambrai and others, the abbot of Glastonbury, Henry de Blois, causing search to be made, discovered at the depth of 16 feet a massive oak trunk with an inscription Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula Avalonia. The remains were reinterred with great ceremony, attended by King Edward I and his queen, before the High Altar at Glastonbury Abbey, where they were the focus of pilgrimages until the Reformation.
A nearby valley is named the Vale of Avalon.
