In T. H. White’s novel The Once and Future King, Morgan le Fay is the sole monarch of the fairies. Most people assume that fairies are tiny, delicate, beautiful, and kind young women who flutter around forests and live in flowers. While this depiction is not completely false, Morgan le Fay disproves this assumption. She is a true fairy; mischievous, even murderous. In fact, she contradicts and broadens our preconceived notions of fairies with her wicked lifestyle. Morgan le Fay’s strength lies in her independence from societal expectations of women in her day.

In Book One of T. H. White’s text, Morgan le Fay lives in a castle and rests on her royal bed of lard. Outside of her castle lives a griffin, a beast with the head of a falcon, the body of a lion, and the tail of a snake. Its purpose is to protect the fairies by scaring off any threat.

As nature would have it, Morgan le Fay would have been eaten by the griffin since she is smaller and physically weak, yet she is able to manipulate this law of nature in her favor by gaining complete control of the griffin through her ability to cast malicious spells. This ability is her greatest strength in comparison to the other fairies. It is this strength that gives her the implied role as the queen of the fairies.

Just as her strength gives her power, the strength of a knight earns him possession of power. Knights are supposed to be stronger and smarter than the fairies, yet Morgan le Fay has defied this law of nature as well. Through trickery she is able to make the knights do whatever she wants them to do.

What is also interesting is that her behavior correlates so well with the behaviors of most of the knights. The grudge held between the fairies and humans is quite similar to that of the knights who constantly fight each other over grudges that are hundreds of years old. She loves tormenting the knights for no reason at all, just as the knights like to torment other knights for no real legitimate reason.

Just as Lancelot is tricked into sleeping with Elaine by her father, Morgan le Fay holds people as prisoners in her castle made of appetizing foods such as cheese, butter, and meat to lure children in only to entrap and imprison them. Though Morgan le Fay is a minor character in T. H. White’s text, her traits and eerie actions that correlate those of humans can certainly not be forgotten easily.