An apple found nowhere else in the world has been discovered growing on a Welsh holy island. The variety of apple – believed to date back to the 13th Century when it was grown by monks – was spotted on remote Bardsey Island.
Wales displays two prominent peninsulas: Llyn in the North and Pembroke in the South. Between them is the broad sweep of Cardigan Bay. Two miles out to sea off the tip of the Llyn Peninsula lies Bardsey Island (Welsh name Ynys Enlli).
Bardsey Island has long been associated with religious activity. Pre-Roman Celts visited the island to pray and often to die on this most western isle as they followed the setting sun. During early Christian times Bardsey Island was a place of pilgrimage. There is a pilgrim’s route along the North Wales coast with a string of churches built along the way. Indeed three trips to Bardsey was considered equal to a pilgrimage to Rome. Anybody buried on Bardsey was guaranteed eternal salvation.
Dr Joan Morgan – one of the world’s leading experts on apples – said the apple was the only one of its variety in the world.
Bardsey Island has the World’s most Unique Apple
She said:
“The apples were boldly striped in pink over cream, ribbed and crowned. We could not put a name to it – and who would wish it to be anything other than the Bardsey Apple?”
Brogdale is the home of the national fruit collection with more than 2,000 different varieties from all over the world. The Bardsey apple has now been added to the collection.
“I didn’t realise the significance of the find until I took it to Brogdale. Dr Joan Morgan said it is the rarest apple tree in the world.”
It is thought monks who lived on the island from the 13th Century might have cultivated the tree for food.
The apple also appears to be completely disease-resistant, which is unique for fruit trees in north Wales.
The Island of Apples in Celtic Myth
In Arthurian legend, first appearing in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regnum Britanniae (1136), the island of Avalon, from the Welsh Ynys Afallon (literally, Island of Apples) was said to be the place where King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur was forged and later where Arthur was taken to recover after the battle of Camlann.
In his later work (1150), Vita Merlini – the Life of Merlin – Geoffrey tells us that Morgan le Fay is one of nine sisters who live on Avalon and that:
The island of apples which men call “The Fortunate Isle” gets its name from the fact that it produces all things of itself; the fields there have no need of the ploughs of the farmers and all cultivation is lacking except what nature provides. Of its own accord it produces grain and grapes, and apple trees grow in its woods from the close-clipped grass. The ground of its own accord produces everything instead of merely grass, and people live there a hundred years or more. There nine sisters rule by a pleasing set of laws those who come to them from our country.
Fertility, agriculture and, in particular, Apples and the women who guarded them were essential ingredients to this mystical, otherworldly island. All of which make it an ideal possibility for the real-world location of Avalon.
The Islands in the West
In the earliest surviving Celtic myths, which are perhaps those of Ireland, we hear of the Otherworld being located on Islands to the West and is it not unreasonable for the Welsh tribes to have similar traditions. Tir na nÓg – the Land of the Young – and Tir na mBan – the Land of Women – are among the most famous. We often hear that in the Otherworld (on these Islands) time passes without relation to the time passing in the outside world and that there is neither age nor decay. The immunity of the Bardsey Apple to disease may be one of the links to this ancient myth-memory.
Emain Ablach – the Island Paradise
Emain Ablach means Emain of the Apples and is said to be a mythical island paradise. It is known as the kingdom of Manannán mac Lir – the Irish sea god. A poem in the Book of Fermoy places Emain Ablach in the Isle of Man and calls it
“Emain of the sweet apples, the Tara — elevated place of guileless Manannan.”
So this is just one example that indicates this mystical island of apples, our Avalon, may have more than one possible location. So whether or not Bardsey Island or Ynys Enlli is the site of old Avalon, or whether it lies by the ancient Glastonbury as many suggest, a trip to Bardsey Island is definitely on the cards!
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The post Is Bardsey Island the mystical Island of Avalon? appeared first on Celtic Myth Podshow News.