The Valley of No Return

Morgan le Fay, half-sister of King Arthur, was a fairy of dark arts and boundless pride. She loved the young knight Guyomart of Carmélide, and he had sworn his oath to her. But Queen Guinevere, fearing that the sorceress would cast a stain on the court, advised the knight not to continue his love. Guyomart heeded her words and turned Morgan away.

The fairy felt the pain of betrayal like a flame in her heart. She had learned the magical arts from Merlin the wizard, and from the depths of her resentment a terrible plan ripened. No man would ever again deceive a woman with impunity — not while Morgan dwelled in the forest of Brocéliande.

In a remote rocky valley of Brocéliande, surrounded by steep red cliffs and dark pools, Morgan spoke her most powerful incantations. She sealed the valley with a wall of fire, air and water, invisible to those who entered but implacable to those who wished to leave. Only one rule applied: only a knight who had never, not even in thought, been unfaithful to his lady could leave the valley again. All others were held there forever.

Hundreds of knights lost their way in the Val sans Retour. Some turned to stone, others went mad in a valley full of seductive phantoms that made them break the oaths they had sworn at home. For seventeen years the fairy delivered the best men of Britain to her vengeance.

Then Lancelot du Lac rode through the forest — Lancelot, the foremost knight of the Round Table, secretly in love with Queen Guinevere yet never unfaithful to her, not even in thought. He heard of the Val sans Retour and did not hesitate for a moment. He entered the valley, broke through the wall of enchantment, and freed two hundred and fifty-three imprisoned knights who had wandered for years in the shadow world.

Morgan le Fay fled to distant lands. Since Lancelot’s deed the valley is sometimes also called the Val Retrouvé — the Recovered Valley. Yet for those unfaithful at heart, the old enchantments still work. So even today walkers in Tréhorenteuc tell that suddenly the wind in the valley grows cold and the trees seem to whisper in a language not of men.