"And the thryd sister, Morgan le Fey, was put to scole in a nonnery, and ther she lerned so moche that she was a grete clerke of nygromancye." (5.44-6.2)

In this excerpt from Le Morte D'Arthur, the narrator gives us a bit of background about one of the favorite villains of Arthurian Literature: Morgan le Fay. She's typically presented as a powerful enchantress that has it out for Arthur and his knights—especially Lancelot. Watch out, boys, there's a bad girl in town.

Are You a Good Witch, or a Bad Witch?

Medieval romances often involve the supernatural. And magic. They're fun like that.

In Arthurian legends, these elements either take the form of good magic (like the Lady of the Lake) or bad magic (Morgan le Fay). But isn't there any grey-and-complicated-magic in these tales, you ask?

Yes. Arthurian spells and such aren't always cut and dried. For example, the Lady of the Lake in Le Morte D'Arthur asks a steep price for giving Arthur Excalibur. But Morgan shows up at the end to escort her brother to the island of Avalon.

Really, magic is more of a muddled morass than a black-and-white affair. And this quotation sure shows it. We suspect right off the bat that Morgan is more than a mere human. The "le Fey" in her name means "The Fairy," so she's connected to the Celtic fairy underworld and the supernatural in that way.

How she develops her magical ability is truly puzzling, however. She goes to "scole in a nonnery," where she becomes "a grete clerke of nygromancye." Wait...what? Doesn't the Church sort of frown on the whole sorcery thing?

It certainly does. So let us explain what we think Malory is doing here: handling that old supernatural theme in a fresh way. You see, Malory was quite uncomfortable with all that magic stuff that's prototypical of the French Arthurian romance novel, so he tried to minimize it as much as possible in his version of the story.

Morgan's choice to not go into how Le Fey picked up her mad sorcery skillz, and instead giving us a throwaway line about learning it in a nunnery, is a deliberate choice. Malory's giving a nod to the common trappings of the supernatural in his text, but he's letting us know he doesn't necessarily want to go there.

Thanks for the reality check, Malory. Well. Aside from the whole larger-than-life aspect of the legend of Arthur and his knights of the roundtable, anyway.

A Para-what's-it?

We're pretty sure Sorcery 101 wasn't on the curriculum at most medieval nunneries in England. In fact, we're almost positive that any witches would be made into bridges in short order for practicing their craft.

But did you notice how the connection between the nunnery and Morgan's witchcraft isn't really highlighted in this passage? Instead, it's all kept fairly up-in-the-air. One short and simple word accomplishes this questionable linkage between the nunnery and Morgan's sorcery: "and."

Malory doesn't tell us outright that Morgan learned her magic "because" she was in the nunnery, or "as a consequence" of studying there. No phrases indicating causation or other potential logical relationships appear in this passage.

So, yeah, we guess she learned sorcery while she was at the nunnery. But we don't know who taught it to her, or if she taught herself, or how she learned all that sketchy awesomeness. Now just fuhgeddaboutit.

This literary technique that Malory employs in order to keep hidden the logical relationships between Le Fey's magic skills and the nunnery is called "parataxis" (or "paratactic style," if you prefer adjectives). When authors use this technique, their sentences and clauses are put together through coordination. That means that the different elements of each sentence hold equal meaning, and likely have similar importance to the story.

Malory's totally into this parataxis technique—he uses it all over the place in his writing. And this element of his writing style prods us readers to think about the causal connections, or lack thereof, between the different bits of information he reveals to us.

Where do you see Malory using parataxis to squirm out of placing blame on one character or event or another? Or to avoid explaining the "why" of things? Sharpen those brains on those questions, Shmoopers. You might even enjoy yourselves.