“From Mythology of the Celts
by F. X. Robinson
(Hale, 1902) AVALON, the idyllic “Island of Apples” where King Arthur was taken after receiving his fatal wound, is that same Land of Youth, always located on an island on the western horizon, to which Celtic heroes were summoned to dwell in eternity. Bran, as we have seen already, was beckoned by a beautiful woman bearing an apple-branch silver-white with blossom to Emain, described as an island in the west where apple trees are perpetually in flower and fruit at the same time. The connection between apples and immortality is of course very ancient, and found throughout Europe. In Scandinavian legend, the gods owed their eternal youth to a diet of magic apples, guarded by Idun, the goddess of Spring and renewal. The Greeks, too, had their magical apples of the Hesperides—those Western Isles again. From Ireland comes the tale of how Cu Roi hid his soul in an apple, that he might not be slain in battle, only to be destroyed when Cu Chulain split the fruit with his mighty sword. For a suggestion of why this should be, we have only to look at the language of symbolism and its reflection in the natural world. When an apple is halved crosswise, each half reveals the image of a five-pointed star. This, of course, is one of the most ancient and universally recognized emblems of immortality; a sacred sign, like the apple itself, of the Great Goddess and her supernatural realm.”