This was all Lord Merlin's land. It was called Avalon and had been ruled by his father and his father's father, and every serf and slave within sight of the Tor's summit worked for Merlin. It was this land with its produce trapped and netted in the tidal creeks or grown on the rich soil of the inland river valleys that gave Merlin the wealth and freedom to be a Druid. Britain had once been the land of Druids, but the Romans had first slaughtered them, then tamed the religion so that even now, after two generations without Rome's rule, only a handful of the old priests remained. The Christians had taken their place, and Christianity now lapped around the old faith like a wind-driven high tide splashing through the demon-haunted reed-beds of Avalon.

Avalon's isle, Ynys Wydryn, was a cluster of grassy hills, all of them bare except for the Tor which was the steepest and highest. At its summit was a ridge where Merlin's hall was built, and beneath the hall was a spread of lesser buildings protected by a wooden stockade perched precariously at the top of the Tor's steep grassy slopes which were scraped into a pattern of terraces left from the Old Days before the Romans came. A narrow path followed the ancient terraces, winding its intricate way towards the peak, and those who visited the Tor in search of healing or prophecy were forced to follow that path which served to baffle the evil spirits who might otherwise come to sour Merlin's stronghold. Two other paths ran straight down the Tor's slopes, one to the east where the land bridge led to Ynys Wydryn, the other westward from the sea gate down to the settlement at the Tor's foot where fishermen, wild fowlers basket-weavers and herdsmen lived. Those paths were the everyday entrances to the Tor and Morgan kept them free of evil spirits by constant prayers and charms.