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Fata Morgana
Fata Morgana, sister of Arthur and pupil of Merlin. She lived at the bottom of a lake, and dispensed her treasures to whom she willed. This fairy is introduced by Bojardo in his Orlando Innamorato, first as “lady Fortune,” and afterwards as an enchantress. In Tasso her three daughters (Morganetta, Nivetta, and Carvilia) are introduced.
“Fata Morgana” is the name given to a sort of mirage occasionally seen in the straits of Messina.
"Mirage is at once common enough and rare enough on our coasts to give rise to such a legend, and it must have been some such phenomenon as the "Fata Morgana" of Sicily which has made sober men swear so confidently to ocular evidence of the Celtic Paradise, whether seen from the farthest western coasts of Gaelic Ireland or Scotland, or of British Wales." Celtic Myth and Legend Poetry and Romance by Charles Squire
Fata Morgana by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O sweet illusions of Song,
That tempt me everywhere,
In the lonely fields, and the throng
Of the crowded thoroughfare!
I approach, and ye vanish away,
I grasp you, and ye are gone;
But ever by nigh an day,
The melody soundeth on.
As the weary traveller sees
In desert or prairie vast,
Blue lakes, overhung with trees,
That a pleasant shadow cast;
Fair towns with turrets high,
And shining roofs of gold,
That vanish as he draws nigh,
Like mists together rolled,--
So I wander and wander along,
And forever before me gleams
The shining city of song,
In the beautiful land of dreams.
But when I would enter the gate
Of that golden atmosphere,
It is gone, and I wander and wait
For the vision to reappear.
