Modern Depictions
Modern authors of Arthurian fiction often choose to blend the character of Morgause with that of Morgan le Fay. For example, in the film Excalibur (1981), Morgause's role as the mother of Mordred is transferred to Morgana.
- Morgause is the title character of T. H. White's The Queen of Air and Darkness (1939), the second of four volumes in The Once and Future King.
- In Robert Jordan't, 'The Wheel of Time' series, Morgase is the Queen of Andor. Her daughter, Elayne, takes the throne after her apparent death. Morgase has two sons: Gawain and Galad.
- In Mary Stewart's Merlin cycle of novels, Morgause is an ambitious and resentful young princess who wants to learn magic from Merlin, who refuses her. She seduces Arthur in the hope that she can later use it against him.
- Morgawse is a central figure in the first two volumes of Gillian Bradshaw's Arthurian series Down the Long Wind. In Hawk of May she is the wife of King Lot of The Orcades, mother of Agravain, Gwalchmai, and Medraut, and a sorceress with authority over dark powers. In the sequel Kingdom of Summer, she and her husband are intriguing with King Maelgwn of Gwynedd, whom she has taken as lover.
- Marion Zimmer Bradley in her novel The Mists of Avalon made Morgause the sister of Igraine and Viviane and the aunt of Morgaine (Morgan le Fay). After Morgaine gives birth to Mordred, Morgause takes Mordred as a foster child and rears him for Morgaine. In the film adaptation, Morgause attempts to kill the child until she tricks Morgaine into revealing Mordred's parentage. She then decides to raise him as her own, thus taking on the role of mother to the infant.
- In Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's Keltiad, she appears as the evil Marguessan, attempted usurper of the Throne of Scone and twin sister to Morgan.
- Morgause, played by Emilia Fox, is one of the main antagonists in the BBC television series Merlin. She is portrayed as a Lady Macbeth-like character: a powerful sorceress, a Machiavellian mastermind and a skilled warrior with incredible loyalty for her half-sister to Morgana, whom she seeks to make Queen of Camelot.
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