Abel Evans
Biblical Abel as he appears in the Grail narrative of Le Morte d'Arthur.
Abel Evans appears in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur within the Grail narrative, where the biblical Abel figures in the story of the tree that changed colour. Under the tree where Adam and Eve conceived Abel, the tree "was long of green colour" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XVII, Ch. V). When Cain slew Abel beneath the same tree, "it lost the green colour and became red" (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XVII, Ch. V), and the plants growing from it died with him (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XVII, Ch. V).
The six attestations in Le Morte d'Arthur cluster around a single mythological episode: the tree of knowledge and its transformation through Abel's blood. Malory weaves Abel into the Grail prehistory, connecting the fratricide to a colour-changing tree whose wood ultimately becomes part of Solomon's ship. The tree's transformation from green to red upon Abel's death marks it as a sacred object, and a lady later commissions a carpenter "to come to the tree which Abel was slain under" to incorporate its wood into a vessel of destiny (Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XVII, Ch. VI).
Appears in: Beings, Entities in Le Morte d'Arthur, Celtic Tradition