In the book and movie The Neverending Story, Morla is the name of the ancient turtle that is the first person Atreyu must visit in his quest to save Fantasia.

Atreyu knows that the turtle, which is said to be the oldest and wisest of beings, lives on Turtle Shell Mountain in the Swamps of Sadness. When Atreyu reaches there and tries to awaken the turtle, he learns that the turtle actually is the mountain, and that he (or she?) has been sleeping in one place for so long that its shell has become a stationary mountain covered with vegetation.

Although Morla is indeed wise and ancient, he is also a little insane and full of apathy to the world. He prefaces all his sentences with "not that it matters... ". Morla only reveals the next stage in Atreyu's quest, the Southern Oracle, because Atreyu makes him sneeze, and he wishes to stop being disturbed.

The character of Morla resembles many other hidden turtle sages from art, such as the Turtle in Steven King's It, Gamera and Ghido\Guido from Final Fantasy V, as well as the Japanese god of wisdom, Fukurokuzyu.

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