![]() Cover of the American first edition | |
Author | Marion Zimmer Bradley |
---|---|
Audio read by | Davina Porter |
Language | English |
Series | Avalon |
Genre | Historical fantasy |
Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | January 1983 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) and audio-CD |
Pages | 876 |
Award | Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (1984) |
ISBN | 0-394-52406-3 |
OCLC | 8473972 |
813/.54 19 | |
LC Class | PS3552.R228 M5 1982 |
Followed by | The Forest House |
The Mists of Avalon is a 1983 historical fantasy novel by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which the author relates the Arthurian legends from the perspective of the female characters. The book follows the trajectory of Morgaine (Morgan le Fay), a priestess fighting to save her Celtic religion in a country where Christianity threatens to destroy the pagan way of life. [1] The epic is focused on the lives of Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), Viviane, Morgause, Igraine and other women of the Arthurian legend.
The Mists of Avalon is in stark contrast to most other retellings of the Arthurian tales, which consistently cast Morgan le Fay as a distant, one-dimensional evil sorceress, with little or no explanation given for her antagonism to the Round Table. In this case, Morgaine is presented as a woman with unique gifts and responsibilities at a time of enormous political and spiritual upheaval who is called upon to defend her indigenous heritage against impossible odds.
The story is told in four large parts: "Book One: Mistress of Magic", "Book Two: The High Queen", "Book Three: The King Stag", and "Book Four: The Prisoner in the Oak". The novel was a best-seller upon its publication and remains popular to this day. Bradley and Diana L. Paxson later expanded the book into the Avalon series.
Morgaine, priestess of Avalon, is King Arthur's half-sister. Their mother, Igraine, married king Uther Pendragon after Morgaine's father, Gorlois, died in battle. Rumors spread in Avalon that, before Igraine knew of Gorlois's death, Uther consulted with Merlin, who used magic to give Uther Gorlois's appearance and, thus, gain access to Igraine at Tintagel. He had sex with her and they conceived Arthur. Morgaine witnesses Uther's accession to Caerleon's throne after his predecessor, Ambrosius, dies of old age. Uther becomes her step-father, and he and Igraine have Arthur.
When Morgaine is eleven years old and Arthur six, there is an attempt to murder Arthur. Their maternal aunt, the high priestess Viviane, arrives in Caerleon and advises Uther to have Arthur fostered far away from the court for his own safety. Uther agrees, and allows Viviane to take Morgaine to Avalon, where she is trained as a priestess of the Mother Goddess. During this period, Morgaine becomes aware of the rising tension between the old Pagan and the new Christian religions. After seven years of training, Morgaine is initiated as a priestess of the Mother, and Viviane begins grooming her as the next Lady of Avalon.
Months after her initiation, Morgaine is given in a fertility rite to the future high king of Britain. Their union is not meant to be personal, but rather a symbolic wedding between him and the land he is to defend. They have sex, and the following morning, they talk and each reveal themselves as Morgaine and Arthur. After recognizing each other, they are horrified to realize what they have done. Two months later, Morgaine is devastated to find that she is pregnant.
After Uther dies fighting the Saxon invaders, Arthur claims the throne of Britain despite questions about his legitimacy (he was conceived within days of Igraine's marriage to Uther). Since Arthur must now defend Britain against the Saxons, Viviane has Morgaine make him an enchanted scabbard that will prevent him from losing blood and gives him the sacred sword Excalibur. With the combined force of Avalon and Caerleon, Arthur repels the invaders and marries Gwenhwyfar.
As Morgaine's unborn child grows within her, so do her feelings of anger and betrayal toward Viviane, who she believes tricked her into bearing a child to Arthur. Unable to stay in Avalon any longer, she leaves for the court of her aunt Morgause, queen of Lothian, where she gives birth to her son, naming him Gwydion. Spurred by her husband Lot's ambition and her own, Morgause tricks Morgaine into allowing her to rear her son. To escape Lot's unwanted advances, Morgaine leaves Lothian and returns to Arthur's court as a lady-in-waiting to his queen, Gwenhwyfar. She does not see Gwydion again until he is grown and a Druid priest.
When Gwenhwyfar fails to produce an heir, she is convinced that God is punishing her for her sins. She considers her greatest sins to be her failure to persuade Arthur to outlaw pagan religious practice in Britain and her forbidden love for Galahad, Arthur's cousin and finest knight, also known as Lancelet. Although Lancelet reciprocates Gwenhwyfar's love, he is also Arthur's friend and an honorable man. This situation causes suffering to both Lancelet and Gwenhwyfar. Meanwhile, Morgaine also falls in love with Lancelet.
On the eve of a decisive battle against the Saxons, Gwenhwyfar prevails upon Arthur to put aside Uther's Pendragon banner and replace it with her own Christian banner. As her religious fanaticism grows, relations between Avalon and Caerleon grow strained. Still, in her desperation over her failure to carry a child to term, she asks Morgaine for help, threatening to have an extramarital affair so she can become pregnant. In an attempt to keep Gwenhwyfar from doing so, Morgaine reveals to Gwenhwyfar that Arthur already has a son, though he does not know it. Later, Arthur asks Lancelet to join him and his wife in his bed to conceive a child, stating that the child would be conceived on his bed, and to satisfy the suffering of both Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet. Lancelet at first refuses, but is finally convinced; however, no child is conceived even from this.
After the battle, Arthur moves his court to Camelot, which is more easily defended than Caerleon was. Seeking to free both Lancelet and Gwenhwyfar from the forbidden love that traps them both, Morgaine tricks Lancelet into marrying Gwenhwyfar's cousin, Elaine. Later, during a dispute with Arthur over their lack of an heir, Gwenhwyfar breaks Morgaine's confidence and tells Arthur of Gwydion. Arthur summons Morgaine and orders her to tell the truth, and she obeys. Now believing that the lack of a royal heir is God's punishment for Arthur's union, however unwitting, with Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar urges Arthur to confess the encounter to the bishop, who imposes strict penance upon him. Then she and Arthur arrange for Morgaine to marry into Wales, far from Camelot. But because of a misunderstanding, Morgaine, who thought she would be marrying the king's younger son Accolon, a Druid priest and warrior, finds herself betrothed to King Uriens of North Wales, who is old enough to be her grandfather. Arthur yearns to meet Gwydion and perhaps foster him at Camelot, but each time he brings up the subject with Gwenhwyfar, she refuses to discuss it. Meanwhile, Gwydion is taken by Viviane to Avalon.
Morgaine marries Uriens and moves to North Wales as its queen, and enjoys a good friendship with him, and his youngest son, Uwaine, whom she starts considering as her own son. Years later, she begins an affair with Accolon. The "old people" of the hills, who keep to the old pagan ways, regard Accolon and Morgaine as their king and queen. Uriens suspects nothing, but Accolon's older brother, Avalloch, begins to; he eventually tries to blackmail Morgaine into sleeping with him as well. Morgaine sends Avalloch out on a boar hunt and magically has him killed by the boar. In his grief for his eldest son and heir, Uriens abstains from pork for the rest of his life.
Gwydion, now grown, goes to the Saxon courts to learn warfare far from Arthur's eye. Impressed by his cleverness, the Saxons name him Mordred ("Evil Counsel"). Years later, at a Pentecost feast at Camelot, he introduces himself as Queen Morgaine's son and Queen Morgause's foster son, though he calls Queen Morgause "Mother" and Morgaine by her name. Because of his resemblance to Lancelet, he must often tell people that Lancelet is not his father. To earn his knighthood with no suspicion of preferential treatment, Gwydion challenges Lancelet to single combat during a tourney and they fight. Gwenhwyfar, who warmed to Gwydion in the meantime, protests and Arthur interrupts the match. Lancelet makes Gwydion a knight of the Round Table, naming him Mordred.
Morgaine tells Accolon, who is now Uriens's heir, of the sacred marriage she made with Arthur years before. She adds that they must take the kingdom back from Arthur and the Christians and bring it back under the sway of Avalon. Meanwhile, Morgaine gets pregnant and is not sure if the child is Uriens' or Accolon's, but has an abortion because she is too old to give birth safely. The attempted coup fails and Arthur kills Accolon in single combat, sending a warning to Morgaine. As Uriens recovers from the shock of losing a second son and his wife's betrayal, Morgaine leaves Wales forever and returns to Avalon.
Morgaine returns to Camelot years later, disguised, with another sister of Avalon, during the Pentecost festival. At the start of the holy rites, the Sacred Regalia of Avalon, the sword, the spear, the dish, and the cup, are presented to the church as an offering, having been stolen from Avalon. Enraged and wielding great magic, Morgaine invokes the Great Mother Goddess to retrieve them. The assembled court sees the manifestation of the Grail as a holy revelation and Morgaine as the Virgin Mary. When the knights of the Round Table leave to search for the Holy Grail, Mordred attempts to usurp the throne. The armies of Arthur and Mordred eventually fight but in the end, Mordred dies and Arthur is mortally wounded. Morgaine takes the dying Arthur through the mists to Avalon, reassuring him that he did not fail in his attempt to save Britain from the approaching dark times. Arthur dies as the shoreline comes into view. Morgaine buries him in Avalon and remains there to tell the tale of Camelot.
Marion Zimmer Bradley stated about her book:
About the time I began work on the Morgan le Fay story that later became Mists, a religious search of many years culminated in my accepting ordination in one of the Gnostic Catholic churches as a priest. Since the appearance of the novel, many women have consulted me about this, feeling that the awareness of the Goddess has expanded their own religious consciousness, and ask me if it can be reconciled with Christianity. I do feel very strongly, not only that it can, but that it must... So when women today insist on speaking of Goddess rather than God, they are simply rejecting the old man with the white beard, who commanded the Hebrews to commit genocide on the Philistines and required his worshippers daily to thank God that He had not made them women... And, I suppose, a little, the purpose of the book was to express my dismay at the way in which religion lets itself become the slave of politics and the state. (Malory's problem ... that God may not be on the side of the right, but that organized religion always professes itself to be on the side of the bigger guns.) ... I think the neo-pagan movement offers a very viable alternative for people, especially for women, who have been turned off by the abuses of Judeo-Christian organized religions. [5]
The Mists of Avalon is lauded as one of the most original and emotional retellings of the familiar Arthurian legend. Bradley received much praise for her convincing portrayal of the main protagonists, respectful handling of the Pagan ways of Avalon and for telling a story in which there is neither black and white nor good and evil, but several truths. Isaac Asimov called it "the best retelling of the Arthurian Saga I have ever read", and Jean Auel noted "I loved this book so much I went out and bought it for a friend, and have told many people about it." [6] [ better source needed ] The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls the book "a convincing revision of the Arthurian cycle," and said that the victory of Christianity over the "sane but dying paganism" of Avalon "ensures eons of repression for women and the vital principles they espouse." It won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and spent four months on the New York Times best seller list in hardcover.[ citation needed ] The trade paperback edition of Mists of Avalon has ranked among the top five trade paperbacks on the monthly Locus bestseller lists for almost four years. [7]
The Mists of Avalon was adapted for television into a TNT miniseries in 2001, directed by Uli Edel.
Bradley, along with Diana L. Paxson, later expanded the book into a series, including The Fall of Atlantis , Ancestors of Avalon , Sword of Avalon , Ravens of Avalon , The Forest House , Lady of Avalon , and Priestess of Avalon . J.S. Morgane's The Spirituality of Avalon discusses the religious aspects of the Avalon series and gives insights into a modern Western understanding of spirituality and its construction in epic fantasy fiction. [8]
Guinevere, also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in popular literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. Many records of the legend also feature the variably recounted story of her abduction and rescue as a major part of the tale.
Uther Pendragon (Brittonic), also known as King Uther, was a legendary King of the Britons and father of King Arthur.
In the Matter of Britain, Igraine is the mother of King Arthur. Igraine is also known in Latin as Igerna, in Welsh as Eigr, in French as Ygraine, in Le Morte d'Arthur as Ygrayne—often modernised as Igraine or Igreine—and in Parzival as Arnive. She becomes the wife of Uther Pendragon, after the death of her first husband, Gorlois.
The Lady of the Lake is a name or a title used by several either mermaid or mermaid-like but human enchantresses in the Matter of Britain, the body of medieval literature and mythology associated with the legend of King Arthur. She plays several important roles in many stories, including providing Arthur with the sword Excalibur, eliminating Merlin, raising Lancelot after the death of his father, and helping to take the dying Arthur to Avalon. Different sorceresses known as the Lady of the Lake appear concurrently as separate characters in some versions of the legend since at least the Post-Vulgate Cycle and consequently the seminal Le Morte d'Arthur, with the latter describing them as a hierarchical group, while some texts also give this title to either Morgan or her sister.
Morgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgan[n]a, Morgain[a/e], Morg[a]ne, Morgant[e], Morge[i]n, and Morgue[in] among other names and spellings, is a powerful and ambiguous enchantress from the legend of King Arthur, in which most often she and he are siblings. Early appearances of Morgan in Arthurian literature do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a goddess, a fay, a witch, or a sorceress, generally benevolent and connected to Arthur as his magical saviour and protector. Her prominence increased as the legend of Arthur developed over time, as did her moral ambivalence, and in some texts there is an evolutionary transformation of her to an antagonist, particularly as portrayed in cyclical prose such as the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle. A significant aspect in many of Morgan's medieval and later iterations is the unpredictable duality of her nature, with potential for both good and evil.
Morgause is a popular variant of the figure of the Queen of Orkney, an Arthurian legend character also known by various other names and appearing in different forms of her archetype. She is notably the mother of Gawain and often also of Mordred, both key players in the story of her brother King Arthur and his downfall. Her other children may include Agravain, Gareth and Gaheris.
King Lot, also spelled Loth or Lott, is a British monarch in Arthurian legend. He was introduced in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae as King Arthur's brother-in-law, who serves as regent of Britain between the reigns of Uther Pendragon and Arthur. He has appeared regularly in works of chivalric romance, alternating between the roles of Arthur's enemy and ally, and is often depicted as the ruler of Lothian and either Norway or Orkney. His literary character is probably derived from hagiographical material concerning Saint Kentigern, which features Leudonus as king of Leudonia and father of Saint Teneu.
Elaine is a name shared by several female characters in Arthurian legend, where they can also appear under different names depending on the source. They include Elaine of Astolat and Elaine of Corbenic among others.
In Arthurian legend, Gorlois of Tintagel was the Duke of Cornwall. He was the first husband of King Arthur's mother Igraine and the father of her daughters, Arthur's half-sisters. Her second husband was Uther Pendragon, the High King of Britain and Arthur's father, who marries her after killing him.
Morgaine le Fey is a supervillainess appearing in DC Comics, based on Morgan le Fay, the mythical sorceress and half-sister of King Arthur. She debuted in The Demon #1, and was created by Jack Kirby.
Merlin is a 1998 two-part television miniseries starring Sam Neill as Merlin, recounting the wizard's life in the mythic history of Britain. Loosely adapted from the legendary tales of Camelot, the plot adds the antagonistic Queen Mab and expands Merlin's backstory before the birth of King Arthur.
Lady of Avalon is a 1997 historical fantasy novel by American writers Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson. It is the sequel to The Forest House and the prequel to The Mists of Avalon.
The Forest House is a fantasy novel by American writers Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson, though the latter is uncredited by the publisher. It is a prequel to Bradley's Arthurian novel The Mists of Avalon.
Accolon is a character in Arthurian legends where he is a lover of Morgan le Fay who is killed by King Arthur in a duel during the plot involving the sword Excalibur. He appears in Arthurian prose romances since the Post-Vulgate Cycle, including as Accalon in the French original Huth Merlin and Acalón in the Spanish adaptation El Baladro del Sabe Merlin.
In Arthurian legend, Ywain, also known as Yvain and Owain among other spellings, is a Knight of the Round Table. Tradition often portrays him as the son of King Urien of Gorre and of either the enchantress Modron or the sorceress Morgan le Fay. The historical Owain mab Urien, the basis of the literary character, ruled as the king of Rheged in Britain during the late-6th century.
The Mists of Avalon is a 2001 television miniseries based on the 1983 novel of the same title by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Produced by American cable channel TNT, adapted by Gavin Scott, and directed by Uli Edel, the series retells Arthurian legend from the perspectives of Morgan le Fay and other women of the tale. The first episode was the highest-rated original movie on basic cable in the summer of 2001.
The Avalon Series is a series of fantasy novels written by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson. Paxson took over sole authorship after Bradley's death in 1999. The series focuses on the legendary island of Avalon and the various women who have shaped its history and that of Britain.
King Arthur's family grew throughout the centuries with King Arthur's legend. Many of the legendary members of this mythical king's family became leading characters of mythical tales in their own right.
Daughter of Tintagel is a series of historical fantasy novels by British writer Fay Sampson. It tells the story of the life of Arthurian legend character Morgan le Fay, presented through an oral history narrative from her early childhood to her disappearance. It was originally published as five books between 1989 and 1992, followed by an omnibus edition in 1992. The series was re-published in 2005 as Morgan le Fay.