Morgaine looked on the statue of Brigid, and she could feel the power coming from it in great waves that permeated the chapel. She bowed her head.
But Brigid is not a Christian saint, she thought, even if Patricius thinks so. That is the Goddess as she is worshipped in Ireland. And I know it, and even if they think otherwise, these women know the power of the Immortal. Exile her as they may, she will prevail. The Goddess will never withdraw herself from mankind.
And Morgaine bowed her head and whispered the first sincere prayer she had ever spoken in any Christian church.
“Why, look,” said the novice, as she brought her out of doors into the daylight, “we have one of the Holy Thorn here too, not the one you planted on your kinswoman’s grave.”
And I thought I could meddle in this? Morgaine thought. Surely, the holy thing had brought itself from Avalon, moving, as the hallows were withdrawn from Avalon, into the world of men where it was most needed. It would remain hidden in Avalon, but it would be shown here in the world as well. “Yes, you have the Holy Thorn, and in days to come, as long as this land shall last, every queen shall be given the Holy Thorn at Christmas, in token of her who is queen in Heaven as in Avalon.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Mother, but thank you for your blessing,” said the young novice. “The abbess is awaiting you in the guesthouse—she will take breakfast with you. But would you like, perhaps, to stay in the Lady’s chapel first and pray awhile? Sometimes when you are alone with the Holy Mother, she can make things clear to you.”
Morgaine nodded, unable to speak, and the girl said, “Very well. When you are ready, just come to the guesthouse.” She pointed, and Morgaine went back into the chapel and bowed her head, and giving way at last, sank to her knees.
“Mother,” she whispered, “forgive me. I thought I must do what I now see you can do for yourself. The Goddess is within us, yes, but now I know that you are in the world too, now and always, just as you are in Avalon and in the hearts of all men and women. Be in me too now, and guide me, and tell me when I need only let you do your will. . . .”
She was silent, kneeling, for a long time, her head bowed, but then, as if compelled, she looked up, and as she had seen it on the altar of the ancient Christian brotherhood in Avalon, as she had seen it when she bore it in Arthur’s hall, she saw a light on the altar, and in the Lady’s hands—and the shadow, only the shadow, of a chalice . . .
It is in Avalon, but it is here. It is everywhere. And those who have need of a sign in this world will see it always.
There was a sweet scent that did not come from the flowers; and for an instant it seemed to Morgaine that it was Igraine’s voice that whispered to her . . . but she could not hear the words . . . and Igraine’s hands that touched her head. As she rose, blinded by tears, suddenly it rushed over her, like a great light.
No, we did not fail. What I said to comfort Arthur in his dying, it was all true. I did the Mother’s work in Avalon until at last those who came after us might bring her into this world. I did not fail. I did what she had given me to do. It was not she but I in my pride who thought I should have done more.
Outside the chapel, sunlight lay on the land, and there was a fresh scent of spring in the air. Where the apple trees moved in the morning breeze, she could see the blossoms that would bear fruit in their season.
She turned her face toward the guesthouse. Should she go there and breakfast with the nuns, speak perhaps of the old days at Camelot? Morgaine smiled gently. No. She was filled with the same tenderness for them as for the budding apple trees, but that time was past. She turned her back on the convent and walked down to the Lake, along the old path by the shore. Here was a place where the veil lying between the worlds was thin. She needed no longer to summon the barge—she need only step through the mists here, and be in Avalon.
Her work was done.
About the Author
Marion Zimmer Bradley began her distinguished book publishing career in 1961 with her first novel, The Door Through Space. The following year she wrote the first book in her hugely popular Darkover series, Sword of Aldones, which soon became a Hugo Award nominee. Bradley’s novel The Forbidden Tower was also nominated for a Hugo, and The Heritage of Hastur was nominated for an esteemed Nebula Award.
The Mists of Avalon was the single most successful novel of Bradley’s career. It won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and has been among the top five trade paperback books on Locus’s bestseller list for years.
Ms. Bradley died in 1999.
By Marion Zimmer Bradley:
The Catch Trap*
The Firebrand
avalon series:
The Mists of Avalon*
The Forest House
The Lady of Avalon
darkover novels:
Planet Savers
Stormqueen
Sword of Aldones
Bloody Sun
The Bloody Sun
Two to Conquer
Star of Danger
Sharra’s Exile
Winds of Darkover
Hawkmistress
World Wreckers
Thendara House
Darkover Landfall
City of Sorcery
The Spell Sword
Heirs of Hammerfell
Heritage of Hastur
Rediscovery
Shattered Chain
Exile’s Song
Forbidden Tower
Shadow Matrix
Traitor’s Sun
non-darkover science fiction:
The Door Through Space
The Ruins of Isis
Seven from the Stars
Survey Ship
The Dark Intruder and Other Stories
Warrior Woman
Falcons of Narabedla
The Endless Voyage
The Brass Dragon
The Endless Universe
Colors of Space
Hunters of the Red Moon
The Survivors
fantasy:
Night’s Daughter*
Drums of Darkness*
Lady of the Trillium*
House Between the Worlds*
The Inheritor
* Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
About Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a division of Random House Inc., the world's largest English-language general trade book publisher. Its imprints include Ballantine, Del Rey, Del Rey/LucasBooks, Fawcett, Ivy, One World, and Wellspring. Founded in 1952, Ballantine Books has developed a backlist of more than 3,500 titles-many of which have been New York Times Notable Books, national and international bestsellers, and winners of regional and National Book Critics Circle Awards.
About This Title
In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s masterpiece, we see the tumult and adventures of Camelot’s court through the eyes of the women who bolstered the king’s rise and schemed for his fall. From their childhoods through the ultimate fulfillment of their destinies, we follow these women and the diverse cast of characters that surrounds them as the great Arthurian epic unfolds stunningly before us. As Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar struggle for control over the fate of Arthur’s kingdom, as the Knights of the Round Table take on their infamous quest, as Merlin and Viviane wield their magics for the future of Old Britain, the Isle of Avalon slips further into the impenetrable mists of memory, until the fissure between old and new worlds-and old and new religions-claims its most famous victim.
The Mists of Avalon
Marion Zimmer Bradley
A Reader’s Guide
A Letter from Diana L. Paxson
Marion Zimmer Bradley died on September 25, 1999. During the week after her passing, my in-box filled to overflowing with messages from people who mourned her. They came from women and men, science fiction fans and pagans, Anachronists and people from all of the many other communities who appreciated her many novels; but above all, they came from readers who loved The Mists of Avalon.
Marion read my first attempt at a novel, and read it again after I followed her advice and rewrote it. We worked together as priestesses in the Women’s Spirituality movement and founded Darkmoon Circle, which is still going strong today. Once I had become established as a writer, we traded ideas and manuscripts. When she wanted to do an anthology of work by people associated with our extended family and virtual writer’s colony, she named it after my house, Greyhaven.
But when Marion first announced her intention to do an Arthurian novel I was skeptical. Surely, after T. H. White and Rosemary Sutcliffe’s modern treatments of the story, there was nothing left to be said. Nonetheless, she knew that I had specialized in medieval literature in graduate school, and when she came to me for resources, I was glad to give what help I could. Not that she needed much, for she had been steeped in the Arthurian tradition since childhood.
I read the first chapters of what became The Mists of Avalon with a mounting excitement, for Marion had, indeed, found a new approach to the legend, one with particular relevance to the culture of the day. But I should not have been surprised—one of Marion’s great gifts as a writer was to say something, at just the right time, that some group of people very much needed to hear. This time, it was an exploration of the role of the women in the legend of King Arthur—and in her hands, it became a deeply evocative story of women’s struggles to survive in a masculine world.
In particular, it was a story of a woman’s spiritual quest. The spirituality of Avalon derives from the British Mystery tradition, especially as it was interpreted by the occult writer Dion Fortune, whose character, Miss LeFay Morgan, is both a progenitor and descendant of Morgaine. In addition, Marion drew upon Dion Fortune’s nonfiction book, Avalon of the Heart. For a time, Dion Fortune lived in Glastonbury, home of the Glastonbury Tor and still a sacred center of pilgrimage for many.
Although Marion traveled to the British Isles several times to visit Arthurian sites and do research, she realized early on that in order to be true to her vision she would have to abandon history, and instead, tell the truth of legend. The brilliant device of placing Avalon halfway between our world and Faerie allowed her to adorn it with structures and a society unknown to archaeology.
The Arthurian legend holds a unique place in the literature of the English language and seems to be capable of infinite reinterpretations. My own version, Hallowed Isle, is more faithful to history, but The Mists of Avalon casts a long shadow, which I avoided only by placing my priestesses in the Lake Country in the north of England!
For years after Mists was published, women continued to come to Darkmoon Circle looking for the College of Priestesses on Avalon. They were not misled, for the quality of interaction among the women, as well as much of the spirituality, reflects the atmosphere in the circle. It was a time of great excitement, as we realized that it was possible to create a religious practice that would meet our needs, and that the Goddess, far from being confined to ancient mythology, was alive, well, and eager to communicate. What Marion was describing in the new book—which she had originally wanted to call Mistress of Magic—was what we were experiencing every time we came together.
But no one expected what happened when The Mists of Avalon was published. Some of its success was no doubt due to the editorial and promotional genius of Judy Lynn Benjamin Del Rey, who got the book reviewed in the New York Times. But the rest has to be put down to Marion’s ability to resonate with the zeitgeist. Glowing reviews certainly helped, but what made the book a bestseller was word-of-mouth publicity, and that’s what keeps it selling today. People bought and read and loved it, then bought copies for their friends. Suddenly Marion found herself world-famous.
This was not what she had expected, especially when people began to phone her in the middle of the night wanting spiritual counsel. Morgaine herself could not have fulfilled all the expectations being laid upon the author of The Mists of Avalon. Marion continued to write, but she began to withdraw from public life.
Her health was also beginning to fail. To the heart trouble from which she had suffered for many years was added diabetes, and then a series of strokes. She managed to complete the first draft of The Forest House, a story based on the opera Norma that she had wanted to tell for many years, but it showed the effects of her illness, and she asked me to help her revise it. We were both pleased with the result, even though there was not much we could do to make Gaius nicer—his character, after all, is based on the opera’s tenor role.
As I discussed the book with Marion, I came to understand the place of the Avalon mythos in her work much more clearly. Not only were the characters in Forest House ancestral to the later people of Avalon, but Marion considered several of them to be reincarnations of the major characters in her early occult novel, which was eventually published as The Fall of Atlantis. That suggested a further development of the mythos, and we proposed a new project, Lady of Avalon, which takes the characters through three incarnations: the first section is a continuation of the story line in The Forest House, while the third tells of the youth of Viviane and helps explain how she got that way. Our last collaboration, Priestess of Avalon, surrounds the middle section of the previous book with the story of Helena the mother of Constantine. In Priestess of Avalon, I have taken the opportunity to try and show not only Helena’s spiritual quest, but Marion’s religious position, which was that of a student of the Mysteries who could find truth and inspiration in both Christianity and paganism. The vision at the end of Mists in which the Goddess takes the form of the Virgin Mary expresses a truth beyond dogma.
—Diana L. Paxson
March 26, 2001
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. The Mists of Avalon revolves around a number of dualities: male/ female, Christianity/Druidism, duty/desire. How are these duali- ties represented in the book? Can you think of others that were presented?
2. How does the book strive to challenge common stereotypes? How does it reinforce them?
3. Is Gwenhwyfar a sympathetic character? In your opinion, does Marion Zimmer Bradley treat physical beauty in a positive, negative, or neutral manner? Explain.
4. How responsible is Arthur for allowing the spread of Christianity and ultimate disappearance of Avalon? Was he simply being an honorable husband to Gwenhwyfar? Did you find the Arthur, Lancelet, Gwenhwyfar tryst disturbing? Although Arthur was an indisputably potent leader, can he, in the end, be deemed an effective one?
5. It seemed in several instances that Morgaine disappeared when she was most needed. Was she ultimately successful in represent- ing the Goddess? Would you say that she was a victim to her fate or that she ultimately rose to meet it? What parallels can you draw between Morgaine’s life and Igraine’s? Between Morgaine and Viviane?
6. The Merlin seems to play an ambiguous role in the story. Do you agree with this statement? In your opinion, was he motivated more by his faith, or by pride and ambition?
7. Throughout history, did the spread of Christianity really lead to a diminishing of tolerance? Does the Goddess have a place in today’s world? Do you think that Christianity ever held woman as the principal of evil?
8. What symbolism, if any, would you apply to the dragon slain by Lancelet? What is the symbolism behind Excalibur? The Grail? The Holy Thorn?
9. At the end of Mists, did you feel that the Goddess had truly been absorbed into Christianity?
10. How has Mists changed your perception or understanding of the Arthurian legend? How has it changed your perception of women’s roles in the making (and telling) of history?
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