When Morgaine finally does try to return to Avalon, she fails, and ends up instead in faerie, where she spends several years before returning to Arthur’s court at Camelot. Gwenhwyfar is married to Arthur, but falls in love with Lancelet and he with her. Horrified to find she is with child, she quarrels with Viviane, whose machinations got her into this situation, and runs away from Avalon.īook Two, “The High Queen” tells how Morgaine bears her child and leaves him to be raised by her aunt, Queen Morgause of Orkney. When King Uther dies, Viviane arranges for Morgaine to act as priestess to the hero acclaimed by Avalon as sacred king at the rite of the Running of the Deer, and it is not until they have slept together that she realizes he is her little half-brother, Arthur. She meets, and falls in love with the young Lancelet, but he has no interest in her. Viviane, brings Igraine’s daughter Morgaine to Avalon to be trained as a priestess there. In Book One, “Mistress of Magic” we learn how the Merlin arranges for King Uther to beget Arthur on Igraine, sister of Viviane, who is the high priestess of Avalon. But for anyone who has not already read it, here is a summary.
Mists of Avalon has now been in print for more than twenty-five years. She provides commentary and transitions, and the events of her life are the framework for the story, which is told in four parts. The major character is Arthur’s half-sister Morgaine, heir through their mother to the line of priestesses who rule the holy isle of Avalon. What Marion Zimmer Bradley did in The Mists of Avalon was to provide a new perspective on its meaning by telling the story from the point of view of the women in the story. The story of King Arthur is one of the great literary cycles of the Western world, with versions in every language, written in every period since the Middle Ages.
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