The Mists of Avalon (Avalon, #1)

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I have no quarrel with the Christ, only with his priests, who call the Great Goddess a demon and deny that she ever held power in this world. At best, they say that her power was of Satan. Or else they clothe her in the blue robe of the Lady of Nazareth—who indeed had power in her way, too—and say that she was ever virgin. But what can a virgin know of the sorrows and travail of mankind?

For this is the great secret, which was known to all educated men in our day: that by what men think, we create the world around us, daily new.

“But that cannot be,” she insisted. “No single God can rule all things . . . and what of the Goddess? What of the Mother . . . ?” “They believe,” said Viviane, in her smooth low voice, “that there is no Goddess; for the principle of woman, so they say, is the principle of all evil; through woman, so they say, Evil entered this world; there is some fantastic Jewish tale about an apple and a snake.”

as the Druids know, it is the belief of mankind which shapes the world, and all of reality.

“The Christians seek to blot out all wisdom save their own; and in that strife they are banishing from this world all forms of mystery save that which will fit into their religious faith.

“But whatever it is that they believe, the views they hold are altering this world; not only in the spirit, but on the material plane. As they deny the world of the spirit, and the realms of Avalon, so those realms cease to exist for them. They still exist, of course; but not in the same world with the world of the followers of Christ.

Igraine, who had been taught in the Holy Isle that death was no more than the gateway to new birth, could not understand this; how could a Christian have such fear and trembling at going to his eternal peace? She remembered Father Columba chanting some of his doleful psalms. Yes, their God was supposed to be a God of fear and punishment as well. She could understand how a king, for the good of his people, might have to do some things which would lie heavy on his conscience. If even she could understand and forgive that, how could a merciful God be more bigoted and vengeful than the least of his mortals? She supposed it was one of their Mysteries.

They tell us, in the Holy Isle where I was reared, that death is always the gateway to new life and further wisdom, and although I did not know Ambrosius well, I like to think he is now learning, at the feet of his God, what true wisdom can be. What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?”

She felt Uther’s hand touch hers, and he said into the darkness, “Why, it is so. What is it their Apostle said—‘Now I see as in a glass, darkly, but then I shall see face to face.’ Perhaps we do not know, not even the priests, what will befall beyond death. If God is all-wise, why should we imagine he will be less merciful than men? Christ, they say, was sent to us to show God’s love, not his judgment.”

“And indeed there is little opportunity for the old and poor to sin, except to doubt God’s goodness, and if God cannot understand why we doubt that, then he is not as wise as his priests think, heh heh heh . . .

a land ruled by priests is a land filled with tyrants on Earth and in Heaven.

The older I grow, the more I become certain that it makes no difference what words we use to tell the same truths.”

she had lived unmindful,

No; it was not to be looked for that she could return to her place as chosen priestess . . . but Viviane might have pity on her and let her amend her sins against the Goddess. At the moment she felt she could be content to dwell in Avalon, even as servant or humble worker-woman in the fields. She felt like a sick child, hurrying to lay her head in her mother’s lap and weep there . . . she would send for her son and have him fostered in Avalon, among the priests, and never depart again from the way she had been taught. . . .

The prodigal daughter

Why am I cursed with this feeling for Lancelet?

I have to confess that I tire of all the frustrated love/lust business. I just want to scream "get over it, and do what you're supposed to do, you fucking child!" But I guess that's not too empathetic.

“Clearly,” said Morgaine, “I am altogether lacking in proper feelings—and I rejoice at it.”

But Gwenhwyfar had been married to a man who was handsome, and no more than her own age, and High King as well—what had she to be discontented with?

Seriously.

Is she still so jealous? Does she hate Gwenhwyfar so much? She has Lancelet, she has borne his children, she knows he is honorable, what more does she want?

Again, seriously.

In those last days, too, there were some who had seen the tree of the Holy Thorn in its first flowering for the followers of Christ, and worshipped their Christian God in peace, seeking not to drive out the beauty of the world, but loving it as God made it. In those days they came in numbers to Avalon to escape the harsh and shrivelling winds of persecution and bigotry. Patricius had set up new forms of worship, a view of the world wherein there was no room for the real beauty and mystery of the things of nature. From these Christians who came to us to escape the bigotry of their own kind I learned something, at last, of the Nazarene, the carpenter’s son who had attained Godhead in his own life and preached a rule of tolerance; and so I came to see that my quarrel was never with the Christ, but with his foolish and narrow priests who mistook their own narrowness for his.

“If he survives the quest of the Grail—or if he should abandon it—still his rule will be circled about by the priests, and through all the land there will be only one God and only one religion.” “Would that be such a tragedy, Morgaine?” Lancelet asked quietly. “All through this land, the Christian God is bringing a spiritual rebirth here—is that an evil thing, when mankind has forgotten the Mysteries?” “They have not forgotten the Mysteries,” she said, “they have found them too difficult. They want a God who will care for them, who will not demand that they struggle for enlightenment, but who will accept them just as they are, with all their sins, and take away their sins with repentance. It is not so, it will never be so, but perhaps it is the only way the unenlightened can bear to think of their Gods.” Lancelet smiled bitterly. “Perhaps a religion which demands that every man must work through lifetime after lifetime for his own salvation is too much for mankind. They want not to wait for God’s justice, but to see it now. And that is the lure which this new breed of priests has promised them.” Morgaine knew that he spoke truth, and bowed her head in anguish. “And since their view of a God is what shapes their reality, so it shall be—the Goddess was real while mankind still paid homage to her, and created her form for themselves. Now they will make for themselves the kind of God they think they want—the kind of God they deserve, perhaps.”

Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became. While the ancient Gods, the Goddess, were seen as benevolent or life-giving, so indeed had nature been to them; and when the priests had taught men to think of all nature as evil, alien, hostile, and the old Gods as demons, even so they would become, surging up from within that part of man which he now wished to sacrifice or control, instead of letting it lead him. She said, remembering at random something she had read when she had looked into the books of Uriens’ house priest in Wales, “And so all men will become even as that apostle who wrote that they should become as eunuchs for the Kingdom of God . . . I think I care not to live within that world, Lancelet.” The weary knight sighed and shook his head. “I think I care not for it either, Morgaine. Yet perhaps it will be a simpler world than ours, and it will be easier to know what is right to do.

But, hearing again that strange note in Lancelet’s voice, she bent her head and said nothing. The Goddess had given him a vision of comfort; it was not for her to destroy it with a word.

She's learning. She chose not to yuck his yum. 😉

She had sought this, she had worked for it. Arthur had forsaken the Goddess, and the Goddess had scattered his fellowship with a wind blowing from her holy place. And the final irony was this: that her holiest of visions should inspire the most passionate legend of Christian worship. Morgaine said at last, reaching out her hand to him, “Sometimes I believe, Lancelet, that it does not matter what we do. The Gods move us as they will, whatever it is that we think that we are doing. We are no more than their pawns.” “If I believed that,” said Lancelet, “I should go mad once and for all.” Morgaine smiled sadly and said, “And if I did not believe it, I should perhaps go mad. I must believe that I had no power to do other than I have done.”

Lancelet said, “And I must believe that man has the power to know the right, to choose between good and evil and know that his choice has made a difference . . .” “Oh, aye,” Morgaine said, “if he knows what good is. But does it not seem to you, cousin, that ever, in this world, evil wears the face of good? Sometimes I feel it is the Goddess who makes the wrong appear the right, and the only thing we can do—” “Why then, the Goddess would be just such a fiend as the priests say she is,” said Lancelet. “Lancelet,” she said, leaning forward to plead with him, “never blame yourself. You did what you must! Believe only that it was your fate and ordained—” “No, or I should slay myself at once, so that the Goddess could not make use of me to bring about more evil,”

The sun was high now, and as they walked down the hill toward the Sacred Well, a raven croaked once overhead. Lancelet crossed himself against the evil omen, but Morgaine looked up and said, “What did you say, sister?”

Nice little summary of the central theological conflict of the book.

Let there be, in this new world without magic, one Mystery the priests cannot describe and define once and for all, cannot put within their narrow dogma of what is and what is not . . .” Her voice broke. “In the day which is coming, the priests will tell mankind what is good and what is evil, what to think, what to pray, what to believe. I cannot see to the end—perhaps mankind must have a time of darkness so that we will one day again know what a blessing is the light. But in that darkness, Lancelet, let there be one glimmer of hope. The Grail came once to Camelot. Let the memory of that passing never be sullied by seeing it captive on some worldly altar. Leave one Mystery and one source of vision for man to follow . . .” She heard her voice go dry until it seemed like the croaking of the last of ravens.

“Now you ride to Camelot with your son,” said Morgaine quietly, “but not as I foresaw. I think the Sight is given to mock us—we see what the Gods give us to see, but we know never what it means. I think I will never use the Sight more, kinsman.” “God grant it.” Lancelet took her hands in his own for a moment; then he bent and kissed them.

For many years she had believed that the doors of magic and of the Sight were closed to her, save for such little tricks as she had mastered on her own. And then she had begun to understand, when first she had used her sorcery to discover Gwydion’s parentage, that the magical art was there, awaiting her, needing nothing but her will; having nothing to do with the complex Druidical rules and limitations about its use, or lies about the Gods. It was simply a part of life, there and accessible, nothing to do with good or evil, but available to anyone who had the will and the ruthlessness to use it. All those who pretend to religions, Morgause thought, wish only to keep the sources of power in their own hands. But now I have them freely and of my own making, without binding myself by oaths about their use or direction.

“And as for sorcery—well, there are ignorant priests and ignorant people, who are all too ready to cry sorcery if a woman is only a little wiser than they are!

“Come,” she said. “The high altar is of God and I am a little afraid here always . . . but you have not seen our chapel—the sisters’ chapel . . . come, Mother.” Morgaine followed the young girl into the small side chapel. There were flowers here, armfuls of apple blossom, before a statue of a veiled woman crowned with a halo of light; and in her arms she bore a child. Morgaine drew a shaking breath and bowed her head before the Goddess. The girl said, “Here we have the Mother of Christ, Mary the Sinless. God is so great and terrible I am always afraid before his altar, but here in the chapel of Mary, we who are her avowed virgins may come to her as our Mother, too. And look, here we have little statues of our saints, Mary who loved Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and Martha who cooked dinner for him and scolded her sister when she would not cook with her—I like to think of Jesus when he was a real man who would do something for his mother, when he changed the water into wine at that wedding, so she wouldn’t be unhappy because there wasn’t enough wine for everyone. And here is a very old statue that our bishop gave us, from his native country . . . one of their saints, her name is Brigid . . .” 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 Irelan...

“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. . . .”

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.