Marion Zimmer Bradley, author of The Mists of Avalon, does what no one before her has: tells the story of King Arthur from the female point of view. Her vivid recasting of the Arthurian saga presents an alternate look at the Arthurian timeline of events, transporting the reader to medieval Britain, spellbound by Morgaine, the selfsame called Morgan le Fay.
From Geoffrey of Monmouth to Malory, and down to modern authors of Arthurian fantasy, the male point of view prevails, and often the male Christian point of view. Mary Stewart, author of the renowned Merlin Trilogy and The Wicked Day, tells the story through Merlin. Stephen R. Lawhead, creator of The Pengdragon Cycle, narrates the story in the guise of a succession of Christian men.
Each author adds his or her creative inventions to the story, but neither goes as far as Bradley. She completely reinvents the story in the context of the old Celtic religious tradition of goddess worship.
The events that make up the Arthur legend are many, but there are a few that stand out: the identity of Merlin, the finding of Excalibur, the love between Arthur’s queen Guenivere and his beloved knight Lancelot, and the plots to remove Arthur from his throne. The part the women play in all of these events is prominent, and yet, after centuries, Bradley is the first to tell their stories as they would.
Merlin, the wise councilor, must be present as Arthur’s helper in any Arthur story. In most Arthur sagas, Merlin is a person. Stewart makes him the son of Uther’s brother, the first high king, Aurelius Ambrosius. Merlin and Arthur are royal cousins. Lawhead makes him the son of the great bard Taliesin, and Charis, princess of lost Atlantis. Merlin is Arthur’s guardian by Christ’s guidance.
Bradley depicts Merlin as a title. The Merlin of Britain is a messenger of the gods, and counsels with the Lady of Avalon. Taliesin is the Merlin, and father to Igraine who will marry Uther, after the death of her husband Gorlois, and bear Arthur. Igraine laments how different the Romanized Gorlois is from her father, who never tried to command her mother, as the Lady married no man. “These Romans made a great worrying over who lay with their women, and locked them up and spied on them.”
In all stories, the great sword Excalibur is given to Arthur from a lake. In Stewart’s version, Merlin hides the sword in a grotto, and leads Arthur to it. Lawhead insists that the sword comes from Atlantis, and Charis, Merlin’s mother, gives it to him at the lake near her own palace.
Bradley’s sword comes from the Holy Regalia of Avalon. The Lady of the Lake, Viviane, gives him Excalibur, but exacts an oath that he will uphold justice, never putting a people down because of religion or the gods they serve.
None of the authors wish to sully the realm of Camelot with an Arthur-Guenivere-Lancelot love triangle of betrayal, so each author tries to keep all three as blameless as possible. Lawhead asserts it never happened, that the story is an invention of jealous courtiers. Stewart’s Arthur looks the other way, out of love for them. The problem arises when the knights from Orkney try to ambush the two. But by the time of the ambush, they are no longer lovers; the whole affair is considered an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Bradley’s version (told by Morgaine from Guenivere’s standpoint), involves all three of them together in bed. Guenivere, racked with guilt, makes up for her sin by pushing harder for Arthur to make his court Christian. It is by her influence that Arthur abandons Avalon and later allows the Saxon leader (who also converts) to have Dragon Island, sacred to the Druids. This outrage prompts Gwydion (Mordred) to explain “he could have sent me…to protect that holy ground where was made the sacred marriage with the land…his kingship is forfeit.”
It is the motivation for plots to remove Arthur from his throne that really animate Bradley’s retelling. Morgaine’s desire to see a new king raised is out of a wish to save the lives of the hill people and their religion, both of which the Christians, who tolerate no other gods, brutally seek to stamp out. This picture is quite different from Lawhead’s depiction of how “Jesu’s holy Church…spread its sheltering branches over the land.”
In other Arthur legends, the women who practice magic are evil, and it is not their right to wield such power. Stewart’s Merlin explains to the curious Morgause (Arthur’s half-sister) that great power is not for women: “Content yourself with such magic as young maids can use.” It is this explanation that sets her down a path to eventually destroy Arthur out of jealousy and anger.
The Morgain of Lawhead’s saga tries to defeat Arthur because of his goodness, and sends her son, Medraut (Mordred), to do the job with a poisoned weapon. As most people know, Arthur is mortally wounded and taken to Avalon. Lawhead’s Avalon is Charis’ palace, which mysteriously disappears after Arthur arrives.
In Bradley’s saga, Morgaine uses her power to try to help Britain. Her stepson, Accolon, sums up how some of the people, who feel wronged by the Christians, feel. “Some of the people,” he says, “remember that Arthur, before his crowning, took oath to stand with the folk of Avalon.”
Morgaine and Arthur, in Bradley’s retelling, love each other to the end. She is with him when he dies, by the hand of their son Gwydion, who had been fostered with the ambitious Morgause (aunt to the pair). In Bradley’s telling, it is important to note that neither Morgaine nor Arthur, when Gwydion was conceived, knew of their kinship. Gwydion, too, is torn, and does not truly hate Arthur, but tries to enforce his own kingship as Druid-trained royalty of Avalon. He wants peace for Christian and pagan alike.
Arthur dies on the shores of Avalon. Morgaine takes him, buries him, and begins a solitary life in Avalon. The island retreats further into the mists of time, slowly, as the people forget the old gods.
Bradley’s retelling casts the Arthur legend in a new light. It removes the taint from the figure of Morgan le Fay and allows the reader to see, instead of an evil sorceress, a powerful priestess who wishes only to save her people and serve her gods in peace.
