The Mists of Avalon is a novel of 875 pages, written by Marion Zimmer
Bradley and published in 1982.  As a text, it follows La Morte Darthur’s story
very closely in all things except its narrative perspective, which is largely
female.  Because of this, and its flowery style, it was branded early on as a
feminist text with little value as an interpretation of the Arthurian legend, and
its audience was limited to young women.
   Beyond initial reactions to the text, Mists began to show its universality.  Pertaining not only to feminists values, but to modern issues such as homosexuality and goddess worship.  Mists was released when the
Wiccan religion was reabsorbing the ancient celtic beliefs of Arthur's time,
and using them to form a new religion which embraces the female and
environmental values that are common in our modern culture. 
   Bradley manages to portray the Christian religion in a suitably negative manner for her purposes, without resorting to the full fledged Christian bashing that is relatively common in other pagan literature.  Just as Mallory used La Morte Darthur to portray a romantic society that served as a Chivalric role model for the English gentleman, Bradley is using Mists to portray a romantic goddess worshiping religion which accepts rich, poor, wise, naive, homosexual, married, and unmarried with the same wide open arms.  In the meantime, she paints a picture of christianity that is sterile, guilt-based, and entrapping (especially for women).  This is the real goal of Bradley's narration, to introduce the reader to the celtic religion in the most positive manner possible.

Prologue -- You may want to check out the complete version of this.  Which I
painstakingly typed into digital format.  It is a great piece of prose!  Morgaine (the narrator of the novel) introduces herself here, and outlines her life and religion without giving away to much of the story.  I love Bradley’s treatment of the Christian religion, and I get the idea that we are hearing very close to her own thoughts in the voice of Morgaine.

Book One
Mistress of Magic

    The opening scene is huge in proportion, setting itself in the castle Titagel, overlooking the sea were Lady Ingraine gazes out over the ocean.  She is married to the Duke of Cornwall, Gorlois. She is half sister to Viviane, the lady of the lake, and whole sister to Morgause who lives with her in the Titagel.
    The lady of the lake, is the highest rank of druid priestess; the title first held
by Viviane, and later by Morgaine.  These characters are the two strong
female role models of the text, both exhibiting independence in and out of
ordinary marriage and heterosexuality.   Bradley sets her Avalon as a village
ruled by druids, and lost in the mists.  A temporal and dimensional void has
been drawn over the island by the druids that separates it into two different
worlds.  One inhabited by the priests, and one inhabited by the druids.  Only
the druids can “raise the mists” and enter Avalon.  This dreamy setting plays
on the human desire for a hidden and romantic landscape to center a belief
system.
  The Merlin of Britain is a title first given to Taliesin and later to the bard,
Kevin.  These two characters are Mists leading male role models.  Taliesin
appears as a wise and venerable old man who has absolutely no prejudice
toward any religion.  Taliesin remembers a time when the priests and the
druids still worshipped side-by-side and he believes in this ideal until he dies
of old age.  Taliesin has many foils in the story, Christian priests who are as
accusatory and judgmental toward his religion, as he is accepting of theirs.  It is
hard to read this text without developing a symphony for paganism if not an
outright dislike of Christianity.
    The first chapter consists of a visit to Titagel by the Merlin of Britain and Viviane, to speak of their plans to wed Ingraine with Uther Pendragon in spite of her current marriage with Gorlois.  The druids are already planning the birth of a great king who will lead all of Britain, but lead it without favoring the Christians.  Viviane has “seen” the new king’s birth and the death of Gorlois.  Ingraine resents her sister for using her in the wheels of her great plan to unite all of Britain.  She would prefer to live her own life, although later she discovers that she is quiet helpless to fate and quite in love with Uther Pendragon.
    The Merlin of Britain is a title given to Taliesin, Ingraine’s father, the highest ranking druid male.  Bradley does very well in the shaping of this character.  He appears as a wise and venerable old man who has absolutely no prejudice toward any religion. Taliesin remembers a time when the priests and the druids still worshipped side-by-side and he believes in this ideal until his death (peacefully from old age).  If Bradley is writing this novel as an epic portraying the death of the Celtic religion -- then Taliesin is the ideal druid, all accepting and wise.
    Eventually, the Saxons invade, Gorlois is killed as a traitor, and the marriage between Ingrain and Uther continues as planned.  There is a nice bit of prose by Bradley here that portrays Ingraine and Uther as eternal soul mates, reborn again and again throughout all time, and always searching for each other.
   Gorlois plans a surprise attack on Uther’s army, and Ingraine warns him telepathically.  After Gorlois is killed as a traitor, Uther sneaks into Titigel disguised as Gorlois, and claims his Queen.  This common theme of love and the disguise takes on an interesting twist here.  The disguise is not intended to fool Ingraine who is quite aware who she is sleeping with.  Uther wears the ring of Gorlois to fool the Christian priest at the gate.
   This is were Morgaine becomes a prominent character; she is an earlier daughter of Ingraine and Gorlois.  Gwydion is born to Uther and Ingraine a short time after their marriage, and is baptized with the Christian name Arthur.   It is under some dispute whether he is the true son of Uther, because of how close the two relationships fell.  Arthur is cared for by his half-sister, Morgaine, for a large part of his childhood, and Morgause is married to a power hungry man, King Lot of Orkney.
   Later in Morgaine's life, Viviane comes for her and takes her to Avalon to begin her training as a priestess.  She learns the druid ways early in her life, but not so early that the Christian’s haven't had their imprint.  Here she meets Galahad (later called Lancelot/Elf Arrow) and falls in love with him as countless other do during the course of the novel.  Lancelot is the image of the beautiful boy, smooth skinned and handsome even as he gets older.  Morgaine comes close to losing her virginity with Lancelot, but he refuses her.
   She also meets a young girl, during Lancelot’s visit to Avalon.  This girl has
accidentally “raised the mists” and wandered into Avalon from the Isle of Priests.  The young girl is, perhaps, the turning point of the whole story, although nobody knows it yet.  She is Gwenhwyfar . . . the future love of both Arthur and Lancelot.
   Meanwhile Arthur and Viviane discuss Arthur’s King making ceremony.
 This is another very well written section of the book, beginning to hint at the
question of Lancelot’s heterosexuality.  It is easy to overlook this when reading The Mists of Avalon for the first time, but after you know Lancelot as a character, you begin to wonder if he was really saving Morgaine's virginity for the goddess, or was he simply not attracted to women and deathly afraid to admit it?
 At Arthur’s king making ceremony, Viviane secretly arranges the great marriage between Morgaine, and her half-brother, Arthur.  The son born from this incestual relationship will be doubly in the line for the throne when he matures, being born from the royal line of Pendragon and the High Priestess.  He is named Gwydion after his father.
  The treatment of this incestual relationship is an example of the huge gap
between the christian and pagan religions.  Because the union took place
during a Pagan ceremony the druids do not see at as sin.  However,  the Christians who find their there voice in the Gwenhwyfar character, later use guilt over this experience to enslave Arthur.

Book Two
The High Queen

 Arthur marries Gwenhwyfar largely because of the gift of horses that will
accompany her, but he falls in love with her truly enough.  Lancelot has discovered a technological advantage in his travels that will help the Celts defeat the barbarian Saxons decisively.  Lancelot becomes the King’s captain of horse, and he trains the knights to use this new stirrup technology, which allows them to stand in the saddle for more leverage in combat.  Unfortunately, Lancelot falls in love with Arthur’s bride-to-be as he is escorting her from her fathers castle.  Before this time, he has been an unobtainable figure to all
women, with all his time spent in the planning of war.  Arthur recognizes his friends affection for his wife, and thinks it to be innocent.
   Lancelot’s heterosexuality would seem to be proven with this affection, but I
would argue that this attraction to Gwenhwyfar is really misplaced affection for Arthur himself.  What could be more convenient than to be in love with the unobtainable Gwenhwyfar? And what greater excus e to be close to the king?  Although I highly doubt that any of these are conscious decisions on his part.  I think Bradley leaves the door wide open for this interpretation.
   These aren't the only homosexual elements that are present in the Mists of
Avalon.  Morgaine has a definite sexual encounter with a female in a dream-like journey through the “land of the fairies.”  Also, permanent and romantic love is strongly hinted at between Morgaine and another druid priestess, Raven, who has taken a vow of silence to aid her in the use of her prophetic sight.  Morgaine says, in one of her first person narrative inserts, that the love from Raven is the only true love she has ever felt.
   The two suggested homosexual/bisexual characters are inserted for the reader to make a direct comparison between the Christian and the druid religion.  Lancelot is treated as an outcast, while Morgaine is always welcomed and loved in Avalon.  The druids consider  "real love" and religious dedication to be more important than any relationship considered unsavory in our society, including incestual and homosexual ones. 
   The turning point of The Mists of Avalon occurs in one of the final, but major battles against the Saxons.  Lady Gwenhwyfar convinces Arthur to drop the banner of the Pendragon, and carry a Christian flag that she has made for him.  Despite warnings from all of his council, Arthur does as his wife says.  He is too in love with her to do anything less but her every wish.  This tears the kingdom asunder, although the battle is won because most of the druid allies still fight for Arthur.
   Another pivotal scene in Mists is were Lancelot and Gwenhwyfar make love.
The transfer of Lancelot’s love for the king to his wife is not gradual, but
instantaneous.  He not only loves the King but he loves what the king loves.
The scene is set when all three companions are terribly drunk, and they need
to help each other back to their chambers.  Arthur is not blind - he sees the
attraction that Lancelot has for his wife, and Gwenhwyfar has been unable to
bear a child.  So, in his drunken state, the once and future king offers his wife
to his best friend.  Then, the threesome of all threesomes happens and the
homosexual nature of Lancelot’s love comes out of the closet.  It is at that
moment and only that moment that all three of them are completely happy.
At this point, the religion and the society begins to break down.
   The clash in these three pivotal characters serves to represent the greater story of the failing druid religion.  Gwenhwyfar is a fascinating personality, written by Bradley in an interesting dualistic fashion that almost splits her into two characters.  On one hand she is the pious Christian women, and on the other hand she has her occasional doubts and seeds of outright rebellion against the church.  She shifts back and forth between these two personalities almost effortlessly.  However, there is another twist; her doubts are all internal, expressed only to herself.  This is Bradley’s undercutting of the Christian religion, portraying it as a society founded on guilt were all of the members (especially the female ones) hold there doubts internally for fear of the male priest's anger and condemnation.
   Arthur represents the other “type” of Christian who truly believes that all
religions deserve equal merit, but is forced into the pursuit of Christianity because of his love for Gwenhwyfar.  It is easy to see how this type of Christianity would fall apart if its members only would sit down and discuss things over a bit.  It is a chaotic religion, based on humanities natural tendency to respond better to negative reinforcement than positive.
   The third pivot point of The Mists of Avalon is Lancelot.  He is the Tristan, the
forbidden love, and the outsider, despite the fact that he met Gwenhwyfar before Arthur did.  His love for both of the main characters becomes the source of guilt that eventually destroys all three.
 
 
Book Three
The King Stag

   Gwydion (Morgaine's son) is now an almost full-grown boy, and he is living with Morgause in Lothian, who has outlived her husband, Lot, and become queen.  Viviane and Kevin (the new Merlin)  come to take Gwydion away for training in Avalon, in much the same way Morgaine was taken many years earlier.
   Meanwhile, Morgaine is planning her brothers demise for his betrayal of Avalon, and because he refuses to give back the holy relics that were given to him by the druids, Mainly, the sword, excaliber, and its sheath, which protects Arthur in battle.  Morgaine's lover, Accolon, was brought up under druid ways, and he agrees to try and defeat Arthur.
   Also, Kevin the Merlin is branded as a traitor by Avalon, and a young druid
priestess is sent to seduce him, and lure him back to Avalon to be tortured to death.  He is given this sentence because he stole the Holy Regalia, and took it to Arthur on the day of the Pentecost feast.  However, The Holy Regalia has different plans and disappears during the ceremony.  Many of Arthur’s men claim to see visions, and all most all of Arthur’s court (including Lancelot)  leaves him in search of the Holy Grail.
   It must be noted here, that Kevin’s motives are not nearly as bad as his actions.  He only wishes to follow in Taliesin’s footsteps, and try and reunite the two religions through their common ancestor, Joseph of Aremathia.  Somehow he got the idea in his head that the gift of the Holy Regalia could accomplish this.  However, nothing could overcome the quick-tongued and slow-witted priest who discounts all visions of the great mother, as appearances of the Holy Virgin.  Kevin did not dispute this, because he believes as Taliesin did, that all Gods and Goddesses are one.
   Arthur becomes even less liked in the eye of Avalon, when he refuses to send
Viviane to be buried in her homeland after she was brutally murdered in his court. Instead, he buries her in a Christian tomb, which enrages Morgaine even more.

Book Four
Prisoner in the Oak

   Arthur kills Accolon in a great duel, and Morgaine is so angry that she steals the enchanted scabbard herself.  Meanwhile, Gywdion becomes a member of Arthur’s court, under the name of Mordred, a nickname he received while in the service of the Saxons meaning “crafty counsel.”
   Lancelot and Gwenhwyfar are caught in bed together, thanks to a skillful plan laid down by the remaining members of Arthur’s court.  Lancelot kills several of the king’s men in his daring escape.  He brings Gwenhwyfar with him, but she only stays for a short while, eventually leaving him and becoming a nun.
   This is another underwriting in Bradley’s work.  Not one Christian marriage is
associated with any love or happiness.  It seems all a mater of duty and honor, which is how most marriages went in that time period.  However, on the druid side of things, extra-marital and pre-marital affairs seem to go one regularly and without many consequences.  Morgaine has a brief affair with Kevin The Merlin, a long one with Accolon (during her marriage to his father), she  sleeps with the female “fairy folk," and possibly with her fellow priestess, Raven.  These affairs are all portrayed as very happy, if unfulfilling experiences.  Also,  Ingraine and Uther are very happily married, unlike Ingraine’s Christian marriage to Gorlois.
   After Lancelot leaves Arthur’s court, the split in Britain that began with Arthur
bearing the Christian banner is now nearing civil war.  His son, Gwydion, rallies Arthur’s own men, Saxons, and Barbarians from the north into an army that Arthur cannot stand against.  He is an old man, branded a cuckold by his court and deserted by many of his followers.  The book ends with Arthur and Morgaine reunited, as he dies from a wound given to him by his own son.  Lancelot flings Excaliber into the lake, and the alliance between druid and Christians is severed forever; the Druid ways destined to slip further and further into the Mists.
    The Mists of Avalon is a valid interpretation of Arthurian legend, making use
of it, as Malory did, to represent an ideal and romanticized society.  In the act of
showing the druids downfall, perhaps Bradley hopes to inspire a new rise in the
Wiccan religion, and  to provide a new source of hope for young female's
struggling through adolescence.