Meghann Hester

Period 3
December 10, 2012
Mr. van Eyken
Mists of Avalons Women
Characters:
Igraine Wife to Gorlois, sister to Morgause and Viviane, and mother to Morgaine and Arthur
Morgaine (Morgan of the Fairies) Daughter to Igraine
Uther Pendragon High King and father to Arthur
Morgause Sister to Igraine and Viviane
Viviane High priestess (also called Lady of Avalon) to the Goddess and sister to Morgause and
Igraine
Taliesin High Merlin to the Goddess
Gorlois Duke of Cornwall, father to Morgaine, and husband to Igraine
Arthur Son of Igraine and Uther
Raven Sworn to silence for the rest of her life as a priestess of Avalon
Father Columba Christian priest to Gorlois

Act I
Morgaine: [from off stage] In my time I have been called many things: sister, lover, priestess,
wise-woman, queen. Now in truth I have come to be a wise-woman, and a time may come when
these things may need to be known. But in sober truth, I think it is the Christians who will tell the
last tale. 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. As I tell this tale I will speak at times of
things which befell when I was too young to understand them, or of things which befell when I
was not by; and my hearer will draw away, perhaps, and say: This is her magic. But I have
always held the gift of Sight.
[Igraine stares out a window in deep thought until she hears a horse galloping towards her
castle. She runs to the door.]
Igraine: [whispered as if caught in her throat] Sister! [As she sees the horse come closer, she
runs up to meet them, but the horse is never on stage] Do I truly see you here?
Viviane: [ghostly] Have you given up the Sight, Igraine? Of your own free will?
Igraine: It was you who decreed that I must marry Gorlois..! [Suddenly, she pulls the cloak she
has on around her] I-I did not know I could still see in that way, I was sure I could not
[Igraine goes back inside and walks to Morgause who is spinning threads inside]
Morgause: My fingers ache! Why must I spin, spin, spin all the time, as if I were a waitingwoman?
Igraine: You may put the spindle away now; guests will be here before mid-afternoon. Viviane is
upon her way here, and the Merlin is with her. So, you may take Morgaine to her nurse, and go
and put on your holiday robe, the one dyed with saffron.
Morgause: [petulantly] My saffron gown? For my sister-?
Igraine: Not for our sister, Morgause, but for the Lady of the Holy Isle, and for the Messenger of
the Gods.
[Morgause stomps off and Igraine walks slowly after her with poise]
[The front doors open as Igraine enters the room again with Morgaine on her hip and two
figures are standing in the doorway]
Igraine: I bid you welcome to Tintagel, Lord Messenger; you bestow a blessing upon our roof
and honor it with your presence.
Taliesin: [with resonance] I thank you, Igraine.
[Igraine walks over to Taliesin and he clasps his hands before his face and extends them to her
as a blessing. She then walks over to Viviane to do the same.]

Viviane: No, no, child, this is a family visit, time enough later to do me honors if you must.. And
is this Morgaine? She looks like our mother, Igraine.
Igraine: She looks like you But come into the hall, Lord Merlin, sister. Come into the warm.
[A serving woman comes in with water and food.]
Igraine: What brings you here in the spring storms, my sister and my lady? [aside] And why
could you not have come before, why did you leave me all alone to learn to be a wife, to bear a
child alone and in fear and homesickness? And since you could not have come before, why do
you come at all, when it is too late and I am at last resigned?
Viviane: The Saxons are barbarians, and cruel. The tribes alone cannot drive them from these
shores, and the Merlin and I have seen that Ambrosius is not long for this world, and that his war
duke, the Pendragon is it Uther they call him? will succeed him. But there are many in this
country who will not rally to the Pendragon. There will be a Great King that will bring the
worlds once again together, a world with room for the Goddess and for the Christ, the cauldron
and the cross. And this leader shall make us one. You, Igraine You shall bear this Great King.
Igraine: What is this that you are telling me? Do you mean that Gorlois is to be the father of this
Great King?
Viviane: Igraine, Gorlois is Roman. The Tribes will not follow any man born to a son of Rome.
The High King they follow must be a child of the Holy Isle, a true son of the Goddess. Your son,
Igraine, yes. But it is not the Tribes alone that will fight away the Saxons. They will only follow
their own war duke, their Pendragon, son of a man they trust to lead them and rule. Your son,
Igraine but the father will be Uther Pendragon.
Igraine: No! I have a husband, and I have borne him a child! I will not let you play again at
skipping-stones with my life! I married as you bade me and you will never know [aside] I
was afraid, or I was alone and terrified, or Rape would have been easier because I could have run
away to die afterward.
Taliesin: Listen to me, Igraine. I fathered you, though that gives me no rights to command. A
peace must come when these two lands can dwell side by side, a peace long enough for the cross
and the cauldron, too, to come to such a peace.
Viviane: You will bear no son to Gorlois, Igraine.
Igraine: Gorlois has fathered sons by other women; why should I not give him one born in
wedlock, as he desires?
Viviane: Do you love Gorlois, Igraine?

Igraine: That has nothing to do with it. It is a matter of honor. He was kind to me I owe him
this. He let me keep Morgaine, when she was all I had in my loneliness.
Taliesin: Peace, Igraine. You are free, as every child of the God is free. We came to entreat you,
not to command. You will chose right.
[Taliesin and Viviane walk out, and Igraine walks off in anger.]
Morgaine: [From off stage] Igraine, my mother, went to bed that night and had a Sending. She
saw Gorlois at his death. However, when my father finally returned from battle, he asked her to
go with him to Londinium. He was to go and speak about the High King, Ambrosius. The King
was on his death bed. Not wanting to have to explain her reluctance to her husband, Igraine
agreed. The court process was long and excruciating for Igraine, but when she first laid eyes on
Uther she was enthralled.
[Death bells toll and Igraine walks out into an orchard]
Uther: Is it you, my lady of Cornwall? Now you may run to tell the brave Gorlois that the war
duke of Britain has hidden away to weep like a woman!
[Igraine walks swiftly to him and sits on the branch he is on as well.]
Igraine: Do you think Gorlois does not grieve, my lord? How cold and heartless any man should
be, not to weep for the king he has loved all his days! Just as well, Gorlois said you are sure to be
the next High King.
Uther: I never thought to discuss such matters with the wife of the Duke of Cornwall.
Igraine: I have been talking to wives of Uriens and sir Ectorius they do not seem much
concerned with matters of state. I think perhaps that is why Gorlois does not believe that I can
know anything of them, either.
Gorlois: Is it you, my lord Pendragon? Have you seen ah, madam, are you there?
[Igraine jumps off the tree branch, but rips her skirt.]
Uther: Why, Gorlois, I grew impatient at all the gabbling of that priest, and came out to find clear
air with no pious mumblings; and your lady, who had found the blithering of the good ladies not
much more to her taste, happened upon me here. Madam, I thank you. [Leaves.]
Gorlois: My lady, you should be more careful to avoid gossip; I told you to keep away from
Uther. His reputation is such that no caste woman should be seen in private conversation with
him.
Igraine: [Angrily] Is that what you think of me, that I am the sort of woman who will slip away to
couple with a strange man like a beast in a field? Do you think I was lying with him on the

branch of that tree, like some bird of the bough? Would you like to inspect my gown to see
whether it is rumpled from lying with him on the ground?
Gorlois: You will not play the shrew with me, madam! I told you to avoid him; obey me! I think
you honest and chaste, but I would not trust you to that man, not hear you made the subject of the
tongues of women!
Igraine: Surely there in no more evil mind than that of a good woman unless perhaps it is the
mind of a priest. [Gorlois slaps her.] How dare you lay hands upon me? When I betray you, you
may beat the flesh from off my bones, but I wont be beaten for talk! He was weeping, Gorlois;
weeping for the king who had been as a father to him. And if it shows respect for the dead to sit
and listen to the caterwauling of a priest, then mat I never have such respect! [They walk to their
lodging.]
Gorlois: You will not speak to me in that voice, lady, or I shall bear you in earnest.
Igraine: Touch me at your own peril, Gorlois, or I shall teach you that a daughter of the Holy Idle
is no mans slave nor servant!
Gorlois: It is not fitting that I stand here brawling when my king and lord lies still unburied.
Morgaine: [Off stage.] Silence ensued, but they went to the burial of the king that night and the
crowning of the Pendragon the next day. Gorlois attempted to buy Igraine numerous gifts to
apologize, but she accepted only a few of them. Uther approached Igraine, however, and
confessed his feelings to her. Gorlois found out and took back his oath from the Pendragon. That
night, Gorlois and Igraine rode back to their castle. She was kept there to never leave again until
one day she had another Sending. Uther was to come to her on Midwinter night.
Act II
[Enter Igraine, Morgaine, and Father Columba]
Morgaine (As a child of four): Why do you not have another baby, Mother?
Igraine: Because your father, Gorlois Because the mother Goddess did not see fit to send me a
son, child.
Father Columba: You should not talk to the child of Goddesses and superstition. Gorlois wishes
her to be reared as a good Christian maiden. Morgaine, your mother did not have a son because
your father was angry with her, and God withheld a son to punish her for her sinful will.
Morgaine: Go away, old man, I dont like you. You have made my mother cry. My mother knows
more than you do, and if she says that it is the Goddess who did not send her a child, I will
believe what she says, and not what you say, because my mother does not tell lies!

Father Columba: Now you see what comes of your willfulness, my lady? That child should be
beaten. Give her to me and I will punish her for her disrespect!
Igraine: If you lay a hand on my daughter, priest, I will kill you where you stand. My husband
brought you here, and I cannot send you away, but on the day you come into my presence again,
I will spit on you. Get out of my sight! Go and the Devil take you, so that you come not into my
presence.
Father Columba: If you presume to curse me, woman
Igraine: Why should I waste my breath with a curse? I would as willing bid you Godspeed to
your own heaven, and may your God find more pleasure in your company than I do.
[Father Columba stomps off stage and Igraine goes to her room and shuts the door.]
Morgaine: [Off-stage and grown up] Now, my mother wanted to see my aunt to know what to do.
She was exhausted for being locked away for so long. So, she played with some magic. What she
saw instead was Viviane giving birth. She nearly died, but the stubborn old goat wouldnt lie
down for the world. That night, Gorlois came home.
[Enter Igraine and Gorlois]
Gorlois: Morgaine perhaps should be brought up in a convent of holy women so that the great
evil she has inherited from your old blood will never taint her. When she is old enough, we will
see to it. A holy man told me once that women bear the blood of their mothers, and so it has been
since the days of Eve, that what is within women, who are filled with sin, cannot be overcome by
a woman-child; but that a son will bear his fathers blood even as Christ was made in the image
of God his father. So, if we have a son, Igraine, we need not fear that he will show the blood of
the old evil folk of the hills.
Igraine: That must be as your God wills.
[Exit]
Morgaine: [Off-stage] Somehow, mother found out that Gorlois was to plan a surprise raid on
Uther. It was getting close to when he was to come and find her, but if he couldnt survive to find
her she was doomed. Using magic, she went to him. Igraine used a tie from a previous life to
allow her to find him and warn him. However, the magic took its toll. She soon fell to illness and
was required to stay in bed. After she had become well enough, it was Midwinter. That night, the
Merlin and Gorlois were announced at the gates of the castle.
[Enter Father Columba, three guards, Uther in a cloak, Merlin, and Igraine]
Guard 1: My lord Gorlois left orders; no one but the Duke himself to go inside in his absence.

Taliesin: I am the Merlin of Britain. Stand back, man, will you deny passage to me?
Father Columba: I will deny you. My lord the Duke of Cornwall has said particularly that you,
old sorcerer, are to have no entrance here at any time. [Hold up cross] In the name of Christ, I bid
you begone! In Gods name, return to the realms of darkness whence you came!
Taliesin: [Laughing] Good brother in Christ, your God and my God are one and the same. Do
you really think I will vanish away at your exorcism? Or do you think I am some foul fiend from
the darkness? No, not unless you call the falling of Gods night the coming of darkness! I come
from a land no darer than the Summer Country, and look, these men with me bear the ring of his
lordship the Duke of Cornwall himself. Look. Now let us in, Father, for we are not fiends but
mortal men who are cold and weary, and we have ridden for a long way. Or must we cross
ourselves a repeat a prayer to prove that to you?
Igraine: Let me see the ring. Is this truly his token or a forgery?
Uther: It is truly his ring, lady Igraine.
Father Columba: My lord Duke!
Taliesin: Hush! The messenger is secret, speak no word.
Igraine: My lord, come in. Shall I fetch some wine, my lord, or send some food?
Uther: In Gods name, Igraine, find some way we can be alone. The priest has sharp eyes, even
in the dark, and I want it thought it is Gorlois, indeed, who has come here.
[Igraine and Uther retreat to Igraines room]
Morgaine: [Off-stage] Many can guess what happened. The cloak had covered who he was, and
the Merlin had cast a touch of magic. The ring had been cut off of Gorlois own finger. Igraine
and Uther then slept together for the first of many nights they would share. It was cut short,
though. Gorlois came home and fell dead on the doorstep of the castle. My mother wept for
Gorlois and herself. Then, she married Uther and had a child. Mother never gave a second
thought to the child or me once Uther was home. So, I cared for the child as if he were mine. The
only person who seemed to care was Viviane. She loved me. She even took me into her care at
Avalon. My brother went to live with a foster home, and I went with my kinswoman. At Avalon,
I learned the hardships of a priestess.
Act III
[Enter Viviane and Morgaine in Vivianes house]
Viviane: So. Let us talk of Ravens prophecy. You two were together last night when it happened;
she broke her oath of silence because of how strong it was. In the ancient days, long before the

wisdom and the religion of the Druids came here from the sunken temples in the western
continent, the fairy people of whom we are both born, you and I, my Morgaine lived here on
the shores of the inland sea, and before they learned how to plant the barley and reap it again,
they lived by gathering the fruits of the land, and by hunting the deer. And in those days there
was no king among them, but only a queen who was their mother, though they had not yet
learned to think of her as the Goddess. And since they lived by hunting, their queen and priestess
learned to call the deer to her, and ask of their spirits that they sacrifice themselves and die for
the life of the Tribe. But sacrifice must be given for sacrifice the deer died for the Tribe, and
one of the Tribe must in return die for the life of the deer, or at least take the chance that the deer
could, if they chose, take his life in exchange for their own. So the balance was kept. Do you
understand this, my darling?
Morgaine (as a teenager): I understand, Mother. At least, I think I do.
Viviane: So the Mother of the Tribe chose, every year, her consort. Well, time has moved on,
Morgaine, and now those old rites are no longer needed, for the barley grows and the sacrifice is
bloodless. Only in times of great peril does the Tribe demand such a leader. And Raven has
foreseen that this is a time of such peril. So once again there will be a testing of one who runs the
risk of death for his chosen people, so that they will follow him unto death.
Morgaine: What must I do?
Viviane: The Tribes of the fairy folk, and all the Tribes of North, have been given a great leader,
and the chosen one will be tested by the ancient rite. And if he survives the testing which will,
to some extent, depend on the strength with which the Maiden Huntress can enchant the deer
then he will become the Horned One, the King Stag, consort of the Virgin Huntress, and the
bride of the Horned One. You have been chosen for this service.
Morgaine: My body and soul belong to our Goddess, to do with as she will, and your will is her
will, Mother. Let it be so.
[Exit]
Morgaine: [Off stage] I was painted head to foot for the ritual, and I was sent out to give my
power to the man that was to slay the deer. He won, and we were set to bed. I was to give him
my virginity with the personified air of the Goddess and him the Horned One. When we woke in
the morning, we found something was off.
[Enter Arthur and Morgaine in bed]
Arthur: Where are we? Oh yes, I remember. In the cave. Why, its already getting light. [Kisses
Morgaine softly] Last night you were the Goddess, but I wake and I find you are a woman.
Morgaine: And you are not the God, but a man?

Arthur: I think I have had enough of being a God, and besides, it seems to me that it is
presumptuous for a man of flesh and blood. I am content to be no more than a man.
Morgaine: Perhaps there is a time to be Goddess and God, and a time to be no more than flesh
and blood.
Arthur: I was afraid of you last night. I thought you the Goddess, all larger than life and you
are such a little thing!
Morgaine: I am a priestess from the Holy Isle.
Arthur: I do not suppose I will ever meet you again, for you are a priestess and dedicated to the
Goddess. But I want to say this to you You were the very first. No matter how many women I
may have, for all my life I will always remember you and love you and bless you. I promise you
that.
[Arthur starts to tear up, and Morgaine wipes his tears softly as she holds his head against her.
Arthurs breath catches.]
Arthur: Your voice and what you just did why do I seem to know you? Is it because you are
the Goddess, and in her all women are the same? No Morgaine! You are Morgaine! Morgaine,
my sister! Ah, God, Mary Virgin, what have we done?
Morgaine: My brother. Ah, Goddess! Brother! Gwydion
Arthur: Arthur. [Starts to cry]
Morgaine: Dont cry, dont cry. We are in the hands of her who brought us here. It doesnt matter.
We are not brother and sister here, we are man and woman before the Goddess, no more. Its all
right, dont cry, my brother, my beloved, my little one, dont cry, its all right.
Morgaine: [Off-stage] We moved on and he was crowned. See, the reason that the King Stag was
needed was because Uther lay on his death bed. He died and I made Arthur his Excalibur so he
could never be mortally wounded in battle. With the sword he swore to equally consider the
Druids and the Christians. Excalibur was woven with my magic and my blood since he was my
sacrifice that night and I gave him my blood and magic already. Now he is High King of Britain.
Peace to the world under his protection, blessed by the Goddess herself.