Marion Bradley - The Mists of Avalon

... hold thy children, Mother, thy King Stag must die to feed the life of her Dark Son ...

Darkness, the inner life of the forest closing around them; silence, the silence of the deer ... . Morgaine, aware now of the forest as life and the deer as the heart of the forest, cast her power and her blessing through and over the forest. A part of her lay on the sunlit hillside, tranced, exhausted, letting the life of the sun flood through her, body and blood and inner being, and a part of her ran with deer and men until both were one ... blending into one ... the surges of life that were the quiet deer in their thicket, the little does, smooth and slender, the life racing in them as it raced in her body, the surges of life that were the men, slipping silent and intent through the shadows ... .

Somewhere in the forest she felt the King Stag fling up his head, sniffing the wind, aware for the scent of an enemy, one of his own, one of the alien tribe of life ... she did not know whether it was the four-footed King Stag or the two-legged one she had blessed, they were one in the life of the Mother Earth, and their lot was in the hands of the Goddess. Antlers answered the toss of antlers, the sniffing breath taking in the life of the forest, searching it for alien, for prey, for predator, for rival where there could be none.

Ah, Goddess ... they were off, crashing through the underbrush, men fleet behind them only more silent, running, running ... run till the heart throbs like bursting in the chest, run till the life of the body overwhelms all knowledge and thought, fleet, searching and being sought, run with the deer who flee and the men who pursue, run with the spinning life of the great sun and the surge of the spring tides, run with the flow of life ... .

Lying motionless, her face pressed into the earth and the flooding sun burning her back, time crawling and racing by turns, Morgaine began to see-and from very far off it seemed that she had seen this before, in vision, sometime, somewhere, a very long time ago-the tall, sinewy youth, gripping his knife, falling, falling among the deer, among the slashing hooves -she knew she screamed aloud, and simultaneously knew that her cry had rung everywhere, so that even the King Stag paused in mid charge, appalled, hearing the shriek. There was a moment when everything stopped, and in that terrible moment of silence she saw that he scrambled to his feet, panting, charging with his head down, swinging his antlers, locking head-on, as he swayed and struggled, wrestling the deer with his strong hands and young body ... a knife slashed upward; blood spilled on the earth, and he was bleeding too, the Horned One, blood on his hands, blood from a long slash on his side, the blood spilling on the earth, sacrifice spilled to the Mother that life should feed on her blood ... and then the blood of the King Stag went over him in a gush as his blade found the heart, and the men around him rushed in with their spears ... .

She saw him carried back, covered in the blood of his twin and rival, the King Stag. All around him the little dark men were slashing, putting the raw, warm hide over his shoulders. Back they came in triumph, fires rising in the gathering dusk, and when the women lifted Morgaine she saw without surprise that the sun was setting, and she staggered, as if she too had run all day with the hunt and the deer.

They crowned her again with the crimson of triumph. The Horned One was brought before her, bleeding, and she blessed him and marked his forehead with the blood of the deer. The head was taken with the antlers which would bring down the next King Stag; the antlers which the Horned One had worn this day, broken and splintered, were cast into the fire. Soon there was a smell of burning flesh and she wondered if it was the flesh of man or stag ... .

They seated them side by side, and brought the first meats to them, dripping still with blood and the fat juices. Morgaine felt her head swimming, the rich taste of the meat overpowering her after her long fast; she was afraid for a moment that she would be sick again. Next to her he was eating hungrily, and she noticed by firelight that he had fine strong hands ... she blinked, seeing in a strange moment of doubled vision that serpents twined around them, then they were gone again. All around them the men and women of the Tribe were sharing in the ritual feast, the hymn of triumph, sung in an old language Morgaine could only half understand;

"He has triumphed, he has slain ...

... the blood of our Mother is shed upon the earth ...

... the blood of the God is spilled upon the earth ...

... and he shall rise and reign forever ...

... he has triumphed, he shall triumph forever, until the

end of the world ..."

The old priestess who had painted and decked her this morning held a silver cup to her lips; she felt the strong liquor sting her throat and burn all the way down. Fire, with a strong taste of honey behind it. Already she was drunk with the blood of the meat-she had tasted meat only a few times in the last seven years. Her head was swimming as they bore her away, stripped her and bedecked her naked body with more paint and garlands, marking her nipples and brow with the blood of the slain deer.

The Goddess receives her consort and she will slay him again at the end of time, she shall give birth to her Dark Son who will bring the King Stag down ... .

A little girl, painted blue from head to foot and bearing a broad dish, ran across the plowed fields, scattering dark drops as she ran, and Morgaine heard the great cry that went up behind her.

"The fields are blessed; give us food, O our Mother!"

And for an instant, some small part of Morgaine, dizzy and drunk and only half in her body at all, remarked coldly that she certainly must be mad; she, a civilized and educated woman, princess and priestess and kin to the royal line of Avalon, Druid-taught, here painted like a savage and smelling of freshly shed blood, enduring this barbarian mummery ...

....hen it was all gone again, as the full moon, serene and proud, rose over the clouds that had barriered it from sight. Bathed naked in the moonlight, Morgaine felt the light of the Goddess streaming over, through her ... she was Morgaine no more, she was nameless, priestess and maiden and mother ... they strung a garland of crimson berries about her loins; the crude symbolism struck her with sudden fear, and she felt the full weight of virginity pouring and flooding through her like the spring tide. A torch flared in her eyes and they led her into darkness, echoing silences above and beyond her, a cave. All round her, on the walls, she could see the sacred symbols, painted there from the beginnings of time, the stag and antlers, the man with the horns on his brow, the swollen belly and full breasts of She Who Gives Life ... .

The priestess laid Morgaine on the couch of deerskins. For a moment she felt cold and frightened, and she shivered, and the old woman's brow wrinkled in compassion; she drew Morgaine into her arms and kissed her on the lips, and Morgaine clung for a moment to the old woman, hugging her in sudden terror, as if the woman's sheltering arms were her mother's own ... then the woman smiled at her and kissed her again and touched her breasts in blessing and went away.

She lay there, feeling the life of the earth around her; she seemed to expand, to fill all the cave, the little scribbled drawings were painted on her breasts and her belly, and above her the great chalk figure, man or deer, strode with erect phallus ... the invisible moon outside the cave flooding her body with light as the Goddess surged inside her, body and soul. She stretched out her arms, and at her command she knew that outside the cave, in the light of the fecundating fires, man and woman, drawn one to the other by the pulsating surges of life, came together. The little blue-painted girl who had borne the fertilizing blood was drawn down into the arms of a sinewy old hunter, and Morgaine saw her briefly struggle and cry out, go down under his body, her legs opening to the irresistible force of nature in them. She saw without sight, her eyes closed against the glare of the torch, hearing the cries.