101 pages 3 hours read

Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Mists of Avalon

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1982

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Part 4, Chapters 7-10

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “The Prisoner in the Oak”

Part 4, Chapter 7 Summary

As Morgaine prepares for bed, she begins to feel sick. She has a dream of finding a baby and wakes up horrified to realize she is pregnant. Morgaine is past the age where she can safely give birth and it is all too likely that the child is Accolon’s. Questioned about her lack of appetite at breakfast, she simply says she had too much wine to drink and excuses herself.

Kevin visits her in her chambers, telling her she was wrong to reproach Arthur about Excalibur. He tells her that since all Gods are one, Christianity has a place alongside Druidism. Morgaine retorts that Christianity has no tolerance for any of the other Gods. Kevin says this thinking is a symptom of a “deep change in the way men now look at the world, as if one truth should drive out another—as if whatever is not their truth, must be falsehood” (726). Morgaine disagrees, saying that Christianity’s intolerance will rid the world of any truth besides their own. Kevin asks her to put their differences aside and says that he will always love her. He tells her that the Goddess made Arthur king, and that if he was truly offending her will, she would remove his title.