Lady of Avalon

There are places where the worlds lie close together as folds in a blanket. One such bridge is the place that men call Avalon.

No matter how we count the volumes making the Avalon series (and this is not obvious), Lady of Avalon (1997) cannot be treated as one part in the internal chronology, as it has three parts, of which only two take place before Priestess Of Avalon. However, according to Word of God, all parts have, in a sense, the same main character, who reincarnates and learns new things in every life. Every time she becomes another Lady of Avalon: in the first part she is Caillean, who made the decision about veiling the island with mists, then she is reborned as Dierna, a cunning politician and efficient leader, to eventually return as strong-willed Viviane, first guardian of the Holy Grail. The book reveals important parts of the history of Avalon, its origin and its connection with both first Christians and the Fair Folk. The last part is a direct prequel to The Mists of Avalon and substantiates many decisions made by Viviane in the latter book.

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Tropes used in Lady of Avalon include:

• Arranged Marriage: Carausius and Teleri.
• Atlantis: some characters lived there in their previous lives.
• Because Destiny Says So: strongly connected with Atlantis and Reincarnation Romance.
• Daddy's Girl: Viviane and Taliesin (though he is not really her father).
• Death of the Old Gods.
• Deus Sex Machina: Viviane and Vortimer, in a very dramatic moment with a direct divine intervention, magical trance, the threat of death, and gigantic monoliths. Gawen and Sianna are associated with this very explicitly ("...he heard her whisper, "I am the altar..." He answered, "...and I am the sacrifice," and, answering, found release at last for the passion of the man and the power of the god." Dierna and Carausius may also count.
• Druid: Gawen, Brannos, Ceridachos, and a few others.
• Enigmatic Empowering Entity: All the Ladies of the Lake are this.
• The Fair Folk.
• Good Shepherd: Father Joseph.
• The Hecate Sisters: Mentioned a couple of times, along with other motives from Celtic Mythology. Hecate herself also has cameo appearances in dialogues.
• Holier Than Thou: Father Paulus, The Fundamentalist.
• Iron Lady: Dierna and Viviane are this to some degree, but Ana is a model example.
• Jesus Was Way Cool: an important motive, especially in the first part. Partially explains the relations between Avalon and Inis Witrin in The Mists of Avalon.
• Lineage Comes From the Father: strongly averted. In Avalon, lineage comes always from the mother, which is meaningful in shaping political connections.
• Love Triangle: Dierna, Carausius and Teleri.
• The Low Middle Ages.
• MacGuffin: a golden classic - Holy Grail.
• Marital Rape License: Carausius and Teleri.
• Nature Abhors a Virgin: Viviane.
• Reincarnation Romance: Dierna and Carausius.
• The Roman Empire.
• Virgin Sacrifice: Viviane and Vortimer.
• World Sundering: this is roughly what Caillean (with the help of Faerie Queen) does to conceal Avalon from the uninitiated. This is an interesting example, because Caillean had lived in Atlantis in her previous lives, and Atlantis is famous of having been subjected to World Sundering before. (JRR Tolkien consciously made his Sundered World, Númenor, to have the features of both Atlantis and Avalon.)