The Albion Forests

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The Forests of Albion (English original title: The Forest House ) is a fantasy novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley from 1993. The novel is one of several independent pre-stories ofthe bestseller The Mists of Avalon , in which the Arthurian legend is retold.

action

The action takes place around 70-75 AD in Britain , which is divided into several provinces. The largest is called " Albion " ( England ). It is occupied by the Romans , whose largest settlement is Londinium . The Celtic communities only survived in Wales , Scotland and Ireland . The original Celtic sanctuaries have dissolved or been destroyed, as has the main sanctuary on the island of Mona (Anglesey), which was invaded by the Romans in AD 40. All the priestesses were violated, the priests murdered, and few escaped the crime. The girls born afterwards by the profaned priestesses were drowned in the holy spring, the sons, however, given to foster families and united in the secret society of ravens; they were supposed to drive away the Roman occupiers and avenge their mothers. Cynric, Eilan's foster brother, was one of those boys too. After the destruction of Mona, the druids, together with some surviving priestesses, set up the sanctuary Vernemeton, which the Romans tolerate, since the priestesses vow chastity and are equated with the vestals . Ardanos, the leader of the Druids, is looking for cooperation with the Romans in order to maintain this sanctuary.

Eilan, the daughter of Rheis and the druid Bendeigid, grew up near Vernemeton and had the desire to join the priestesses at an early age. Her aunt Dieda, on the other hand, the daughter of the chief druid Ardanos and Rhei's sister, wishes to marry Cynric, who also loves her. One day Eilan and Dieda find a seriously injured Roman in a bear pit. It is about Gaius, the son of the Roman prefect of Deva and a Silurian (Celtic) mother, who, however, withholds his Roman name for fear of being murdered as a hated occupier. Instead he calls himself Gawen, because his Silurian mother called him by this Celtic name. Gawen is accepted as a guest by the family and falls in love with Eilan, who nurses him back to health. After his recovery he accompanies the family to the Beltane Festival in Vernemeton. During the festival, the high priestess Lhiannon asked Dieda to join the order - Eilan was actually supposed to be chosen, but Ardanos, as advisor to the high priestess, mistook his daughter and granddaughter because of their outward similarity. Dieda accepts, although she wanted to marry Cynric and lead a civil life; Eilan joins the community a year later. Eilan made friends with Caillean, Lhiannon's foster daughter, at an early age, and through this she realized that her grandfather, the famous bard and druid Ardanos, was playing a wrong game. He manipulates the oracles of the high priestess to avoid armed conflict between the tribes and the Romans.

Eilan devotes herself to training as a priestess with full zeal, but she meets Gaius again at a Beltane festival and gives herself to him sexually, which she experiences as a divine union. She becomes pregnant by him. By this time Lhiannon was already terminally ill and determined Eilan (instead of the more experienced Caillean) to be the next high priestess, as she realized in her death that Eilan was destined to liberate the faith of the Celts and found a new sanctuary. Ardanos, on the other hand, wants to prevent a pregnant priestess from taking over rule so that the Romans do not lose respect for the sanctuary. But finally the deception indicated by the dying Lhiannon is carried out ... Dieda, who resembles Eilan like a sister, is supposed to carry out the office of high priestess in the months before Eilan's birth and is granted a wish: Either she is released from the order and can marry Cynric or she goes to Eriu (Ireland) to be trained as a bard. Dieda agrees, and after Eilan gives birth to her son, Gawen, she goes to Ireland. Ardanos then tries to grab Gawen to get his granddaughter under control, but Caillean appeases him and manages that Gawen is raised in Vernemeton as the son of a surrogate mother. So Eilan can exercise the function of high priestess, but still see her son regularly.

Meanwhile, after long internal struggles, Gaius surrenders whether he should remain loyal to Eilan or accept his father's ambitions, his father's plans. As a result, he married Julia, a Roman woman and daughter of his father's closest friend, and proved herself in a number of career-promoting positions in the army, including the battle of Mons Graupius (60 AD), which was the last resistance of the northern English tribes is destroyed. This makes him a bitter enemy of Cynric, although he saves his life in battle.

When the highest druid Ardanos and Emperor Domitian die at about the same time , which leads to fierce battles for his successor and thus political weakness in Rome, both Gaius and Eilan fear that the tribes of the secret society of ravens could turn to arms. Eilan foresees both her own approaching end and that of the sanctuary in Vernemeton and sends Caillean with a selection of novices to the island of the apple trees, Avalon , to build a new, unassailable sanctuary there. At the next Beltane festival there is a crisis: Bendeigid, Eilan's father, has meanwhile been elected supreme druid and tries to force his daughter as an oracle priestess to incite the tribes against the Roman occupation. Meanwhile, Gaius tries to bring his son Gawen to safety, but is placed on the fenced off area, which men are forbidden, and killed by the druids as a sacrifice for the war goddess Cathubodva. As an oracle priestess, Eilan explicitly opposes the war plans - the Roman Empire will perish, but not through the violence of the generation now alive, but after nine more generations have passed. Bendeigid tries to disavow the reputation of the high priestess among the population in order to save his insurrection plans by pointing out her misstep with Gaius, but Eilan explains this exception to the rule of chastity with the fact that Gaius was the summer king at the time, who all up to the high priestess Women can legitimately claim for themselves. Thereupon she dies and is burned by the druids in the same burst of fire as Gaius before.

Caillean, who saw the calamity coming due to her visionary gifts, reached Vernemeton after the disaster after a robbery attack, but can motivate Eilan's son Gawen, who was brought to safety during the festival, to go to Avalon with her. As the offspring of a connection between the Roman eagle and the Celtic dragon, he is destined to lead the peace and coexistence of the two peoples in Britain. He becomes the first Merlin . One of his successors will emerge centuries later from the mists of Avalon at the court of King Arthur and reconcile the eagle of Rome with the dragon of Albion and the fish of Christianity.

people

• Ardanos: father of Rheis and Dieda, grandfather of Eilan. Mostly a cold power man. He is the highest druid and tries - in contrast to many other British people - to negotiate peacefully with the Romans. In doing so, he also increases his own influence. In addition, Ardanos tries to influence the oracle sayings of the goddess at the annual festivals in such a way that they serve his purposes. When he learns of Eilan's pregnancy, he wants to kill her and later tries to take the child away from her.
• Bendeigid: father of Mairi, Eilan and Senara, foster father of Cynric. Son-in-law of Ardanos. Bendeigid is a narrow-minded and hot-headed hater of Rome. He is ostracized by the Romans because, together with the secret society of the ravens, he fights bitterly against the Roman occupation. After Ardano's death, he is elected the highest druid. At Samhain he wants to invoke Cathubodva, the goddess of war, in blind hatred. He sacrifices Gaius and Eilan to her.
• Caillean: She comes from Eriu (Ireland), where she grew up in poverty and was raped as a child. The high priestess Lhiannon took her in and became a mother to her. She became a priestess in Vernemeton and a confidante of Eilan. She campaigns for Lhiannon and Eilan, especially against Ardanos.
• Cynric: As the foster son of Bendeigid, he too hates Rome. He belongs to the secret society of ravens, which aim to drive out the Roman occupiers. Cynric loves Dieda and wanted to marry her before she was chosen to be a priestess. When the Romans find out that he belongs to the ravens, he is ostracized and is on the run from then on. That's why Dieda refuses to come with him when he asks her to follow him. He is killed by Huw (bodyguard of the high priestess) when he hits the high priestess Eilan on the cheek.
• Dieda: Ardano's daughter and Eilan's aunt. Because she is called to be a priestess, she cannot marry Cynric. During Eilan's pregnancy, she actually acts as the high priestess, but is portrayed as the one who was unchaste and left the community to have the child, so her reputation is shattered. She is bitter about this and hates Eilan from now on.
• Eilan: mother of Gawen and lover of Gaius. Eilan is a close friend of Caillean's. She becomes Lhiannon's successor as high priestess. Since she has to live chaste as a priestess, her pregnancy has to be kept a secret.
• Gaius (Gawen): son of the Roman governor Macellius and a Silurine (the Silurians are a Celtic tribe). He is Eilan's lover and Gawen's father. He is forced by his father to marry Julia Licinia, a Roman woman.
• Gawen: son of Eilan and Gaius. He grows up in Vernemeton, but doesn't know who his parents are. He follows Caillean to Avalon at the end of the book.
• Lhiannon: The first high priestess of Vernemeton. She escaped the destruction of the sanctuary on Mona by the Romans because she was in Eriu ( Ireland ) at the time. There she found Caillean, took her in and became like a mother to Caillean. As a high priestess, she is heavily influenced by Ardanos. Shortly before her death, she chose Eilan as her successor.
• Macellius: father of Gaius and Prefect in Deva (now Chester). As a responsible Roman father, he arranged a politically advantageous marriage for Gaius.

expenditure

• Marion Zimmer Bradley : The Forests of Albion . Fischer Verlag, 9th edition, Frankfurt 1995, ISBN 978-3-596-12748-1 .
• Marion Zimmer Bradley : The Forest House . Roc, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-451-46153-7

Awards

• 1995: Locus Poll Award (14th place)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated November 20, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.