Mythago Wood
By Robert Holdstock

Holdstock's fantasy novel made a big splash back in the 1980's and won some awards. One of the reasons, as mentioned to me in my local SF bookshop, might have been its break with the Tolkien "template" which had been dominating the genre for years.

A "mythago" is a mythic image: something created from the mind of a human being and formed in the real world. They are real bodily things, as real as you or I and can be loved or fall in love, be killed or kill. They might not be human. The created things sprout from myth or history and have a deep, timeless resonance to their source, whether our own unconscious mind or the place itself.

Ryhope Wood seems to have a "supernatural" capability of producing these figures. Inside the ancient wood, we cross one or more thresholds and the normal reality of time and space is broken. A whole world exists separately from ours, peopled by ancient inhabitants and within ancient landscapes.

We meet two brothers, sons of a father obsessed with exploring the wood, living in a house on its edge. When the father dies, each son experiences the draw of the forest and its mysteries. This is also a love story, a chase and a quest. A "created" creature of the wood is Guiwenneth, a young woman with a past steeped in old myth and a pre-Christian world. She is the crux of the novel and the reason for the chase into the further reaches of the forest. Guiwenneth seems to be an avatar of a Celtic warrior princess but also a mythic female figure from long before the Celts appeared. Is there a Jungian collective unconscious? Holdstock explores aspects of this to bring this world to life.

Mythago Wood is a well written adventure book but infused with an exploration of history and myth. This dive through the sights and smells of ancient places and people is the core and what makes it special. It is rooted in the old landscape of an old country, one that has seen many new peoples bringing many new tales. I liked it so much because of that. The novel ends at a point where there is obviously more to say: the sequel is Lavondyss, which I am looking forward to reading.