Merlin's Wood
First edition cover (softcover)
|
|
| Author | |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Geoff Taylor |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Mythago Wood series |
| Genre | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
|
Publication date
|
1994 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 286 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 33837524 |
Merlin's Wood; or, The Vision of Magic is a short novel written by and was first published in the United Kingdom in 1994. The novel is considered part of the Mythago Wood cycle, but takes place in Brittany, France instead of Herefordshire, England. The work has all new characters and focuses on the mythical birthplace and burial site of Merlin, the magical wood Brocéliande. Brocéliande is a smaller version of Ryhope wood where British myth predominates.
In addition to the short novel, Merlin's Wood, the 1994 edition features two tales, Earth and Stone and The Silvering. The 2009 edition contains the tales Scarrowfell, Thorn, Earth and Stone, and the novella The Bone Forest.
According to the author the work is influenced by Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God. The theme of the novel is 'the stealing of power.' The story provides a locale that ties in with the past experiences of Harry Keeton in Mythago Wood and echoes the story of Arnauld Lacan in The Hollowing.
The main novel is divided into four distinct parts. In the first part, Martin and Rebecca return to the outskirts of Brocéliande, an enchanted forest in Brittany where they grew up as children approximately 15 years earlier. They have returned for the funeral of their mother. Despite being warned to leave by family and local friends, they stay to settle the estate and take up residence in their childhood home.
Martin and Rebecca share stories of the past, some of which involve playing on the path exiting Brocéliande and dancing inside the ghosts that emerge from the forest. As a child, Rebecca gained the gift of song from an encounter with a ghostly troubadour on the path. She later used this gift of song in Australia to bring back her drowned lover, Flynn, from the dead. Conrad, an old man who lives in the woods, relates to Martin a well-kept secret version of the death of Martin's younger brother as a child. Conrad tells how Rebecca became a possessed half-man/half-wolf who fatally mauled the child.
...
Wikipedia