Merlin's Wood
Encyclopedia
Merlin's Wood; or, The Vision of Magic is a short novel written by Robert Holdstock
and was first published in the UK 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
.
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.
Despite being wary of Rebecca, Martin becomes romantically involved with her, marries her, and together they parent a beautiful boy named Daniel who is deaf, dumb and blind. As they raise Daniel it becomes apparent that Rebecca is slowly losing her sensory perceptions and faculties while Daniel is gaining them. Rebecca first loses her musical ability, then her vision fades, then her speech becomes simplistic, and finally she loses almost all self-awareness. Meanwhile Daniel progresses from being deaf and blind to singing, speaking, seeing and finally possessing a supernatural sense of hearing. Unknowingly the family has become entangled in an age-old struggle between Merlin and Vivien
, wherein a part of Vivien's spirit inhabits Daniel while a part of Merlin's spirit inhabits Rebecca. Martin physically confronts Daniel, but realizes he is physically outmatched and retreats. He also asks Father Gualzator to perform an exorcism
on Rebecca, but his request is refused.
Daniel and Rebecca disappear into the forest and Martin discovers them dead by drowning. In an attempt to save them, Martin travels deeper into the heart of Brocéliande in search of Merlin. After traveling across a mystical lake, Father Gualzator assists Martin in freeing Merlin from his underground tomb. Merlin emerges and animates the corpse of Conrad and, as a revenant, communicates with Martin. Merlin recounts his age old struggle with Vivien while Martin pleads with Merlin to bring his family members back to life.
During their conversations, Merlin describes a Hollowing as an area "of no magic." Merlin also explains the origin of the ghosts on the path - they represent his magical powers, purposely divested to prevent Vivien from stealing them. Merlin recounts the seven essential powers of magic:
After a number of conversations lasting over a period of days, Merlin refuses to bring Daniel or Rebecca back to life. As a final blow, he takes possession of Martin's body.
Conrad : An elderly man who has lived in Brocéliande for many years. He was originally an invading soldier, but defected from his foreign troop. He has extraordinarily acute hearing and an intimate knowledge of the woodland.
Daniel : Daniel is the child born to Martin and Rebecca. He is born deaf and blind, but otherwise healthy.
Eveline Mathilde la-coeur-forte Laroche : Martin's and Sebastian's biological mother and Rebecca's adoptive mother. Her death sets into motion the events in the story.
Flynn : The former romantic partner of Rebecca who remains in Australia. He was brought back to life after drowning by Rebecca's magical gift of song.
Father Gualzator : A priest at the local church who is originally from the Basque country
.
Jacques : Eveline's surviving older brother.
Martin : Martin is the protagonist of the story who left his family home near Brocéliande for Amsterdam
at the age of 16. He is a lean man in his late 20's or early 30's when the story starts.
Rebecca : Rebecca was orphaned at the age of 13 or 14 and is the adopted sister of Martin. She has been living in Australia
and is a rugged lady with auburn hair in her late 20's when the story starts.
Sebastian : Sebastian, or Seb, is the younger brother of Martin and Rebecca who, as a child, died a violent death in Brocéliande.
Suzanne : Jacques' wife.
Yvette Valence : A local herbalist
who is from the Basque country.
, Napoleonic cavalry
men, and others.
Merlin : The enchanter
whose spirit is trapped in Brocelainde. Part of his spirit also resides in Rebecca.
Old Provider : A mythic threatening large black dog who supplants Saint Nicholas'
role as gift giver in the local region. In addition to delivering presents like Saint Nicholas, Old Provider has a dark and threatening nature.
The Troubadour : A ghost
who appears on the path exiting Brocéliande who imparts the power of song to Rebecca when she is a child.
Vivien : The enchantress who has trapped Merlin. Part of her spirit resides in Daniel.
This story first appeared in a 1980 work titled Interfaces, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin
and Virginia Kidd
. Earth and Stone was subsequently revised for inclusion in Merlin's Wood to take into account archaeological discoveries made in the interim.
This short story takes place in Ireland
where six thousand year old earthen mounds, or tumuli
and monumental carved stones mark various tombs. The specific area is Knowth
in the valley of the River Boyne
in Ireland.
The protagonist, John Farrel, who is in his late 20's, travels back in time (from a presumed future date when time travel is possible) to the third millennium B.C. to investigate first-hand the archaeological sites to-be. The story takes place over the period of seventeen days. The story is told in episodic form and switches back and forth from first person narratives (relayed to the future in eight separate transmissions) to third person narratives. Farrel plans to meet a fellow archaeologist, Burton, in the past, but soon learns that Burton is missing or dead from Tig, a lone boy from an abandoned local village. (Holdstock also has used Tig as the name of a mythago who briefly appeared in Mythago Wood and played a prominent role guarding a mausoleum
and creating mischief in Lavondyss
.) Farrel's conversations with Tig are conducted in an awkward megalith
ic or stone age
language. The narrative provides parenthetical translations of the conversations throughout the story. Eventually John is lead to a necropolis
where the members of the village have been buried in shallow graves, yet remain alive due to highly suppressed metabolisms. Eventually these villagers wake, bathe and take up building the largest of the local tumuli. John discovers Burton buried as well, but determines Tig has murdered him with a sharp femur bone. John fears for his life, but is not murdered by Tig. Rather, he is compelled to be buried himself and comes to grips with being buried alive before it happens. Once buried alive, he absorbs the wisdom of dying gods including Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Sky, Serpent, etc. Upon waking he has been greatly enlightened and has no intention of returning to the future. He then joins the local villagers in building the tumulus, or temple to the earth.
The Silvering
This short story first appeared in a 1992 work titled Narrow Houses, edited by Peter Crowther. The Silvering is a reference to one of the ten wooden masks Tallis Keeton creates in Lavondyss
.
In this story the protagonist, Peterson, is the lone survivor of a bomber crash. Peterson saves himself by parachuting to a small deserted island while his companions crash headlong into the nearby ocean. Peterson lives in a small dwelling which he has built from bits of flotsam and materials brought to him by selkie
s, a mythic race of creatures who can transform themselves from humans into seals
(and back again) by using an external skin as a mechanism for transformation. In The Silvering if this does not happen in a timely manner, an inner wood-based self (called a nagig
) will destructively shed the humanoid exterior and the creature will take root as a tree. Peterson has been stealing and hiding the skins from selkies as they emerge from the ocean to prevent their return to the ocean. However, he eventually falls in love with one of the selkies who returns to land every year for several years to be with him. Eventually she fails to appear, and Peterson tricks another selkie out of her skin and dons it himself, undergoing a painful transformation in order to become aquatic himself and search the sea for his missing love. It turns out she has morphed into a killer whale
and eats him before entering another phase of metamorphosis herself.
genre of literature, Merlin's Wood has been considered essential reading because "Holdstock is a writer who has traveled deeper into the woods than any other mythic writer." However, another writer states "the overall narrative is flawed, distorted by its weight of undeserved loss and inaccessible healing."
Terri Windling
selected Merlin's Wood as one of the best fantasy books of 1994, describing it as "a hauntingly beautiful short novel . . . [containing a] rich mix of myth, history, and anthropological lore."
Note: Despite being considered part of the overall Mythago Wood cycle, the events in Merlin's Wood have little bearing on the events in Ryhope wood.
Robert Holdstock
Robert Paul Holdstock was an English novelist and author best known for his works of Celtic, Nordic, Gothic and Pictish fantasy literature, predominantly in the fantasy subgenre of mythic fiction....
and was first published in the UK in 1994. The novel is considered part of the Mythago Wood
Mythago Wood
Mythago Wood is a fantasy novel written by Robert Holdstock that was published in the United Kingdom in 1984. The conception began as a short story written for the 1979 Milford Writer's Workshop; next a novella of the same name appeared in the September 1981 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy &...
cycle, but takes place in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, France instead of Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
, England. The work has all new characters and focuses on the mythical birthplace and burial site of Merlin, the magical wood Brocéliande
Brocéliande
Brocéliande is the name of a legendary forest that first appears in literature in 1160, in the Roman de Rou, a verse chronicle written by Wace....
. 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
The Bone Forest
The Bone Forest is a book opening with a novella of the same name followed by seven short stories. All were written by Robert Holdstock and published in 1991 and 1992 . This novella is a prequel to the entire Mythago Wood cycle...
.
Conception
According to the author the work is influenced by Tennyson'sAlfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
Idylls of the King
Idylls of the King
Idylls of the King, published between 1856 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom...
and Joseph Campbell's
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
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 Hollowing
The Hollowing is the third fantasy novel of the Mythago Wood series written by Robert Holdstock. It was originally published in 1993. The title refers to a magical pathway, or hollowing, an archaic English term for a sunken lane or hollow-way...
.
Novel plot summary
Merlin's Wood; or, The Vision of MagicThe 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
Lycanthropy
Lycanthropy is the professed ability or power of a human being to undergo transformation into a werewolf, or to gain wolf-like characteristics. The term comes from Greek Lykànthropos : λύκος, lykos + άνθρωπος, ànthrōpos...
who fatally mauled the child.
Despite being wary of Rebecca, Martin becomes romantically involved with her, marries her, and together they parent a beautiful boy named Daniel who is deaf, dumb and blind. As they raise Daniel it becomes apparent that Rebecca is slowly losing her sensory perceptions and faculties while Daniel is gaining them. Rebecca first loses her musical ability, then her vision fades, then her speech becomes simplistic, and finally she loses almost all self-awareness. Meanwhile Daniel progresses from being deaf and blind to singing, speaking, seeing and finally possessing a supernatural sense of hearing. Unknowingly the family has become entangled in an age-old struggle between Merlin and Vivien
Lady of the Lake
The Lady of the Lake is the name of several related characters who play parts in the Arthurian legend. These characters' roles include giving King Arthur his sword Excalibur, enchanting Merlin, and raising Lancelot after the death of his father...
, wherein a part of Vivien's spirit inhabits Daniel while a part of Merlin's spirit inhabits Rebecca. Martin physically confronts Daniel, but realizes he is physically outmatched and retreats. He also asks Father Gualzator to perform an exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
on Rebecca, but his request is refused.
Daniel and Rebecca disappear into the forest and Martin discovers them dead by drowning. In an attempt to save them, Martin travels deeper into the heart of Brocéliande in search of Merlin. After traveling across a mystical lake, Father Gualzator assists Martin in freeing Merlin from his underground tomb. Merlin emerges and animates the corpse of Conrad and, as a revenant, communicates with Martin. Merlin recounts his age old struggle with Vivien while Martin pleads with Merlin to bring his family members back to life.
During their conversations, Merlin describes a Hollowing as an area "of no magic." Merlin also explains the origin of the ghosts on the path - they represent his magical powers, purposely divested to prevent Vivien from stealing them. Merlin recounts the seven essential powers of magic:
- Song - the oldest power which creates life and landscape
- "Moving stones by the power of hidden water"
- "Flying to and from the hinterlandHinterlandThe hinterland is the land or district behind a coast or the shoreline of a river. Specifically, by the doctrine of the hinterland, the word is applied to the inland region lying behind a port, claimed by the state that owns the coast. The area from which products are delivered to a port for...
s of the Otherworld" - "Connecting the parts of the beast, both hard and soft"
- "Understanding of the human spirit as sustenance for mind and body"
- "The movement of awareness between the soft and hard forms of life"
- "To control, to contain, to employ the vision, hearing and dreams of children".
After a number of conversations lasting over a period of days, Merlin refuses to bring Daniel or Rebecca back to life. As a final blow, he takes possession of Martin's body.
Human characters
Albert : Martin's father; he is only mentioned in passing.Conrad : An elderly man who has lived in Brocéliande for many years. He was originally an invading soldier, but defected from his foreign troop. He has extraordinarily acute hearing and an intimate knowledge of the woodland.
Daniel : Daniel is the child born to Martin and Rebecca. He is born deaf and blind, but otherwise healthy.
Eveline Mathilde la-coeur-forte Laroche : Martin's and Sebastian's biological mother and Rebecca's adoptive mother. Her death sets into motion the events in the story.
Flynn : The former romantic partner of Rebecca who remains in Australia. He was brought back to life after drowning by Rebecca's magical gift of song.
Father Gualzator : A priest at the local church who is originally from the Basque country
Basque Country (historical territory)
The Basque Country is the name given to the home of the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast....
.
Jacques : Eveline's surviving older brother.
Martin : Martin is the protagonist of the story who left his family home near Brocéliande for Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
at the age of 16. He is a lean man in his late 20's or early 30's when the story starts.
Rebecca : Rebecca was orphaned at the age of 13 or 14 and is the adopted sister of Martin. She has been living in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and is a rugged lady with auburn hair in her late 20's when the story starts.
Sebastian : Sebastian, or Seb, is the younger brother of Martin and Rebecca who, as a child, died a violent death in Brocéliande.
Suzanne : Jacques' wife.
Yvette Valence : A local herbalist
Herbalist
An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....
who is from the Basque country.
Mythic characters
Minor mythagos/ghosts appear on the path exiting Brocéliande including Greek warriorsHoplite
A hoplite was a citizen-soldier of the Ancient Greek city-states. Hoplites were primarily armed as spearmen and fought in a phalanx formation. The word "hoplite" derives from "hoplon" , the type of the shield used by the soldiers, although, as a word, "hopla" could also denote weapons held or even...
, Napoleonic cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
men, and others.
Merlin : The enchanter
Magician (fantasy)
A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, enchanter, enchantress, thaumaturge or a person known under one of many other possible terms is someone who uses or practices magic that derives from supernatural or occult sources...
whose spirit is trapped in Brocelainde. Part of his spirit also resides in Rebecca.
Old Provider : A mythic threatening large black dog who supplants Saint Nicholas'
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...
role as gift giver in the local region. In addition to delivering presents like Saint Nicholas, Old Provider has a dark and threatening nature.
The Troubadour : A ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
who appears on the path exiting Brocéliande who imparts the power of song to Rebecca when she is a child.
Vivien : The enchantress who has trapped Merlin. Part of her spirit resides in Daniel.
Short story plot summaries
Earth and StoneThis story first appeared in a 1980 work titled Interfaces, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
and Virginia Kidd
Virginia Kidd
Virginia Kidd was an American literary agent, writer and editor, particularly influential in science fiction and related fields. She represented some of science fiction's most important authors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, R.A. Lafferty, Anne McCaffrey, and Gene Wolfe...
. Earth and Stone was subsequently revised for inclusion in Merlin's Wood to take into account archaeological discoveries made in the interim.
This short story takes place in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
where six thousand year old earthen mounds, or tumuli
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
and monumental carved stones mark various tombs. The specific area is Knowth
Knowth
Knowth is a Neolithic passage grave and an ancient monument of Brú na Bóinne in the valley of the River Boyne in Ireland.Knowth is the largest of all passage graves situated within the Brú na Bóinne complex. The site consists of one large mound and 17 smaller satellite tombs...
in the valley of the River Boyne
River Boyne
The River Boyne is a river in Leinster, Ireland, the course of which is about long. It rises at Trinity Well, Newbury Hall, near Carbury, County Kildare, and flows towards the Northeast through County Meath to reach the Irish Sea between Mornington, County Meath and Baltray, County Louth. Salmon...
in Ireland.
The protagonist, John Farrel, who is in his late 20's, travels back in time (from a presumed future date when time travel is possible) to the third millennium B.C. to investigate first-hand the archaeological sites to-be. The story takes place over the period of seventeen days. The story is told in episodic form and switches back and forth from first person narratives (relayed to the future in eight separate transmissions) to third person narratives. Farrel plans to meet a fellow archaeologist, Burton, in the past, but soon learns that Burton is missing or dead from Tig, a lone boy from an abandoned local village. (Holdstock also has used Tig as the name of a mythago who briefly appeared in Mythago Wood and played a prominent role guarding a mausoleum
Mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or persons. A monument without the interment is a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb or the tomb may be considered to be within the...
and creating mischief in Lavondyss
Lavondyss
Lavondyss also titled Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region is the second fantasy novel of the Mythago Wood series written by Robert Holdstock. Lavondyss was originally published in 1988...
.) Farrel's conversations with Tig are conducted in an awkward megalith
Megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. Megalithic describes structures made of such large stones, utilizing an interlocking system without the use of mortar or cement.The word 'megalith' comes from the Ancient...
ic or stone age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
language. The narrative provides parenthetical translations of the conversations throughout the story. Eventually John is lead to a necropolis
Necropolis
A necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, literally meaning "city of the dead"...
where the members of the village have been buried in shallow graves, yet remain alive due to highly suppressed metabolisms. Eventually these villagers wake, bathe and take up building the largest of the local tumuli. John discovers Burton buried as well, but determines Tig has murdered him with a sharp femur bone. John fears for his life, but is not murdered by Tig. Rather, he is compelled to be buried himself and comes to grips with being buried alive before it happens. Once buried alive, he absorbs the wisdom of dying gods including Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Sky, Serpent, etc. Upon waking he has been greatly enlightened and has no intention of returning to the future. He then joins the local villagers in building the tumulus, or temple to the earth.
The Silvering
This short story first appeared in a 1992 work titled Narrow Houses, edited by Peter Crowther. The Silvering is a reference to one of the ten wooden masks Tallis Keeton creates in Lavondyss
Lavondyss
Lavondyss also titled Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region is the second fantasy novel of the Mythago Wood series written by Robert Holdstock. Lavondyss was originally published in 1988...
.
In this story the protagonist, Peterson, is the lone survivor of a bomber crash. Peterson saves himself by parachuting to a small deserted island while his companions crash headlong into the nearby ocean. Peterson lives in a small dwelling which he has built from bits of flotsam and materials brought to him by selkie
Selkie
Selkies are mythological creatures that are found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish, and Scottish folklore....
s, a mythic race of creatures who can transform themselves from humans into seals
Pinniped
Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semiaquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae .-Overview: Pinnipeds are typically sleek-bodied and barrel-shaped...
(and back again) by using an external skin as a mechanism for transformation. In The Silvering if this does not happen in a timely manner, an inner wood-based self (called a nagig
Sheela Na Gig
Sheela na gigs are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva. They are found on churches, castles and other buildings, particularly in Ireland and Britain, sometimes together with male figures. One of the best examples may be found in the Round Tower at Rattoo, in County...
) will destructively shed the humanoid exterior and the creature will take root as a tree. Peterson has been stealing and hiding the skins from selkies as they emerge from the ocean to prevent their return to the ocean. However, he eventually falls in love with one of the selkies who returns to land every year for several years to be with him. Eventually she fails to appear, and Peterson tricks another selkie out of her skin and dons it himself, undergoing a painful transformation in order to become aquatic himself and search the sea for his missing love. It turns out she has morphed into a killer whale
Orca
The killer whale , commonly referred to as the orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas...
and eats him before entering another phase of metamorphosis herself.
Critical commentary
Critical reaction to Merlin's Wood has been mixed. One anthologist asserts that within the fantasyFantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
genre of literature, Merlin's Wood has been considered essential reading because "Holdstock is a writer who has traveled deeper into the woods than any other mythic writer." However, another writer states "the overall narrative is flawed, distorted by its weight of undeserved loss and inaccessible healing."
Terri Windling
Terri Windling
Terri Windling is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. Windling has won nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and her collection The Armless Maiden appeared on the short-list for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award...
selected Merlin's Wood as one of the best fantasy books of 1994, describing it as "a hauntingly beautiful short novel . . . [containing a] rich mix of myth, history, and anthropological lore."
Books in the Mythago Cycle
- Mythago WoodMythago WoodMythago Wood is a fantasy novel written by Robert Holdstock that was published in the United Kingdom in 1984. The conception began as a short story written for the 1979 Milford Writer's Workshop; next a novella of the same name appeared in the September 1981 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy &...
(1984) - LavondyssLavondyssLavondyss also titled Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region is the second fantasy novel of the Mythago Wood series written by Robert Holdstock. Lavondyss was originally published in 1988...
(1988) - The Bone ForestThe Bone ForestThe Bone Forest is a book opening with a novella of the same name followed by seven short stories. All were written by Robert Holdstock and published in 1991 and 1992 . This novella is a prequel to the entire Mythago Wood cycle...
(1991), a novella and collection of short stories - The HollowingThe HollowingThe Hollowing is the third fantasy novel of the Mythago Wood series written by Robert Holdstock. It was originally published in 1993. The title refers to a magical pathway, or hollowing, an archaic English term for a sunken lane or hollow-way...
(1993) - Merlin's Wood (1994), a novel and two short stories
- Gate of Ivory, Gate of HornGate of Ivory, Gate of HornGate of Ivory, Gate of Horn is a fantasy novel by British author Robert Holdstock. It was originally published in the US in 1997 The story is a prequel to Mythago Wood and explores the Christian Huxley's quest into Ryhope Wood and the apparent suicide of his mother, Jennifer Huxley...
(1997) - AvilionAvilionAvilion is a fantasy novel by British author Robert Holdstock. It was published in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2009. It is his first Ryhope wood novel since Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn was published in 1997. Avilion is Tennyson's term for Avalon in Le Morte d'Arthur...
(2009)
Note: Despite being considered part of the overall Mythago Wood cycle, the events in Merlin's Wood have little bearing on the events in Ryhope wood.