Mythago Wood - 1

Mythago Wood

I had that sense of recognition . . . here was something which
I had known all my life, only I didn't know it...

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
commenting upon his first discovery of British folklore and
folk music

Copyright © Robert Holdstock 1984

Part of this novel appeared in a different form in

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, 1981.

for Sarah
cariath ganuch trymllyd bwystfil

Edward Wynne-Jones Esq. 15 College Road Oxford

Edward -

You
must
come back to the Lodge. Please don't delay for even an hour!
I have discovered a fourth pathway into the deeper zones of the wood. The brook
itself. So obvious now, a water track! It leads directly through the outer ash
vortex, beyond the spiral track and the Stone Falls. I believe it could be used
to enter the heartwoods themselves. But time, always time!

I have found a people called the
shamiga.
They live beyond the Stone
Falls. They guard the fords on the river, but to my great satisfaction they are
willing story-tellers, which they call 'life-speaking'. The life-speaker herself
is a young girl who paints her face quite green, and tells all stories with her
eyes closed so that the smiles or frowns of those who listen cannot effect a
'shape-change' upon the characters within the story. I heard much from her, but
most important of all was a fragment of what can only be Guiwenneth's tale. It
is a pre-Celtic version of the myth, but I am convinced that it relates to the
girl. What I managed to understand of it goes thus:

'One afternoon, having killed a stag with eight tines, a boar twice the
height of a man, and cured four villages of bad manners,
Mogoch,
a
chieftain, sat down by the shore to rest. He was so mighty in deed and build
that his head was half-covered by clouds. He spread his feet out in the sea at
the bottom of the cliffs to cool. Then he lay back and watched a meeting
take place between two sisters upon his belly.

'The sisters were twins, equally beautiful, equally sweet of tongue, and
skilled with the harp. One sister, however, had married the warlord of a great
tribe, and had then found herself to be barren. Her complexion had become as
sour as milk left too long in the sun. The other sister had married an exiled
warrior, whose name was
Peregu.
Peregu held his camp in the deep gorges
and deadwoods of the far forest, but came to his lover as a nightbird. Now she
had produced his child, which was a girl, but because of the exile of Peregu,
her sour-faced sister and an army had come to claim the infant.

'A great argument occurred, and there were several clashes of arms. The lover
of Peregu had not even named the child when her sister snatched the tiny bundle
in its heavy cloth wrappings and raised it above her head, intending to name it
herself.

'But the sky darkened as ten magpies appeared. These were Peregu and his nine
sword-kin, changed by forest magic. Peregu swooped and caught his child in his
claws, and flew upwards, but a marksman used slingshot to bring him down. The
child fell, but the other birds caught her and carried her away. Thus she was
named
Hurfathna,
which means "the girl raised by magpies".

'Mogoch, the chieftain, watched all this with amusement, but had respect for
the dead Peregu. He picked up the tiny bird and shook the human form back into
it. But he was afraid that he would crush whole villages if he prodded out a
grave in the country with his finger. So Mogoch popped the dead exile into his
mouth and twisted out a tooth to stand as a monument. In this way Peregu was
buried beneath a tall white stone, in a valley which breathes.'

Who knows where and when this war will end? My eldest son will be called up
soon, and Steven soon after. I shall have more freedom to explore the wood, and
deal with the girl.

Edward, you
must come.
With kind regards,

George Huxley. December '41.