Mythago Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  Finally I said to her, ‘Can you understand my words?’

  She smiled and shrugged. ‘Understand speaking. A little. You speaking. I speaking. A little.’ Again she shrugged. ‘In woodland. Speaking … ’ She flexed her fingers, struggling to explain the concept. Many? Many languages? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Many languages. Some understanding. Some … ’ shaking her head and crossing her opened hands, a clear gesture of negation.

  My father’s diary had referred to the way a mythago would develop the language of its creator faster than the reverse process. It was uncanny to watch and listen as Guiwenneth acquired English, acquired concepts, acquired understanding almost with every sentence that I spoke to her.

  The rosewood clock chimed eleven. We watched the mantelpiece in silence and when the delicate sound had faded I counted aloud from one to eleven. Guiwenneth answered in her own language. We stared at each other. It had been a long evening and I was tired; my throat was dry with talking, my eyes stinging with dust or ash from the fire. I needed sleep but was reluctant to move from the contact with the girl. I dreaded her walking back into the woodland and not reappearing. As it was, I spent the morning restlessly pacing, waiting for her to return. My need was growing.

  I tapped the table. ‘Table,’ I said, and she said a word which sounded like ‘board’.

  ‘Tired,’ I said, and let my head drop to one side, making exaggerated snoring motions. She smiled and nodded, rubbing her hands over her brown eyes and blinking rapidly. ‘Chusug,’ she said, and added, in English, ‘Guiwenneth tired.’

  ‘I’m going to sleep. Will you stay?’

  I stood up and held my hand to her. She hesitated then reached out to touch my fingers, squeezing the tips with hers. But she remained seated, her gaze on mine, and slowly shook her head. Then she blew me a kiss, pulled the cloth from the table as I had done the other night, and moved over to the floor by the dead fire, where she curled up like an animal, and seemed to drift into sleep immediately.

  I went upstairs to my cold bed, and lay awake for more than an hour, disappointed in one way, yet triumphant: for the first time ever she had stayed the night in my house.

  Progress was being made!

  That night, nature advanced upon Oak Lodge in a frightening and dramatic way.

  I had slept fitfully, my mind filled with images of the girl asleep by the fire downstairs, and of her walking through the unnatural growth of saplings that surrounded the house, her shirt billowing, her hands touching the flexible stems of the man-high trees. It seemed to me that the whole house creaked and shifted as the soil below was pierced and penetrated by the spreading roots. And in this way, perhaps, I was anticipating the event that occurred at two in the morning, the dead part of the night.

  I awoke to a strange sound, the splintering noise of wood splitting, the groaning of great beams bending and warping. For a second, as I came to my senses, I thought it was a nightmare. Then I realized that the whole house was shaking, that the beech outside my window was being whipped about as if in a hurricane. I could hear Guiwenneth’s cry from below, and I grabbed my dressing-gown and raced down the stairs.

  A strange, cold wind blew from the direction of the study. Guiwenneth was standing in the dark doorway to that room, a frail shape in her creased clothing. The noise began to abate. A powerful and pungent smell of mud and earth assailed my nostrils as I approached cautiously through the junk-filled lounge, turning on the light.

  The oakwood had come to the study, bursting up through the floors, and winding and twisting across the walls and ceiling. The desk was shattered, cabinets broken and pierced by the gnarled fingers of the new growth. Whether it was one tree or more I couldn’t tell; perhaps it was no normal tree at all, but, an extension of the forest designed to engulf those flimsy structures that had been made by man.

  The room was rank with the smell of dirt and wood. The branches that framed the ceiling trembled; earth fell in small lumps from the dark, scarred trunks that had pierced the flooring at eight points.

  Guiwenneth walked into this shadowy cage of wood, reaching out to touch one of the quivering limbs. The whole room seemed to shudder at her touch, but a sensation of calm had enveloped the house, now. It was as if … as if once the woodland had grasped the Lodge, had made it a part of its aura, the tension, the need to possess, had gone.

  The light in the study no longer worked. Still astonished by what had happened, I followed Guiwenneth into the shadowy, eerie chamber, to rescue my father’s journal and diaries from the crumbling desk. A twig of oak twisted, I swear, to stroke my fingers as I tugged the books from the drawer. I was watched as I worked, assessed. The room was cold. Earth fell upon my hair, broke in small lumps on the floor, and where my bare feet touched it, it seemed to burn.

  The whole room rustled; it whispered. Outside the French windows, which were still intact, the oak saplings crowded closer, taller than me, now, growing towards the house in greater abundance.

  The following morning I staggered down from a last few hours of fitful, jumpy sleep, to realize that it was close on ten o’clock, a blustery day outside, with a sky that threatened rain. The tablecloth was crumpled on the floor by the fire, but noise from the kitchen informed me that my guest had not yet departed.

  Guiwenneth greeted me with a cheery smile, and words in her Brythonic language that she briefly translated as, ‘Good. Eating.’ She had discovered a box of Quaker Oats, and had made a thick porridge with water and honey. This she was scooping into her mouth with two fingers, and smacking her lips with loud appreciation. She picked up the box and stared at the dark-robed Quaker who featured on the front, and laughed. ‘Meivoroth!’ she said, pointing to the thick broth, and nodded vigorously. ‘Good.’

  She had found something that reminded her of home. When I picked up the box I discovered it was almost empty.

  Then something outside caught her attention, and she moved quickly to the back door, opening it and stepping out into the windy day. I followed her, aware of the sound of a horse cantering across the nearer meadow.

  It was no mythago who rode up to the fence and leaned down to unlatch the gate, kicking her small mare through into the gardens. Guiwenneth watched the younger girl with interest and half amusement.

  She was the eldest daughter of the Ryhopes, an unpleasant girl who conformed to all the worst caricatures of the English upper classes: weak-jawed, dull-eyed, over-opinionated and under-informed; she was horse-obsessed, and hunt-mad, something that I found personally offensive.

  She gave Guiwenneth a long, arrogant look, more jealous than curious. Fiona Ryhope was blonde, freckled, and exceedingly plain. Wearing jodhpurs and a black riding jacket, she was – to my eyes – quite indistinguishable from any of the saddle-crazy debutantes who regularly jumped old barrels and fences in the local gymkhana.

  ‘Letter for you. Sent to the house.’

  And that was all she said, passing me the buff envelope, then swinging her horse around and cantering back across the garden. She didn’t close the gate. From the lack of acknowledgement to the fact that she had not dismounted, every second of her presence on my territory had been insulting, and discourteous. I didn’t bother to say thank you. Guiwenneth watched her go, but I walked back into the house, opening the slim package.

  It was from Anne Hayden. The letter was simple and short:

  Dear Mr Huxley,

  I believe the enclosed are the sheets you were looking for when you came to Oxford. They are certainly in your father’s handwriting. They were tucked inside an issue of the Journal of Archaeology. I believe he had hidden them there, and readdressed his own copy of the journal to my father. In one way you discovered them yourself, since I would not have bothered to send the pile of journals to the university if you hadn’t visited. A kind librarian found the sheets and sent them back. I have also enclosed some correspondence that may be of interest to you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Anne Hayden

  Attached to the letter w
ere six folded pages from the journal, six pages that my father had not wanted Christian to discover, six pages that concerned themselves with Guiwenneth, and with the way to penetrate the outer defences of the primal woodland ….

  Eight

  May 1942

  Encounters with the river tribe, the Shamiga, with a primitive form of Arthur, and a Knight, straight out of Malory. This latter quite risky. Observed a tournament in the older sense, a crazed battle in a woodland clearing, ten Knights, all fighting in total silence, except for crash of weapons. The Knight who triumphed rode around the glade, as the others departed on horseback. A magnificent looking man in bright armour and a purple cloak. His horse wore a mantle and trappings of silk. I could not identify him in terms of legend, but he talked to me briefly, in a language I could just recognize: Middle French.

  These I list, but it was the fortified village of Cumbarath that was most significant. Here, staying in a roundhouse for forty days or more (and yet I was away only two weeks!) I learned of the legend of Guiwenneth. The village is the legendary palisaded village, hidden in a valley, or across a remote mountain, where the pure folk live, the old inhabitants of the land who have never been found by the conqueror. A strong and persisting myth through many centuries, and startling to me since I lived within a mythago … the village itself, and all its inhabitants, are created from the racial unconscious. This, so far, is the most powerful myth landscape in the wood, that I have discovered.

  Learned the language easily, since it was close to the Brythonic of the girl, and learned fragments of her legend, although the story is clearly incomplete. Her tale ends in tragedy, I am sure. Deeply excited by the story. So much that G talks about when she comes, so many of her strange obsessions, become clearer to me. She has been generated at age 16 or 17, the time at which her memory becomes important, but the story of her birth is powerfully remembered in the village.

  This, then, is part of the dark story of the girl Guiwenneth as told to me:

  They were the first days when the legions from the east were in the land.

  Two sisters lived in the fort at Dun Emrys, the daughters of the warlord, Morthid, who was old, weak, and had given in to peace. Each daughter was as fair as the other. Each had been born on the same day, the day before the feast of the sun god, Lug. To tell them apart was almost impossible, save that Dierdrath wore a bloom of heather on her right breast, and Rhiathan the flower of a wild rose on her left. Rhiathan fell in love with a Roman commander at the nearby fort Caerwent. She went to the fort to live, and there was a time of harmony between the invader and the tribe at Dun Emrys. But Rhiathan was barren and her jealousy and hate grew, until her face was like iron.

  Dierdrath loved the son of a fierce warrior who had been slain in battle against the Romans. The son’s name was Peredur, and he had been outcast from the tribe because he had opposed Dierdrath’s father. Now he lived, with nine warriors, in the wildwoods, in a stony gorge where not even a hare would dare to run. At night he came to the wildwood edge and called to Dierdrath like a dove. Dierdrath went to him, and in time she carried his child.

  When the time came for the birth, the druid, Cathabach, pronounced that she carried a girl, and the name was given: Guiwenneth, which means earth child. But Rhiathan sent soldiers to the Dun, and Dierdrath was taken from her father, and carried against her will to the tents inside the wooden palisade of the Roman fort. Four warriors from the Dun were taken too, and Morthid himself, and he was agreeable that the child, when born, should be fostered by Rhiathan. Dierdrath was too weak to cry out, and Rhiathan swore silently that when the child was born, her sister would die.

  Peredur watched from the forest edge, despairing. His nine were with him and none could console him. Twice, during the night, he attacked the fort, but was repulsed by force of arms. Each time he could hear the voice of Dierdrath, crying to him, ‘Be quick. Save my child.’

  Beyond the stone gorge, where the woods were darkest, was a place where the oldest tree was older than the land, as round and high as an earth fort. There, Peredur knew, lived the Jagad, an entity as eternal as the rock across which he scrambled, searching. The Jagad was his only hope, for she alone controlled the ways of things, not just in the woods, but in the seas and in the air. She was from the oldest time, and no invader could come near her. She had known the ways of men from the time of the Watching, when men had no tongues to speak.

  This is how Peredur found the Jagad.

  He found a glen where wild thistle grew, and no sapling was higher than his ankle. Around him, the forest was tall and silent. No tree had fallen and died to form this glade. Only the Jagad could have made it. The nine warriors with him formed a circle, with their backs to Peredur, who stood between them. They held twigs of hazel, blackthorn and oak. Peredur slew a wolf and spread its blood upon the ground, around the nine. The wolf’s head he placed facing north. He pushed his sword into the earth at the west of the circle. He laid his dagger at the east. He himself stood to the south, inside his ring, and called for the entity.

  This is the way that things were worked in the days before the priests, and the most important thing of all was the circle which bound the caller to his own years and land.

  Seven times Peredur called the Jagad.

  On the first call he saw only the birds fly from the trees (but what birds they were, crows, sparrows and hawks, each as large as a horse).

  On the second call, the hares and foxes of the woodland ran around the circle, and fled to the west.

  On the third call, wild boar rushed from the thickets. Each was taller than a man, but the circle held them back (though Oswry speared the smallest for food, and would be called to answer for the act in another season).

  On the fourth call, the stags came from the spinneys, followed by the does, and each time their hooves touched the ground the woodland trembled and the circle shook. The eyes of the stags glowed in the night. Guillauc tossed a torque on to the antler of one of them, to mark it as his, and at another time he would be called to answer for the deed.

  On the fifth call the glade fell silent, though figures moved beyond vision. Then men on horseback emerged from the treeline, and swarmed about the glade. The horses were black as night, each with a dozen great, grey hounds at its feet, and a rider on its back. Cloaks flowed in silent winds, and torches burned, and this wild hunt circled the nine twenty times, their cries growing loud, their eyes bright. These were no men of the lands of Peredur, but hunters from times past and times yet to come, gathered here, and guarding the Jagad.

  On the sixth and seventh call the Jagad came, following behind the horsemen and the hounds. The ground opened and the gates to the world below the land parted, and the Jagad stepped through, a tall figure and faceless, her body swathed in dark robes, with silver and iron on her wrists and ankles. The fallen daughter of the earth, the hateful, vengeful child of the Moon, the Jagad stood before Peredur and in the emptiness that was her face a silent smile appeared, and scornful laughter assailed his ears.

  But the Jagad could not break the circle of Year and Land, could not drag Peredur far beyond this place and season, and lose him in a wild place, where he would be at her mercy. Three times she walked around the circle, stopping only to look at Oswry and Guillauc, who knew at once that by killing the boar and marking the stag they had doomed themselves. But their time would be for other years, and another tale.

  Then Peredur told the Jagad what he needed. He told her of his love for Dierdrath, and the jealousy of the sister, and the threat to his child. He asked for help.

  ‘I will have the child, then,’ said the Jagad, and Peredur answered that she would not.

  ‘I will have the mother, then,’ said the Jagad, and Peredur answered that she would not.

  ‘Then I shall have one of the ten,’ said the Jagad, and brought to Peredur and his warriors a basket containing hazel nuts. Each warrior, and Peredur himself, took a nut and ate it, none knowing which would have been bound to the Jagad.

>   The Jagad said, ‘You are the hunters of the long night. One of you now is mine, because the magic that I give you must be paid for, and a life is all that can be used. Now break the circle, for the bargaining is done.’

  ‘No,’ said Peredur, and the Jagad laughed.

  Then the Jagad raised her arms to the dark skies. In the emptiness that was her face Peredur thought he could see the shape of the hag who inhabited the body of the entity. She was older than time itself, and only the wildwoods saved men from her evil glance.

  ‘I will give you your Guiwenneth,’ cried the Jagad. ‘But each man here will answer for her life. I am the huntress of the first woods, and the ice woods, and the stone woods, and the high tracks, and the bleak moors; I am the daughter of Moon and Saturn; sour herbs cure me, bitter juices sustain me, bright silver and cold iron gird me. I have always been in the earth, and the earth shall ever nourish me, for I am the eternal huntress, and when I have need of you, Peredur, and your nine hunters, I shall call upon you, and whoever I call shall go. There is no time so remote that you shall not wander through it, no land too wide or too cold, or too hot, or too lonely for a quest to take you. Be it known, and be it agreed, then, that when the girl has first known love, each and all of you shall be mine … to answer my call, or not, depending on the nature of things.’

  And Peredur looked grim. But when his friends all gave their consent, he agreed, and so it was done. And thereafter they were known as the Jaguth, which is the night hunt.

  On the day of the child’s birth, ten eagles were seen, circling the Roman fort. None knew what to make of the omen, for the bird was a good portent to all concerned, but the number of them was puzzling.

  Guiwenneth was born, in a tent, watched only by her aunt and the druid. But as the druid gave thanks with smoke and a small sacrifice, so Rhiathan pressed a cushion to her sister’s face, and killed her. None saw her do this deed, and she wept as loudly as the rest for the death.