Mythago Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  Then Rhiathan took the girl child and went out into the fort, and raised the child above her head, proclaiming herself foster mother, and her Roman lover the father.

  Above the fort, the ten eagles gathered. The sound of their wings was like a distant storm; they were so large that when they grouped they cut off the sun, and threw a great shade across the fort. From this shadow came one of them, swooping fast from the sky. It beat about the head of Rhiathan, and snatched the child in its great talons, flying up again.

  Rhiathan screamed her anger. The eagles dispersed quickly towards the country around, but Roman archers loosed a thousand arrows and made their flying difficult.

  The eagle with the child in its talons was slowest of all. There was one among the legion who was renowned for his skill with a bow, and his single shot struck through the heart of the eagle, which let the child fall. The other birds, seeing this, came swiftly back, and one flew below the girl so that her fall was broken upon its back. Two others clasped the dead bird in their talons. With the infant and the dead bird, they flew to the wildwoods, to the stone gorge, and there regained their human shape.

  It was Peredur who had dived for the child, Peredur himself, her father. He lay, beautiful and pale in death, the arrow still through his heart. About the gorge, the Jagad’s laughter was like wind. She had promised Peredur that she would give him his Guiwenneth, and for a few moments he had had her.

  The Jaguth took Peredur to the bottom of the stony valley, where the wind was strongest, and buried him there, beneath a stone of white marble. Magidion was now the leader of the group.

  They raised Guiwenneth as best they could, these woodland hunters, outcast warriors. Guiwenneth was happy with them. They suckled her with wild-flower dew and doe’s milk. They clothed her in fox hide and cotton. She could walk by the time she was half a year old. She could run by the time she was a full four seasons of age. She knew the names of things in the wildwood soon after she could talk. Her only grief was that the ghost of Peredur called to her, and many mornings she would be found, standing by the marble stone in the wind-swept gorge, crying.

  One day, Magidion and the Jaguth hunted south from the valley, the girl with them. They made camp in a secret place, and one of them, Guillauc, remained with the girl, while the others hunted.

  This is how Guiwenneth was lost to them.

  The Romans had ceaselessly searched the hills and valleys, and the forests around the fort. They smelled the smoke of the camp’s fire, now, and twenty men closed in about the clearing. Their approach was betrayed by a crow, and Guiwenneth and the hunter, Guillauc, knew they were lost.

  Quickly, Guillauc tied the girl to his back with leather thongs, hurting her, so tight was the binding. Then he summoned the magic of the Jagad, and changed to a great stag, and in this form he ran from the Romans.

  But the Romans had dogs with them, and the dogs pursued the stag throughout the day. When the stag was exhausted it turned at bay, and the dogs tore it to pieces, but Guiwenneth was saved and taken to the fort. The spirit of Guillauc remained where the stag had fallen, and in the year when Guiwenneth first knew love, the Jagad came for him.

  For two years Guiwenneth lived in a tent within the high walls of the Roman stronghold. She was always to be found, struggling to see over the walls of the fort, crying and sobbing, as if she knew that the Jaguth were there, waiting to come for her. No more melancholy child was ever seen during those years, and no bond of love formed between her and her foster mother. But Rhiathan would not part with her.

  This is how the Jaguth took her back.

  Before dawn, early in the summer, eight doves called to Guiwenneth, and the child woke and listened to them. The next morning, before first light, eight owls called to her. On the third morning she was awake before the call, and walked through the dark camp, to the walls, to the place where she could see the hills around the fort. Eight stags stood there, watching her. After a while they ran swiftly down the hill, and thundered about the fort, calling loudly, before returning to the wild glens.

  On the fourth morning, as Rhiathan slept, Guiwenneth rose and stepped out of the tent. The dawn was breaking. The ground was misty and still. She could hear the murmur of voices, the sentries in the watchtowers. The day was chilly.

  Out of the mist came eight great hunting dogs. Each towered over the girl. Each had eyes like pools, and jaws like red wounds, and the tongues lolled. But Guiwenneth was unafraid. She lay down and let the largest of the great hounds take her in its jaws and lift her. The dogs padded silently to the north gate. A soldier was there and before he could make a sound his throat had been ripped out. Before the mist lifted, the gate was opened and a foot patrol of men left the fort. Before the gates closed the eight hounds and Guiwenneth slipped away.

  She rode with the Jaguth for many years. First they rode north, to the cold moors, through the snows, sheltering with the painted tribes. Guiwenneth was a tiny girl on a huge horse, but when they came north they found smaller steeds, which were still as fast. They rode south again, on the far side of the land, across marshes, fens, woodland and downland. They crossed a great river. Guiwenneth grew, was trained, became skilled. At night she slept in the arms of the leader of the Jaguth.

  In this way, many years passed. The girl was beautiful in every way, and her hair was long and red, and her skin pale and smooth. Wherever they rested the young warriors wanted her, but for years she remained unaware of love. It happened, though, that in the east of the land she felt love for the first time, for the son of a Chief, who was determined to have her.

  The Jaguth realized that their time with Guiwenneth was ending. They took her west again, and found the valley and the stone of her father, and here they left her, for the one who loved her was close behind, and the Jagad’s laughter sounded from beyond the stones. The entity was about to claim them for her own.

  The valley was a sad place. The stone above the body of Peredur was always bright, and as Guiwenneth waited there, alone, so the spirit of her father stepped out of the ground, and she saw him for the first time, and he saw her.

  ‘You are the acorn which will grow to oak,’ he said, but Guiwenneth did not understand.

  Peredur said, ‘Your sadness will grow to fury. Outcast like me, you will take my place. You will not rest until the invader is gone from the land. You will haunt him, you will burn him, you will drive him out from his forts and his villas.’

  ‘How will I do this?’ Guiwenneth asked.

  And around Peredur came the ghostly forms of the great gods and goddesses. For Peredur’s spirit was free from the grasping fingers of the Jagad. His bargain fulfilled, she had no claim upon him, and in the spirit world Peredur was renowned, and led the knights who ran with Cernunnos, the antlered Lord of Animals. The antlered God picked Guiwenneth up from the ground and breathed the fire of revenge into her lungs, and the seed of changing, to any form of animal in the wildwood. Epona touched her lips and eyes with moon dew, the way to blind the passions of men. Taranis gave her strength and thunder, so that now she was strong in every way.

  She was a vixen then, slipping into the fort at Caerwent, where her foster mother slept with the Roman. When the man woke he saw the girl standing by his pallet, and was overwhelmed with love for her. He followed her from the fort, through the night, to the river, where they stripped off their clothes and bathed in the cold waters. But Guiwenneth changed to a hawk, and flew about his head, pecking at his eyes until he was blind. The river took him, and when Rhiathan saw the body of her husband, her heart broke, and she flew from the high cliffs, to the sea rocks.

  In this way, the girl Guiwenneth came back to the place of her birth.

  Nine

  I read the short legend to Guiwenneth, emphasizing each word, each expression. She listened intently, her dark eyes searching, enticing. She was less interested in what I was trying to say to her, I felt, than in me. She liked the way I spoke, my smile: features about me, perhaps, that were as exciting to her as her
own beauty and that childish, terrifying sexuality were to me.

  After a while she reached out and pinched my fingers with hers, silencing me.

  I watched her.

  No birth, no genesis by whatever strange forest beast, could possibly compare with the generation of a girl by my own mind, and its interaction with the silent forests of Ryhope, She was a creature of a world as divorced from reality as the Moon itself. But what, I wondered, was I to her?

  It was the first time the question had arisen. What was I in her eyes? Something equally strange, equally alien? Perhaps fascination with me played as large a part in the interest as was the reverse case.

  And yet the power that existed between us, that unspoken rapport, that meeting of minds … ! I could not believe that I was not in love with Guiwenneth. The passion, the tightness in my chest, the distraction and desire for her, all of these surely added up to love! And I could see that she felt the same for me. I was sure this had to be more than the ‘function’ of the girl of legend, more than the simple obsession of all males for this forest princess.

  Christian had experienced that obsession, and in his frustration – for how could she have responded in kind? She was not his mythago – he had driven her back to the woodland, where she had been brutally shot, probably by one of the Jack-in-the-Greens. But the signals between this Guiwenneth and myself were far more real, far more true.

  How convincing my arguments were to myself! How easily caution could be lost.

  That afternoon I forayed again into the woodland, as far as the glade, where the remains of the tent had been totally absorbed into the earth. With my father’s map held tightly and protectively in my grasp, I worked out the route inwards, and led the way. Guiwenneth followed quietly behind, eyes alert, body tensed, ready for fight or flight.

  The pathway was that along which I had run with Christian, the winter before. To call it a path was overly to dignify the barely perceptible routeway between the towering oak trunks, winding up and down the ragged contours of the land. Dog’s mercury and fern stroked my legs; ageing bramble snagged my trousers; birds gave frantic flight above, in the darkening summer canopy. It was here that I had walked before, only to find myself approaching the glade again within a few hundred paces. By following the peculiarly convoluted path that my father had remarked upon, however, I seemed to arrive deeper in the edgewoods, and felt mildly triumphant.

  Guiwenneth knew well enough where she was. She called to me and crossed her hands in that negative way that was peculiar to her. ‘You don’t want me to go on?’ I said, and returned through the slick undergrowth towards her. She was slightly cold, I could see, and her luxurious hair was peppered with bits of bramble and splinters of dead bark.

  ‘Pergayal!’ she said, and added, ‘Not good.’ She made stabbing motions at her heart, and I supposed that her message was: Dangerous. Immediately she had spoken she reached for my hand, a cold little grasp, but strong. She tugged me back through the trees towards the glade, and I followed unwillingly. After a few paces her hand in mine grew warm, and she grew aware of the contact, letting me go almost with reluctance, but casting a shy glance backwards.

  She was waiting still. I couldn’t understand for what. As evening gathered, and showers threatened, she stood again at the fence, staring towards the mythago wood, her body tense, looking so very fragile. I went to bed at ten. I was weary after so brief an interlude of sleep the night before. Guiwenneth followed me to my room, watched me undress, then ran giggling away as I approached her. She said something in a warning tone and added a few more words sounding very regretful.

  It was to be another interrupted night.

  At just after midnight she was by my bed, shaking me awake, excited, glowing. I turned on the bedside lamp. She was almost hysterical in her efforts to get me to follow her, her eyes wide and wild, her lips glistening.

  ‘Magidion!’ she shouted. ‘Steven, Magidion! Come! Follow!’

  I dressed quickly, and she kept urging me to hurry as I tugged on shoes and socks. Every few seconds she glanced to the woodland, then back at me. And when she looked at me she smiled.

  At last I was ready, and she led the way downstairs and to the edge woods, running like a hare, almost lost to me before I had reached the back door.

  She was waiting for me, half-hidden in the scrub before the wood proper. She put a finger to my mouth as I reached her and started to speak. I heard it then, distantly, a sound as eerie as any I have ever heard. It was a horn, or an animal, some creature of the night whose cry was a deep, echoing and mournful monosyllable, rising into the overcast night skies.

  Guiwenneth betrayed the hardness of the warrior in her by almost shrieking with delight; excitedly she grabbed my hand and practically tugged me in the direction of the glade. After a few paces she stopped, turned to me, and reached out to grasp me by the shoulders. She was several inches shorter than me, and she stretched slightly and kissed me gently on the lips. It was a moment whose magic, whose wonder, caused the world around me to fade into a summer’s day. It took long seconds before the cool, woody night was back, and Guiwenneth was just a flickering grey shape ahead of me, urgently calling me to follow.

  Again the cry, sustained and loud; a horn, I was sure now. The calling woodland horn, the cry of the hunter. It was nearer. The sound of Guiwenneth’s noisy progress stopped just briefly; the wood seemed to hold its breath as the cry continued, and only when the mournful note had faded away did the whispering night life move again.

  I ran into the crouching girl just outside the glade. She tugged me down, gestured to me to be quiet, and together, on our haunches, we surveyed the dark space ahead of us.

  There was a distant movement. Light flickered briefly to the left, and again straight ahead. I could hear Guiwen-neth’s breathing, a strained, excited sound. My own heart was pounding. I had no idea whether it was friend or foe who approached. The horn sounded for the third and last time, so close now that its blast was almost frightening. Around me the wood reacted with terror, small creatures fleeing from one place to another, every square yard of undergrowth moving and murmuring as the woodland fauna fled for safety.

  Lights everywhere ahead! They flickered and burned, and soon I could hear the dull crackle of the torches. Torches in woodland! Flames licked high, crackling loud. The restless lights moved side to side, approaching.

  Guiwenneth rose to her feet, motioned me to stay where I was, and stepped out into the clearing. Against the brighter torches she was a small silhouette, walking confidently to the middle of the glade, her spear held across her body, ready to be used if necessary.

  It seemed, then, that the trunks of the trees moved forward into the clearing, dark shapes detaching themselves from the obscurity of night. My heart missed a beat and I cried out a warning, stifling the final sound as I realized I was behaving foolishly. Guiwenneth stood her ground. The huge black forms closed in upon her, moving slowly, cautiously.

  Four of them held the torches and took up positions around the glade. The other three loomed over the doll-like form of the girl. Immense curved antlers grew from their heads; their faces were the hideous skulls of deer, through whose blind sockets very human eyes gleamed in the torchlight. A rank smell, the smell of hides, of skins, of parasite-eaten animals, drifted on the night air, mingling with the sharp smell of pitch, or whatever burned in the lights. Their clothing was ragged, their bodies swathed, with the furs tied by creeper about their lower legs. Metal and stone glinted brightly around necks, arms, waists.

  The shambling forms stopped. There was a sound like laughter, a deep growling. The tallest of the three took one step more towards Guiwenneth, then reached up and removed the skull helmet from his head. A face as black as night, as broad as an oak, grinned at her. He made the sound of words, then dropped to one knee and Guiwenneth reached out and laid both hands and her spear across the crown of his head. The others made cries of delight, removed their masks as well, and crowded in closer about the girl. All
their faces were painted black, and beards were ragged or plaited, indistinguishable in the half-light from the dark furs and woollens with which they had encased their bodies.

  The tallest figure embraced Guiwenneth then, hugging her so hard that her feet lifted from the ground. She laughed, then wriggled out of the stifling embrace, and went to each man in turn touching hands. The noise of chatter grew in the glade, happiness, greeting, delight at renewing an acquaintance.

  The talk was incomprehensible. It seemed even less like the Brythonic that Guiwenneth spoke, more of a combination of vaguely recognizable words, and woodland, animal sounds, much clicking, whistling, yapping, a cacophony to which Guiwenneth responded totally in kind. After a few minutes, one of them began to play a bone pipe. The tune was simple, haunting. It reminded me of a folk tune I had heard at a fair once, where Morris dancers had performed their strange routines … where had it been? Where had it been?

  An image of night, of a town in Staffordshire … an image of holding tight to my mother’s hand, pushed on all sides by crowds. The memory came back … a visit to Abbots Bromley, eating roast ox and drinking gallons of lemonade. The streets had milled with people and folk dancers, and Chris and I had followed glumly about, hungry, thirsty, bored.

  But in the evening we had packed into the grounds of a huge house, and watched and listened to a dance, performed by men wearing the antlers of stags, the tune played on a violin. That mysterious sound had sent thrills down my spine even at that early age, something in the haunting melody speaking to a part of me that still linked with the past. Here was something I had known all of my life. Only I hadn’t known it. Christian had felt it too. The hush that settled upon the crowd suggested that the music being played, as the antlered dancers pranced their circular route, was something so primal that everyone present was reminded, subconsciously, of times gone by.