Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock

There’s a small patch of woodland near where I live that’s been there for hundreds of years. It’s marked on maps of the area from the 1700’s and almost certainly predates those by some time. Looking at the tangled heart of the wood, with thick stands of holly and twisted branches, it’s very easy to appreciate the setting for Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood.

The main character Steven returns to his family home after the Second World War - a chilly farmhouse on the edge of a wood, no more than three square miles in area. He finds his brother Christian obsessed with the idea of exploring the wood, following in the footsteps of his missing father who disappeared into the wood years before, leaving only a series of cryptic notebooks.

It transpires that the wood holds many secrets, and in the best timey-wimey tradition is much bigger on the inside than the outside. It also has the power to summon archetypal beings from any point in time, stretching back to pre-history, drawing from the minds of people living nearby. The wood also frustrates any attempt at exploration, turning travellers back on themselves unless they follow certain hidden pathways.

This is a great premise for a story, and it doesn’t disappoint in the unravelling of some of the mysteries presented here. It also sets up a series of sequels, which I will be reading at some point. Holdstock does a good job of evoking a particular kind of British mythology, and it reminded me of The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner.