The Mythago Cycle

First published:Mythago Wood (1984), Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region (1988), and The Hollowing (1993)

Type of work: Novels

Type of plot: Fantasy—magical world

Time of work: The mid-twentieth century

Locale: Ryhope Wood, an old English forest

The Plot

Ryhope Wood stands in southeastern England, in the county of Herefordshire, near the village of Shadoxhurst. One of the few remaining ancient forests of England, it is a place where times long gone elsewhere still live. Ryhope is a small woods, measuring only three square miles, but within the forest time and distance bear little relationship to the outside. Narrow creeks become great rivers, several days become decades, and a few hundred yards of trail become a track of many miles. Ryhope Wood serves as the focus of the three fantasy novels composing the Mythago Cycle.

Within these primal woods are mythagos, or myth images, created from the minds of individuals who live nearby and who are somehow drawn to Ryhope. A mythago might reflect something out of an individual’s past—from stories and tales heard as a child or learned in school—but can also represent or replicate the histories and myths of all who lived and died since the last ice age. The mythagos are not imaginary fictions: They are real, at least within the confines of Ryhope Wood, but not precisely as the outside world understands reality.

Mythago Wood is the story of George Huxley, his two sons, Christian and Steven, and George’s colleague from Oxford, Edward Wynne-Jones. In the years before World War II, Huxley becomes obsessed with Ryhope and the mythagos to the extent of ignoring his family. He is entranced with one of his own mythago creations drawn from ancient myth, a young woman named Guiwenneth.

Steven, returning from military service, discovers that his father has died. Christian, Steven’s brother, has become ensnared by Ryhope and by the now-dead Guiwenneth. In his woodland search for a resurrected Guiwenneth, Christian is pursued by his mythago of his dead father, a part-boar, part-man, the Uscrumug. Guiwenneth returns, but to Steven. In his jealousy, Christian, whose time in the woods has transformed him into a brutal warrior, kidnaps Guiwenneth. Steven, joined by Harry Keaton, a badly burned former air force pilot, pursues his brother. His quest takes years as measured in Ryhope time, and many mythago challenges are faced and overcome. Eventually Steven finds Christian. Fulfilling an oft-told myth, Steven, the Kinsman, kills the Outsider, his brother, who has been wreaking havoc in the land. A badly injured Guiwenneth appears, followed by George Huxley as the mythago Uscrumug who gently takes Guiwenneth from Steven’s arms and carries her across the fire into the land of ice, Lavondyss, the place of redemption. Mythago Wood ends with Steven waiting for Guiwenneth’s return.

The central character of Robert Holdstock’s subsequent novel, Lavondyss, is Tallis Keaton, the young sister of Harry Keaton. In Mythago Wood, Harry had left Steven to pursue his own quest for release from his traumatic wounds. He had gone to Lavondyss, the place of peace beyond fire and ice. As Tallis grows to adolescence she, too, is caught up in mysterious Ryhope Wood and its mythagos. She feels called to save her brother Harry, who is somehow trapped within the wood. At the urging of Scathach, a warrior whom she had previously observed dying, she penetrates Ryhope’s vastness. She and Scathach discover the latter’s non-mythago father, Edward Wynne-Jones, George Huxley’s colleague, now the shaman to a neolithic mythago tribe. Tallis and Scathach part, he to follow his destiny to die on that battlefield earlier observed by Tallis and she to search for Harry.

Tallis is transformed into a tree. The tree eventually falls, and she is carved into a mask of power for a starving ice age family. Again transformed, now as a holly tree, a mythago holly that can move, have intercourse, and give birth to birds, she observes the original Tallis prior to her arboreal transformation. The holly-Tallis sleeps and then awakes as the human Tallis, but as an old woman. As she approaches death, Harry appears and perhaps takes her back through time to her childhood and out of Ryhope. The novel ends with Tallis’ aged corpse being burned on a funeral pyre. Her voice, coming from a mask, asks Harry to wait for her.

Holdstock’s third Ryhope novel is The Hollowing. When Tallis entered Ryhope with Scathach, her father, James Keaton, attempted to follow her but disappeared. After a year of outside time he reappears, apparently deranged, telling stories of Ryhope. The only person with whom he can communicate is Alex Bradley, a friend of Tallis. James soon dies, shortly followed by Alex. Alex’s father, Richard Bradley, is devastated.

After six years have passed, Richard is contacted by several scientists who have been exploring Ryhope. They reveal that Alex is not dead and is still only about twelve years old, although in the world outside Ryhope he would be almost twenty. Because of his imaginative powers, Alex is a mortal danger to the woods through the mythagos he creates. In spite of his doubts, Richard joins the explorers, searching for “hollowings” that allow the passage from one part of the woods to another. They hope that one of the hollowings will lead to Alex and his mythago world. The quest is filled with dangers.

Richard falls in love with Helen Silverlock, a Native American and one of the explorers. Through a mask tree created by Alex, James Keaton appears, calling for Tallis. Finally Richard finds Alex, pursued by Gawain and the Green Knight of literature and myth. The novel ends with Richard and Alex waiting in the woods for Helen, who has been pursuing her own mythago nemesis.