Mythago Wood - 1 by Robert Holdstock Read Free Book Online Page A

one man capture such a passionate mood? How did
he power the interaction? Surely not from the simple family anguish he
caused among us, and in his own head. As he said, that created an unsettled mind
and he couldn't function properly.'
    'If there's an answer,' said Christian calmly, 'it's to be found in the
woodland area, perhaps in the hogback glade. The old man wrote in his notes of
the need for a period of solitary existence, a period of meditation. For a year
now I've been following his example directly. He invented a sort of electrical
bridge which seems to fuse elements from each half of the brain. I've
used his equipment a great deal, with and without him. But I already find images
- the pre-mythagos - forming in my peripheral vision without the complicated programme that he used. He was the pioneer; his own
interaction with the wood has made it easier for those who come after. Also, I'm
younger. He felt that would be important. He achieved a certain success; I
intend to complete his work, eventually. I shall raise the Urscumug, this hero
of the first men.'
    To what end, Chris?' I asked quietly, and in all truth could not see a reason
for so tampering with the ancient forces that inhabited both woodland and human
spirit. Christian was clearly obsessed with the idea of raising these dead
forms, of finishing something the old man had begun. But in my reading of his
notebook, and in my conversation with Christian, I had not heard a single word
that explained why so bizarre a state of nature should be so important to
the ones who studied it.
    Christian had an answer. And as he spoke to me his voice was hollow, the mark
of his uncertainty, the stigma of his lack of conviction in the truth of what he
said. 'Why, to study the earliest times of man, Steve. From these mythagos we
can learn so much of how it was, and how it was hoped to be. The aspirations,
the visions, the cultural identity of a time so far gone that even its stone
monuments are incomprehensible to us. To learn. To communicate through those
persistent images of our past that are locked in each and every one of us.'
    He stopped speaking, and there was the briefest of silences, interrupted only
by the heavy rhythmic sound of the clock. I said, 'I'm not convinced, Chris.'
For a moment I thought he would shout his anger; his face flushed, his whole
body tensed up, furious with my calm dismissal of his script. But the fire
softened, and he frowned, staring at me almost helplessly. 'What does that
mean?'
    'Nice-sounding words; no conviction.'
    After a second he seemed to acknowledge some truth in what I said. 'Perhaps
my conviction has gone, then, buried beneath . . . beneath the other thing.
Guiwenneth. She's become my main reason for going back now.'
    I remembered his callous words of a while ago, about how she had no life yet
a thousand lives. I understood instantly, and wondered how so obvious a fact
could have remained so doggedly elusive to me. 'She was a mythago herself,' I
said. 'I understand now.'
    'She was my father's mythago, a girl from Roman times, a manifestation of the
Earth Goddess, the young warrior princess who, through her own suffering, can
unite the tribes.'
    'Like Queen Boadicea,' I said.
    'Boudicca,' Christian corrected, then shook his head. 'Boudicca was
historically real, although much of her legend was inspired by the myths and
tales of the girl Guiwenneth. There are no recorded legends about Guiwenneth. In
her own time, and her own culture, the oral tradition held sway. Nothing was
written; but no' Roman observer, or later Christian chronicler, refers to her
either, although the old man thought that early tales of Queen Guenevere might
have drawn partly from the forgotten legends. She's lost from popular memory - '
    'But not from hidden memory!'
    Christian nodded. 'That's exactly right. Her story is very old, very
familiar. Legends of Guiwenneth rose out of stories from previous cultures,
perhaps right back to the post-glacial period, or to