War

Abstract

This chapter examines the way Mythago Wood was inspired by experiences of Holdstock’s grandfather during the First World War. The novel is inextricably connected with war in other ways: it is set just after the Second World War (three of the central characters are veterans of that war and profoundly affected by it), and the mythagos emerge from the context of war at different times in human history (we see prehistoric warriors, Roman invaders, knights in armour, Civil War fighters, and First World War soldiers). But the conflict at the heart of the novel is the oedipal conflict involving the three members of the Huxley family, inspired by their very different conceptions of the mythago Guiwenneth.