In the Night Wood is a literary novel steeped in pagan folklore, with a text that is lyrically poetic and intelligently verbose. Based on the Germanic fairytale of The Erl-King, my copy is a beautiful hardback book with a silvery-blue metallic cover design, reminiscent of a tapestry. This seems to be the current trend in publishing at the moment - cover art that looks like a William Morris print and such covers do make lovely books. I like my books to be beautiful as well as interesting.
This novel is like nothing I have ever read before. There is an old house that is haunted, but not by a ghost; a crime that was committed long ago, but which still echoes through time; and a series of little lost girls who all look alike, who all have the same initial - Livia, Laura, Lissa and Lorna - and who are all linked in some way, but how? There is a wood within a wood, a wall within a wall and a book within a book, which creates layer upon layer of storytelling narrative. Pathetic fallacy is evident throughout the text and is used very effectively to build atmosphere on the page. It's intriguing. It draws you in and holds you spellbound.
The main protagonist is Charles, who has a fascination with a Victorian novel called In The Night Wood. Fate leads him to meet and marry the descendent of the author and when his wife inherits Hallow House, the house in which the book was written, they move to Yorkshire to take up residence and to try and build a new life together, following the death of their little girl.
But there is a growing feeling of oppression from the forest that surrounds the house and as Charles begins to research more about his favourite book and it's author, he discovers that the woods hold onto a dark secret of pagan origin - for in the wood within a wood, he meets none other than the Horned God and King of the Woods, Cernnunos. In this novel though, the pagan deity assumes his spookier aspect of Lord of Death and the Underworld and he is demanding sacrifice.
With secret codes to break and Gothic mysteries to unravel, it's a fantastic novel of spooky brilliance. Like most modern literary novels, its fairly short in length, but it is definitely a page turner and well worth reading, especially if you like a pagan twist in the tale. It certainly kept me entertained through the stormy weather that is currently raging around my house right now, and I found myself humming Hoof and Horn, from my Moonchants album as I read. It's a stormy book, perfect for a stormy night...enjoy!
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