Mythago Wood - Ryhope Wood

Ryhope Wood

Ryhope wood is a fantasy world or fictional realm created by Robert Holdstock for his novella Mythago Wood, published during 1981, that became more famous in his novel Mythago Wood, first published in 1984. The novels and novellas (but not short stories) in the Mythago Wood cycle (see subsection below) are all set in the world of Ryhope wood, with the exception of Merlin's Wood which is set in a similarly magical "sister wood" of Brocéliande in Brittany, France.

Ryhope wood is an ancient woodland that has been undisturbed since the last ice age and appears no more than three square miles in area from the outside. Ryhope Wood is an example of a parallel universe that overlaps a section of the real world. The wood is much, much bigger on the inside than on the outside; once penetrated, the forest grows larger, older and more unbearable as one approaches the heart of the wood. Lavondyss is the name of the remote, ice-age heart of Ryhope wood.

The forest is referred to by John Clute as an "abyssal chthonic resonator" because it creates and is home to myth-images, or mythagos, who are creatures (including animals, monsters and humans) generated from the ancient memories and myths within the subconscious memories of nearby human minds. The book itself defines mythago: "myth imago, the image of the idealized form of a myth creature". Mythagos are dangerously real, but if any of them stray too far from the wood they slowly deteriorate and die. Because they are formed from human myths, they will vary in appearance and character depending on the human memories from which they formed; for example there may be, over a period, many different forms of King Arthur, Robin Hood, Herne the Hunter, etc. - all looking and acting differently, yet all with the same basic functions and all acting by the 'rules' set by their defining myths. Because the area around Ryhope Wood is populated sparsely, there are few mythagos in the woodland; but because of his interest in the wood and his deliberate experiments in the 1930s, George Huxley has succeeded in creating more mythagos than would normally be present in the wood at any one time, so causing a greater than usual diversity within the wood. It is revealed in The Hollowing, a sequel, that mythagos may be created by conscious thought and are drawn physically to their creators.

Besides creating mythagos of living, breathing creatures, the wood can also generate ancient archetypal places, from castles to battlefields to small ancient villages. These are referred to as Geistzones in the sequel to Mythago Wood, titled Lavondyss.

The wood contains four tracks that lead to the heart of the wood; without following these tracks, travelers will have extreme difficulty penetrating the forest. In addition to the four tracks, Ryhope wood contains "Hollowings", also described as an "absence of magic," or pathways under the world. Hollowings function as wormholes by transporting mythagos and real humans through space and time within the forest. Time travel occurs when travelers pass through Ryhope wood's Hollowings. Ryhope wood magically repels outsiders by various means including disorientation and physical defences such as thick, impenetrable scrub, huge lakes and raging rivers. There are also airborne 'defences' to prevent aircraft from getting too close, such as vortices of air or air elementals which throw an aircraft off course.

The wood has a slower rate of time than the outside world. For example, a day may pass in 'normal' time, yet a traveler within the wood may have been there for weeks or longer, in comparison. In addition, "Time Slows," or areas subjected to extraordinarily slow time passage, exist within Ryhope wood and are revealed in The Hollowing.