Within the context of the story, these masks are talismans that help to engage certain parts of her subconscious and so link her with the characters and landscapes which are forming within the wood. She makes ten chthonic wooden masks, each of which represents one of the ten first legends in Ryhope wood. Slowly Tallis's links with the wood intensify. Tallis sings him a song that she thinks she has made up herself, but the composer identifies its tune as that of a folk song he has collected personally in Norfolk. As Tallis' shamanistic powers grow, she undertakes a quest in Ryhope wood to find her lost brother and undergoes a metamorphosis of her own.ĭuring her formative years, Tallis encounters the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (not a mythago, but real flesh and blood). This development continues throughout the book as periods in her life from baby to child to teenager to young woman are shown to the reader.

The story soon jumps forward a few years to where Tallis and her development are concentrated upon – it is at this point that the story shows her developing relationship with the land around her house and the mythagos emerging from Ryhope wood.

Lavondyss starts with Tallis's grandfather and his efforts to write down some of his encounters with the mythagos from the nearby Ryhope Wood Tallis is still a baby at this point. Tallis Keeton, the younger sister of Harry Keeton (from Mythago Wood), is the protagonist of the story. Lavondyss has won, or been nominated to, several fantasy literature awards. ĭespite having a new primary character, Lavondyss is a sequel to Mythago Wood because several characters provide links between the novels the events in Mythago Wood set into motion events that drive the protagonists' actions in Lavondyss. The name of the novel hints at the real and mythological locales of Avon, Lyonesse, Avalon and Dis within the novel Lavondyss is the name of the remote, ice-age heart of Ryhope wood. Lavondyss was originally published in 1988. Lavondyss also titled Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region is a fantasy novel by British writer Robert Holdstock, the second book in his Mythago Wood series.

Mythago wood