Merlin's Mound
by Nigel Bryant
Published by Mandrake of Oxford
ISBN 1869928768 £6.99
Young fiction
"This boy's stupendous! He can see the past and see the gods. He's seen the Lady of the Lake!"
A colossal Stone Age mound in Wiltshire is the legendary burial place of Merlin. When Jo's father begins to excavate, Jo himself is drawn into an extraordinary adventure that unearths the mound's true secret. It's up to him to reveal it before it's destroyed. And time is short.
"A week ago he'd have laughed at this. Now he's on the edge of a whole new world."
This is a story for everyone with a taste for myth, visions and another
reality…
About the book:
The Stone Age monuments at Avebury in Wiltshire are world-famous, attracting
thousands of visitors each year. Two of the most dramatic are the enormous
burial chamber known as the West Kennet Long Barrow, and Silbury Hill,
the largest man-made mound in Europe. Less well known is Silbury's "sister"
mound at Marlborough a few miles due east, but this is nothing less than
the legendary burial place of Merlin. These extraordinary sites are the
key locations of the novel Merlin's Mound, in which an adolescent is awakened
in startling fashion to their meaning and original purpose. It will appeal
to everyone from the protagonist's age upward with a taste for myth,
legend and visions.
[Marlborough is surely the only town in Britain with an Arthurian motto - WHERE NOW ARE THE BONES OF WISE MERLIN - and Merlin's Mound will appropriately be published on June 20th 2004, the 800th anniversary of the granting of Marlborough's charter by King John who, as it happens, makes a crucial appearance in the novel...]
About the author :
Nigel Bryant's involvement with Arthurian matters is long-standing. As
theatre director and radio drama producer he has worked on Arthur-related
plays and series by writers including C.S.Lewis, Rosemary Sutcliff, Susan
Cooper and Kevin Crossley-Holland, and as a translator he has published
modern English versions of The High Book of the Grail (Perlesvaus), the
Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes and its Continuations, Robert de
Boron's Merlin and the Grail and a new compilation of the medieval French
romances, The Legend of the Grail.
This is a book aimed at a 'teenage' audience, and it's easy to see the central character appealing to many a surly teenager! But this the tale of a special teenager with special gifts, which link everyday events and archaeology - the never ending search for scientific 'truth' and knowledge - to the sacred within and around us all, and to the sacred landscape of Wiltshire.
But it is a work that can be read and enjoyed by any age, the story a timeless tale, one that holds the reader spellbound, fully involved with events and engaged with the participants. The monuments of Avebury and Merlin's Mount at Marlborough come alive on the pages, and the less well known mound of Merlins Mount is central to the whole story, as the title suggests!
The tale is well written and flows beautifully and evocatively, pulling the reader in and giving real involvement with what is happening, and how the mystery will unravel. Highly recommended.
To buy this book direct from the publisher visit http://www.mandrake.uk.net