![]() First edition | |
Author | Alan Garner |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Young adult fantasy novel, horror, supernatural fiction |
Publisher | William Collins, Sons |
Publication date | 1967 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 156 pp (first edition) |
ISBN | 0001846035 |
OCLC | 156462103 |
LC Class | PZ7.G18417 Ow [1] |
The Owl Service is a low fantasy novel for young adults by Alan Garner, published by Collins in 1967. Set in modern Wales, it is an adaptation of the story of the mythical Welsh woman Blodeuwedd, an "expression of the myth" in the author's words.
Garner won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British author. [2] It was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works for the 70th anniversary celebration in 2007, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite. [3] Garner also won the second annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a similar award that authors may not win twice. [4] Only six books have won both awards in the 45 years from 1966 to 2011. [lower-alpha 1]
The mythical Blodeuwedd is featured in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi . She is a woman created from flowers by the king of Gwynedd, Math, and the magician and trickster Gwydion, for a man who was cursed to take no human wife. She betrays her husband Lleu in favour of another man, Gronw, and is turned into an owl as punishment for inducing Gronw to kill Lleu. In Garner's tale three teenagers find themselves re-enacting the story. They awaken the legend by finding plates from a dinner service with an owl pattern, which gives the novel its title.
Henry Z. Walck published the first US edition in 1968. [1]
Roger and Alison are stepbrother and sister. Alison's father died and her mother Margaret has married Clive, a businessman and former RAF officer. Clive's former wife was notoriously unfaithful, bringing shame to the family and a particular kind of pain to his son, Roger. To bond the new family together they are spending a few weeks of the summer in an isolated valley in Wales, a few hours' drive from Aberystwyth. They occupy a fine house formerly owned by Alison's father, subsequently transferred to her to avoid death duty. He in turn inherited it from a cousin, Bertram, who died there in mysterious circumstances around the time Alison was born.
With the house comes Huw Halfbacon, also known as Huw the Flitch, a handyman and gardener. He is the last of the original domestic staff to remain at the house. The former cook, Nancy, had left to live in Aberystwyth but is offered a substantial amount to come and resume her duties. With her comes her son Gwyn. He has never seen the valley before but knows everything about it, courtesy of his mother's stories. Someone else who knows a lot about the place is Huw, but he is very mysterious about it. Oddly, Nancy has told Gwyn nothing about Huw.
Alison hears scratching noises in the attic above her bed and persuades Gwyn to investigate. He finds stacks of dinner plates with a floral pattern. When he picks one up, something odd happens. He almost falls through the ceiling while simultaneously Roger, lounging by a large flat stone near the river, hears a scream and seems to see something flying through the air toward him. The stone is known as the Stone of Gronw. It has a hole neatly bored through it, and legend says that Lleu killed Gronw by throwing his spear clear through the stone that Gronw was holding to shield himself.
Alison begins behaving peculiarly. She traces the pattern on the plate onto paper and folds the result to make an owl. Finding out that Gwyn has been in the attic, Nancy demands that Alison give up the plate. Alison asserts she has no right to it, and eventually produces a blank white plate. She maintains that the pattern disappeared from the plate. Alison becomes obsessed by the plates. One by one she traces them and makes the owls, and one by one the plates become blank. The owls themselves disappear, though no one cares at first about some folded paper models.
In the house's billiard room part of the wall has been covered with pebble-dash. Bit by bit this begins to crack and fall away, exposing first a pair of painted eyes, and then an entire portrait of a woman made of flowers. Tensions between the occupants of the house began to rise. Gwyn is intelligent and wants to further his education, but Clive expresses a stereotypical clannish closed-ranks attitudes of the upper middle class towards him. Roger begins to feel hostile despite his initial friendliness. Eventually he takes to ridiculing Gwyn's efforts to improve himself with elocution lessons on gramophone records, calling them "improve-a-prole." Alison seems friendly to Gwyn and the two go on long walks together. She has visions where she sees herself next to him, even though he is some distance away. Margaret, her mother, never appears but the need to keep her happy affects everyone else.
As the holiday slides into disaster, the British attitude of "seeing it through to the end" prevails, even though Clive could pay off all the staff and leave at any time. Nancy repeatedly threatens to quit, and is repeatedly mollified with crisp banknotes. She constantly warns Gwyn to stay away from the others, lest he be taken out of school and forced to work in a shop to earn some money. Nancy gradually reveals her resentment of Margaret and Alison, as she once expected to marry Bertram and should have been mistress of the very house she toils in.
Competition between the boys for Alison is, at most, a subtext here, although Garner's television script is much more overt about Gwyn's attraction to her, despite his poverty. Alison, notwithstanding any attraction to him, would rather keep her privileges, such as her tennis club membership, than cross her mother. This is something she eventually admits to Gwyn.
The mysterious Huw presides over this like some ringmaster at a circus, making strange pronouncements. There is a background of odd comments from the villagers, noises of motorcycles in the distance, sounds of birds, and mysterious noises from locked buildings.
Gwyn follows Alison on one of her inexplicable midnight walks. She is completing her tracing of the plates somewhere in the woods. Gwyn is harassed by columns of flame, which he tries to convince himself are merely marsh gas. He finds Alison when she has made the final owl, then escorts her back to the house. Huw is waiting, and greets them with the remark "She's come."
By this time the connection between the legend and the events is becoming clear. Gwyn tries to see things rationally. He attempts to run away, walking up the sides of the valley as the weather worsens, but is chased back by a pack of sheepdogs. Stealing Roger's hiking gear, he tries the other side of the valley, only to find Huw waiting for him. Huw tells him of the power that exists in the valley, how those of the blood have to re-enact the legend each time, and how Blodeuwedd always comes as owls instead of flowers because of the hatred. Huw, of course, is Gwyn's real father, so Gwyn is the next generation. Huw was responsible for Bertram's death, sabotaging the old motorcycle Bertram liked to ride around the garden, not realising he would take it out on the dangerous hill road. The dinner plates and the wall painting were done by Huw's ancestors, trying to lock up the magic in their creations, but Alison has let it loose again.
Huw directs Gwyn to a crack in an ancient tree where he finds various things, including a spear head. All the men of Huw's line come to this tree, where they leave something and take something. Gwyn removes a carved stone, leaving a cheap owl-decorated trinket. He tells Huw to give the stone to Alison. Gwyn is going to return to the house and leave with his mother, who has finally and irrevocably quit.
In a locked room, Roger discovers a stuffed owl, which Bertram shot in his own attempt to lay the ghost of Blodeuwedd, along with all the paper owls that have traced intricate patterns in the dust of a storeroom. He also finds the sabotaged motorcycle. Nancy charges in and wrecks the place, destroying the owl and then attempting to knock the very feathers out of the air.
Alison, having been given the stone by Huw, collapses and is brought into the kitchen, where she writhes in the grip of some force that makes claw marks on her skin. Huw begs Gwyn to comfort her, but Gwyn by now feels totally betrayed by Alison and can say nothing. A storm rages outside, branches smashing through the windows and skylight, a sound of owls and eagles pressing in on them. Feathers swirl in the room and trace owl patterns on the walls and ceiling.
Roger is desperate, abasing himself before Gwyn, but to no avail. "It is always owls, over and over and over," says Huw. Then Roger shouts that it's not true, that she is flowers. He yells this at Alison until abruptly all is peaceful, and the room is filled not with feathers but with petals.
Garner spent four years researching and writing the book. [5] He learned Welsh "in order not to use it" in the dialogue—nor to use dialect, as in what he calls the "Come you here, bach" school of writing—because he believed that doing so would only superficially express what it is to be Welsh. [5]
John Rowe Townsend cited the theme of ancient but living legend, which also appears in Garner's earlier books, saying that in this book "Garner added to his gift for absorbing old tales and retransmitting them with increased power a new grasp of the inward, emotional content of an incident or situation." [6]
Another fellow reteller of Welsh material in English, Susan Cooper said that the novel can be called "true fantasy", "subtle and overwhelming". [7] Penelope Farmer wrote, "I doubt if you could find any piece of realistic fiction for adolescents that says a quarter as much about adolescence as Alan Garner's The Owl Service." [8]
Gillian Polack notes that although “Alan Garner doesn’t explore the Middle Ages deeply in The Owl Service”, he deftly utilises “one small legend to build a modern study of class and personality” which indicates that “where you come from and what opportunities your life gives you can open and close life choices”. [9]
According to his Postscript included in the 2017 HarperCollins (London) edition, pp216–219, Garner had "The sensation of finding, not inventing, a story .... It was all there, waiting, and I was the archaeologist picking away the earth to reveal the bones". He described 4 key inspirations leading to, and directly providing key elements of, the story, in both book and video forms.
First, (p216)
Second, (p217)
Third, (p217)
Fourth, he cited a local's key contribution: (pp217–218)
In its re-telling in video form, Garner described (p219) the later making of the television series, filmed in the valley itself, as "a kind of magical madness", saying it "had made the story...more real than reality".
The abrupt and entire removing of crew, kit, and actors left him with mixed emotions and he closed with:
The pattern of the dinner service, a floral design in which some "flowers" can be read as "owls" when upside down, was designed for Old Hall by Christopher Dresser (died 1904). Garner sought to identify the designer for more than forty years. [10]
Peter Plummer, the producer and director of the television adaptation, described in 1979 a nationwide search for surviving dinner services with the same owl/flower pattern, conducted in association with TV Times during 1969:
In 2012 Garner mentioned that he had only ever seen five plates with the design. [12]
The Owl Service was made into a Granada Television television serial of the same name in 1969. It was dramatised for BBC Radio 4 in 2000.
Gwydion fab Dôn is a magician, hero and trickster of Welsh mythology, appearing most prominently in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, which focuses largely on his relationship with his young nephew, Lleu Llaw Gyffes. He also appears prominently in the Welsh Triads, the Book of Taliesin and the Stanzas of the Graves.
In Welsh mythology, Math fab Mathonwy, also called Math ap Mathonwy was a king of Gwynedd who needed to rest his feet in the lap of a virgin unless he was at war, or he would die. The story of Math is the fourth of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
Lleu Llaw Gyffes is a hero of Welsh mythology. He appears most prominently in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, the tale of Math fab Mathonwy, which tells the tale of his birth, his marriage, his death, his resurrection and his accession to the throne of Gwynedd. He is a warrior and magician, invariably associated with his uncle Gwydion.
Blodeuwedd, is married to Lleu Llaw Gyffes in Welsh mythology. She was made from the flowers of broom, meadowsweet and oak by the magicians Math and Gwydion, and is a central figure in Math fab Mathonwy, the last of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
Gronw Pebr "Gronw the Radiant" is a warrior, hunter and antagonist in Welsh tradition, appearing primarily in the fourth branch of the Mabinogi as the lord of Penllyn, the lover of Blodeuwedd and the murderer of Lleu Llaw Gyffes. He is also mentioned in the Welsh Triads and in the medieval poem Cad Goddeu.
Gwyn ap Nudd is a Welsh mythological figure, the king of the Tylwyth Teg or "fair folk" and ruler of the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn, and whose name means “Gwyn, son of Nudd”. Described later on as a great warrior with a "blackened face", Gwyn is intimately associated with the otherworld in medieval Welsh literature, and is associated with the international tradition of the Wild Hunt.
The Mabinogion are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier fragments. The title covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types, offering drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy and humour, and created by various narrators over time. There is a classic hero quest, "Culhwch and Olwen"; a historic legend in "Lludd and Llefelys", complete with glimpses of a far off age; and other tales portray a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defies categorisation. The stories are so diverse that it has been argued that they are not even a true collection.
Llan Ffestiniog, also known as Ffestiniog or simply Llan, is a village in Gwynedd, Wales, about 2 miles south of Blaenau Ffestiniog. Llan Ffestiniog is the older of the two communities, with its church and other buildings predating most of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The population was given as 864 in the 2011 census.
Welsh mythology consists of both folk traditions developed in Wales, and traditions developed by the Celtic Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium. As in most of the predominantly oral societies Celtic mythology and history were recorded orally by specialists such as druids. This oral record has been lost or altered as a result of outside contact and invasion over the years. Much of this altered mythology and history is preserved in medieval Welsh manuscripts, which include the Red Book of Hergest, the White Book of Rhydderch, the Book of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin. Other works connected to Welsh mythology include the ninth-century Latin historical compilation Historia Brittonum and Geoffrey of Monmouth's twelfth-century Latin chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, as well as later folklore, such as the materials collected in The Welsh Fairy Book by William Jenkyn Thomas (1908).
The Four Branches of the Mabinogi or Pedair Cainc Y Mabinogi are the earliest prose stories in the literature of Britain. Originally written in Wales in Middle Welsh, but widely available in translations, the Mabinogi is generally agreed to be a single work in four parts, or "branches." The interrelated tales can be read as mythology, political themes, romances, or magical fantasies. They appeal to a wide range of readers, from young children to the most sophisticated adult. The tales are popular today in book format, as storytelling or theatre performances; they appear in recordings and on film, and continue to inspire many reinterpretations in artwork and modern fiction.
O Na! Y Morgans! is an animated Welsh-speaking drama for children set on S4C, starring Morgan Hopkin and Lilo Millward in the main roles.
A tynged is the Welsh equivalent of the Irish geas, similar to being under a vow, curse or spell. The most famous example is that placed by Arianrhod on her son Lleu Llaw Gyffes in the fourth of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, the Mabinogi of Math fab Mathonwy, in which his mother doomed him to never have a human wife.
The Island of the Mighty is a fantasy novel by American writer Evangeline Walton, the earliest in a series of four based on the Welsh Mabinogion. It was first published in 1936 under the publisher's title of The Virgin and the Swine. Although it received warm praise from John Cowper Powys, the book sold poorly, and as a result none of the other novels in the series reached print at the time. Later rediscovered by Ballantine Books, it was reissued under the present title as the eighteenth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in July, 1970, with an introduction by Lin Carter and a cover by Bob Pepper. It has been reprinted a number of times since, and gathered together with Walton's other Mabinogion novels by Overlook Press as the omnibus The Mabinogion Tetralogy in 2002. The novel has also been published in translation in several European languages.
Tylluan Wen is a Welsh language film / television drama produced in Wales in 1997 by Ffilmiau'r Nant and directed by Angharad Jones. It is set in Llan Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, as an adaptation of Angharad Jones' novel Y Dylluan Wen. The film was studied as part of the Welsh literature GCSE course until 2022/23.
The Owl Service is an eight-part television series based on the fantasy novel of the same name by Alan Garner. Produced in 1969 and televised over the winter of 1969–1970, the series was remarkably bold in terms of production. It was the first fully scripted colour production by Granada Television and was filmed almost entirely on location at a time when almost all TV drama was studio-bound. It used editing techniques such as jump cuts to create a sense of disorientation and also to suggest that two time periods overlapped. For the series, the book was adapted in seven scripts by Garner and was produced and directed by Peter Plummer.
The Owl Service is an English alternative folk music collective that formed in 2006, by multi-instrumentalist Steven Paul Collins, named after the 1967 novel by Alan Garner.
Llech Ronw, or the Slate of Gronw, is a holed stone located along Afon Bryn Saeth in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales. The stone is described as being roughly forty inches by thirty inches with a hole of about an inch in diameter going through it.
Math fab Mathonwy, "Math, the son of Mathonwy" is a legendary tale from medieval Welsh literature and the final of the four branches of the Mabinogi. It tells of a vicious war between the north and the south, of the birth of Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Dylan ail Don, of the tyngedau of Arianrhod, and of the creation of Blodeuwedd, a woman made of flowers. The chief characters of the tale are Math, king of Gwynedd, his nephew Gwydion, a magician, warrior and trickster, and Gwydion's own nephew, Lleu, cursed by his mother Arianrhod.
Gwladys ferch Dafydd Gam was a Welsh noblewoman. She was the daughter of Dafydd ap Llewelyn ap Hywel, otherwise known as Dafydd Gam, who was killed at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
"Lament for Lleucu Llwyd" is a Middle Welsh poem by the 14th-century bard Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen in the form of a cywydd. It is his most famous work, and has been called one of the finest of all cywyddau and one of the greatest of all Welsh-language love-poems, comparable with the best poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym. The culmination of a series of poems addressed to his lover Lleucu Llwyd, a married woman, it differs from them in calling her forth from her grave as if he were a more conventional lover serenading her as she lies in bed. The effect is said to be "startling, original, but in no way grotesque". "Lament for Lleucu Llwyd" was included in both The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse and The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.