Daughter of the Forest
Juliet Marillier
Tor, 538 pages
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Growing up, I adored Celtic-themed fantasy. I read every bit of Arthuriana I could get my hands on, and devoured
authors like Susan Cooper and Alan Garner, who call upon Celtic folklore in their modern-day stories. I'm sure
it's the memory of those wonderful reading experiences that compels me, today, to continue reading within this
subgenre, though more often than not I'm sadly disappointed. Celtic fantasy seems to have more than its fair share
of dreck, and it's rare that I stumble across a writer who has anything new to say, or can say it without lapsing
into cliche. Sometimes, though, I'm pleasantly surprised--by Mark Chadbourn, for instance, whose terrific World's
End I reviewed a few months ago; and now by debut author Juliet Marillier, whose luminous imagination,
gift for characterization, and unpretentious storytelling breathe new life into a tired form.
Daughter of the Forest is based on the fairy tale of the brothers transformed into wild birds, and the sister
who must sacrifice herself to save them (there are many versions of this tale; Hans Christian Andersen's is probably
the most familiar, but Marillier seems to rely more on the Grimms' version, which differs from Andersen's in a
number of respects). Sorcha and her six brothers are the children of Colum, Lord of Sevenwaters, an estate hidden
deep within the forests of Ireland. Sorcha grows up half-wild, wise in the ways of the forest and its magical guardians,
but almost completely ignorant of the outside world. Colum and his men must go out into that world, however, in
order to fight the battle against the British who have stolen Ireland's sacred druidic sites; inevitably, they
bring its influence back with them--first in the form of a young British captive, whom Sorcha and one of her brothers
try to rescue, and then in the form of a stepmother, the lady Oonagh, whose evil magic is hidden from Colum, but
is immediately apparent to his children.
Attempting to summon the Lady of the Forest to help them, Sorcha and her brothers instead call up Oonagh herself,
who works the spell to turn the brothers into swans. Sorcha, escaping, finds the Lady of the Forest after all.
It's too late to save her brothers, the Lady tells her, but she can rescue them, if she undertakes a terrible task:
she must weave six shirts out of starwort (a plant even nastier than Andersen's nettles), and throw them over her
brothers' heads all at once; only then will they become men again. Until the task is finished, she cannot utter
a word or a sound.
Sorcha accepts the burden willingly, for she would do anything to save her brothers. But the twin pains of starwort
and silence are only the beginning of what she must suffer to fulfill her quest, which takes her far away from
her beloved forest and brings her face-to-face with the full range of human evil and brutality.
Daughter of the Forest is a lovely tale of devotion, sacrifice, steadfastness, and fulfillment. Authors
who work with fairy tales often twist or transpose them in some way (it's interesting to compare this book to Peg
Kerr's The Wild Swans, a very different treatment of the same legend). Marillier, instead, expands the legend,
retaining its literal structure and all its fantastic details, but focusing her attention on the human story within
the magical frame. Despite the strong plot elements, this is principally a character-driven book; much of what
happens to Sorcha and the others is beyond their control, but it's their reactions to these events, and the choices
their own individual natures lead them to make in response, that truly shape the narrative. These intelligent,
convincing characterizations are the book's greatest strength, an especially impressive achievement for a first-time
author.
The events of Daughter of the Forest are entirely shaped by magic, but Marillier manages to make her story
very concrete, through carefully-chosen domestic and historical details and Sorcha's own engaging, unsentimental
first-person narration. That's not to say that the magic, when it does come to the forefront, isn't properly awesome
and mysterious: Marillier is as skilled at evoking the supernatural world as she is at portraying the more ordinary
one. Especially good is the ambiguity with which she invests her magic--from the casual callousness of the Fair
Folk (who use and discard human beings with no more thought than they might give to pieces on a gameboard) to the
painful consequences of bewitchment (Sorcha's brothers cannot return unchanged from their time as swans) to the
interesting suggestion that the lady Oonagh, with her dark malice, may be in some way be the same as the nurturing
Lady of the Forest.
Daughter of the Forest is complete in itself, though it's only the beginning of a trilogy. There are hints
of a larger story, though: it's clear that the Fair Folk have a long-term agenda, and have chosen the people of
Sevenwaters to fulfill it. Presumably this will be followed in future volumes. If they're as excellent as the first,
fantasy will have gained a powerful new voice in Juliet Marillier.
Copyright © 2000 Victoria Strauss
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