The Owl Service by Alan Garner

First published: 1967

Type of work: Fantasy

Themes: Family, social issues, and the supernatural

Time of work: The 1960’s

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: A valley in Wales

Principal Characters:

• Gwyn, a Welsh grammar school student who has returned to the valley to help his mother, a housekeeper to the wealthy Bradleys, a family from England, vacationing in the valley
• Allison Bradley, who is drawn to Gwyn, yet struggles with her mother’s disapproval of their relationship and her increasing obsession with the owl patterns of the Blodeuwedd legend
• Roger Bradley, Allison’s English stepbrother, who is intrigued by the unusual happenings yet scornful of Gwyn and his mother
• Nancy, Gwyn’s mother, who is bitter and unaffectionate as a result of her own part in an earlier reenactment of the legendary tragedy
• Huw Halfbacon, gardener and handyman to the Bradleys, who seems to alternate between lunacy and knowledge of the situation
• Clive Bradley, Allison’s stepfather and Roger’s father, who attempts to smooth conflicts among the participants
• Margaret Bradley, Nancy’s mother, whose presence is felt throughout the story although she never actually appears
• Bertram, the cousin of Allison’s deceased father and the original owner of the house where the Bradleys are spending their holiday, who was killed in a motorcycle accident many years before

The Story

The tragic triangle that is reenacted in present-day Wales has its roots in The Mabinogion, an ancient collection of Welsh legends. The sorcerer Gwydion created a wife out of flowers for his son Lleu. This wife, Blodeuwedd, fell in love with Gronw Pebyr and betrayed Lleu by telling Gronw how Lleu could be killed. Instead of dying, however, Lleu turned into an eagle and was brought back to life by Gwydion. Lleu then tricked Gronw and killed him. As punishment for her betrayal of Lleu, Blodeuwedd was turned into an owl, the bird shunned by all other birds.

The terrible energy generated by this tragedy seems to have been trapped in the remote Welsh valley in which The Owl Service is set so that each generation is doomed to repeat the drama of betrayal. As the book opens, the powers of the conflict are unloosed again when Gwyn discovers a set of dishes, the owl service, locked away in the attic of the house. Allison Bradley, sick in bed, is intrigued by the design on the china, intertwining flowers that, to her, represent owls. She becomes obsessed with tracing and cutting them out, although later the tracings disappear and the plates shatter.

Other unusual incidents occur. A portrait of a woman is discovered under some plaster in one of the rooms, only to shatter like the plates. A strange figure appears in the distance in the spot where legend has it Lleu stood to kill Gronw. A motorcycle is heard accelerating through the silence at odd times. Lights flicker in the woods at night. Gwyn finds Allison reading his borrowed copy of The Mabinogion, and when he demands that she give it back, she taunts him about his lower-class status. In anger, he kicks the book out of her hands, but it seems to come to life, pages flying after him as the book disintegrates in the air. Through all of this, Huw Halfbacon, the handyman, mutters dire warnings, and the Welsh villagers seem to know exactly what is happening though no one will reveal the secret to Gwyn or the others.

The tension builds between all the participants as these strange events occur. The story of Huw Halfbacon’s betrayal of Nancy, Gwyn’s mother, and Bertram, whom Nancy had hoped to marry, is gradually revealed. The current triangle is shaped as Allison seems caught in a bad dream, one moment welcoming and confiding in Gwyn, the next cruelly rejecting him and turning to Roger Bradley, her stepbrother. Gwyn, suspecting that the ancient legend has something to do with the current troubles, wants desperately to help Allison, but he is angered by her treatment of him as well as by the patronizing and snobbish attitudes of Roger and the other Bradleys. His anger against Allison finally explodes when she betrays a confidence and belittles him in front of Roger.

As these tensions among the characters build to a climax, a terrible storm builds up in the valley, cutting off the escape of Nancy and Gwyn, who must return to con-front Allison and Roger. When Allison faints and physical marks that look like owl scratches appear on her face, Roger begs Gwyn to help her. Gwyn, however, has become so embittered that he refuses to help. Instead, he taunts Roger with a comment about his mother’s frequent infidelities, a fact that has been extremely painful to Roger. In the end, it is Roger and not Gwyn who discovers the way to break the tragic cycle and dissipate the negative energy forever.

Context

The Owl Service is a winner of the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction and the prestigious Carnegie Medal, given to a children’s book of outstanding merit first published in Great Britain. Published in 1967, the novel is not dated and can be read as a contemporary work. Although it is Alan Garner’s fourth work of fantasy, it is the first to set his work above more mainstream, predictable works of fantasy for children. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960) and The Moon of Gomrath (1963) are both set in the Cheshire countryside of Garner’s youth, while Elidor (1965) is anchored to the streets of Manchester. Like The Owl Service, these earlier works have their roots in Norse and Celtic mythology and are concerned with psychological aspects of character. In The Owl Service, however, many critics believe that Garner reached his mature style. His concise writing, his sparing use of dialogue, his weaving together of myth and reality, his strong setting, and his portrayal of psychological and social conflicts among the characters make many demands on the young reader, but the result is a satisfying, richly textured work.