Mythago Wood

After serving in the Second World War, Steven Huxley returns to his family's isolated house at the edge of Ryhope Wood, a small stretch of ancient English woodland. His late father spent years studying the wood and became convinced that it generates mythagos, living forms of the myths and legends buried in the human mind, from forgotten heroes to figures out of folklore. Steven's older brother, Christian, has taken up the same obsession and keeps disappearing among the trees. When Steven meets Guiwenneth, a young woman who seems to have stepped out of a Celtic legend, he is drawn deeper into the wood, where time and distance no longer behave as they should. Robert Holdstock's novel won the World Fantasy Award in 1985.