Duncton Wood
Duncton Wood is the title of the first
novel by author
William Horwood, as well as a six-volume
fantasy series to which it was later extended.
Duncton Wood and the subsequent novels in the series revolve around the
moles that inhabit the
United Kingdom. The mole communities (referred to as "Moledom") are anthropomorphically portrayed as intelligent societies with their own social organization, history and written form of communication. The extent of animal personification is not unlike that of
Richard Adams'
Watership Down, to which Horwood's series is often favourably compared, in that the moles are limited to the physical behaviours of their real-world burrow-dwelling counterparts, and neither wear clothing nor exhibit any special technological aptitude.
The central focus of the Duncton series is the Stone, a fictitious mole religion based on the
standing stones and
stone circles of Britain. As such, the novels are predominantly set in and around locales known for their megaliths, such as
Avebury,
Rollright and the titular Duncton.
The first volume, originally written as a standalone novel, tells the story of the romance between the Duncton moles Bracken and Rebecca as the long-held traditions surrounding the Duncton Stone recede under the rule of Rebecca's tyrannical father, Mandrake.
Almost a decade later, Horwood completed two directly related sequels that follow the events of the first, in which the central character is Bracken's son Tryfan. The second and third entries in the first trilogy (entitled "The Duncton Chronicles") depict a religious conflict between the Stone and an opposing crusading order known as the Word. In the midst of these events is the birth and martyrdom of the Stone Mole, a focal messianic
Christ figure named Beechen.
The first trilogy consists of:
*
Duncton Wood (
1980)
*
Duncton Quest (
1988)
*
Duncton Found (
1989)
After the publication of
Duncton Found, Horwood proceeded to write a single-volume sequel to the Duncton Chronicles trilogy set generations in the future, where the inhabitants of the now-flourishing Duncton system look upon the events of the past with reverence. By its completion,
Duncton Tales evolved into the first volume of a second trilogy, entitled "The Book of Silence". The story tells of the archival librarian mole Privet and her adopted son Whillan as they face the rise of an inquisitorial cult that fashions itself the Newborns.
The second trilogy consists of:
*
Duncton Tales (
1991)
*
Duncton Rising (
1992)
*
Duncton Stone (
1993)
