In Winter’s Shadow, by Gillian Bradshaw. Book review

First published 1981. Edition reviewed, Sourcebooks 2011, ISBN 978-1-4022-4074-4. 410 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy supplied by publisher.

In Winter’s Shadow completes Gillian Bradshaw’s Arthurian trilogy, begun in Hawk of May (reviewed here earlier) and continued in Kingdom of Summer (reviewed here earlier). The central characters are Gwynhwyfar, her husband King Arthur, and Arthur’s chief commander Bedwyr. Other important characters are familiar from the legends, including Arthur’s illegitimate son Medraut and the warriors Gwalchmai (later Sir Gawain) and Cei. Fictional characters from the earlier books, including Gwalchmai’s servant Rhys and his wife Eivlin and Medraut’s companion Rhuawn, also reappear here.

After many years of struggle, Britain is approximately at peace. King Arthur and Queen Gwynhwyfar are beginning to restore some measure of prosperity and stability after the destructive upheavals of war. But although Arthur’s malevolent half-sister Morgawse is dead, the evil she set in train lives after her in the person of her son Medraut. Consumed by hatred, Medraut lives only to bring about the destruction of Arthur. Medraut’s first weapon is the shameful secret of his own birth. But it is the human frailties of Gwynhwyfar, Arthur and Bedwyr that give Medraut his second and most deadly weapon – one which may bring down not only Arthur but everything he has tried to achieve.

Although In Winter’s Shadow is billed as the third in a trilogy, it could be read as a stand-alone. Readers who have read the previous two will recognise events and people from them, and will pick up references to earlier incidents, but the main elements of the back story are filled in as necessary. Arthurian trilogies sometimes seem to fade by Book 3 or to sag under the accumulated weight of legend, but not in this case. I thought In Winter’s Shadow was the strongest of the three novels by quite a margin.

For me, the most compelling aspect of In Winter’s Shadow was the character of Gwynhwyfar, who narrates the novel in first person throughout. Gwynhwyfar as portrayed here is a fully three-dimensional character, with her share of human failings and her share of admirable qualities. She is intelligent and well educated, and sufficiently interested in the past to understand and share Arthur’s dream of recreating the best aspects of the lost Roman Empire, including impartial justice and respect for law. While Arthur is fighting battles, Gwynhwyfar is managing logistics and supply with a quiet fortitude that brings out the best in people and gets things done. Supply may be less than glamorous, but it is as essential as dashing tactics; as the old (apocryphal?) military saw has it, ‘Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics’. Arthur relies on her as much as on any of his warriors, and working together as partners in a shared task allows them to develop a deep and loving marriage. But the relentless immensity of the task inevitably puts a strain on their relationship, intensified by Medraut’s sly scheming.

The love triangle between Gwynhwyfar, Arthur and Bedwyr is completely convincing. No individual is entirely at fault, none is entirely blameless. They are three fundamentally good people who care deeply for one another, yet the conflicting demands of other loyalties, together with Medraut’s malice, conspire to twist their love into a destructive force. Gwynhwyfar is, naturally, at the heart of it, and her dilemmas, her choices, the consequences of those choices and the further dilemmas that follow from those consequences make for compelling reading.

The plot has few surprises for anyone familiar with the Arthurian legends. If anything, the well-worn tale makes the novel more poignant, as events rush to their inevitable conclusion and all the characters’ struggles to escape their fate merely serve to entangle them further. As well as the story of Gwynhwyfar, Arthur and Bedwyr, the tale of Gwalchmai and the boy Gwyn, begun in Kingdom of Summer, reaches its conclusion in In Winter’s Shadow. I noticed some deft references to other legends, for example the relatively minor character of Sandde Angel-face who appears in Culhwch and Olwen: “no-one placed his spear in him at Camlan, so exceeding fair was he; all thought he was an angel helping”. No doubt there are lots of other subtle references like this that I missed.

A plus point for me was that fantasy and magic play almost no role in the plot, much less than in the previous two books (This might explain in part why I thought In Winter’s Shadow the strongest of the trilogy). Gwalchmai still has his Otherworld sword and horse, but if they have any magical powers they are scarcely mentioned. Medraut is said to serve the ‘Darkness’, as his evil sorceress mother Morgawse did before him, but for the most part this could be taken as a metaphor for ordinary human vices such as cruelty and greed.

A sketch map at the front of the book is useful for following the characters’ journeyings, for those not familiar with the geography of Britain and Brittany, although not all the places mentioned in the text are shown on the map. There’s no Author’s Note in the advance review copy; I don’t know if there will be one in the final version.

Moving retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of Gwynhwyfar, completing the story of Gwalchmai begun in Hawk of May and Kingdom of Summer.

Kingdom of Summer, by Gillian Bradshaw. Book review

First published 1981. Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4022-4072-0. 329 pages. Advance review copy supplied by publisher.

Kingdom of Summer is the second in Gillian Bradshaw’s Arthurian trilogy, sequel to Hawk of May (reviewed here earlier). The story still revolves around Gwalchmai (Sir Gawain in the later legends), though it is narrated by his (fictional) servant Rhys ap Sion. Many of the characters are figures from the legends, including Morgause, her husband King Lot of Orkney, their sons Gwalchmai and Agravain, Morgause’s illegitimate son Medraut, Arthur’s knights Cei and Bedwyr, and Arthur himself. Maelgwn Gwynedd, historical king of Gwynedd in the early to mid sixth century, appears as a secondary character*. The central character, Rhys ap Sion, and an Irish servant girl called Eivlin are fictional.

Rhys ap Sion is a freeborn farmer, peaceably working his family’s land near the River Severn. When a wounded warrior, Gwalchmai ap Lot, seeks hospitality at the farm in a bitter winter, Rhys feels drawn to him and goes with him as his servant to Arthur’s stronghold at Camlann and then on a diplomatic mission to Maelgwn Gwynedd. There Rhys encounters Gwalchmai’s sinisterly beautiful mother Morgause and suave brother Medraut, not to mention their attractive Irish serving girl Eivlin. As Rhys learns more of the dark secrets haunting Gwalchmai’s past, he comes to realise that the schemes afoot threaten not only Gwalchmai but Arthur’s kingdom itself.

Fantasy is less dominant in Kingdom of Summer than in Hawk of May, a plus point for me. Gwalchmai still has his magical Otherworld sword and horse, and supernatural duels and healing miracles feature in the plot, but for me the strongest aspect of the novel was the interplay between the characters. Apart from Morgause, who is evil incarnate (as expected from her role in the previous book), everyone has a mix of strengths and weaknesses. Gwalchmai is at first sight the ideal hero of legend, brave, courteous and near-invincible in battle, but he is haunted by his not-entirely-honourable treatment of a woman several years earlier, and he is endearingly hopeless at practical matters such as obtaining food and shelter. Agravain is a complete contrast, brash, arrogant, inclined to casual violence and not given to thinking if he can help it, but also likeable in his ebullience. Medraut is a contrast again, charming, subtle and persuasive. The conflicts between the three Orkney brothers are sharply drawn, and test Rhys’s loyalty to Gwalchmai.

Rhys himself, as the narrator, is a central character in the novel, and the tale is as much his as Gwalchmai’s. A hard-headed farmer – both literally and figuratively – he is rather out of his depth in the world of warrior honour and Otherworldly weapons, and his down-to-earth common sense is both a support and a contrast to Gwalchmai’s rather abstract concerns. The Irish girl Eivlin is a delight. Her first line, on being asked where she got that kettle, is to reply, “A hen laid it in the rafters, having been affrighted in a coppersmith’s shop”, which sold me straight away. In her own way, she demonstrates as much courage and loyalty as any of the warriors.

There are two distinct plot strands, Gwalchmai’s search for the woman he wronged and Morgause’s evil schemes to destroy Arthur and all he stands for. The first is resolved – although there is, I think, scope for it to reappear – and the second is clearly setting up for a climax in the last book of the trilogy. I shall be interested to see how it plays out.

There’s a sketch map in the front for anyone who is unfamiliar with the geography of Arthurian Britain, although not all the place names are marked and Less Britain appears to be placed in modern Picardy and Normandy rather than its more usual location in modern Brittany. The ARC has no historical or author’s note, although there may be one in the finished version. Not that it matters greatly, because the Arthurian legends have been told and retold so many times that they have near-limitless scope for interpretation.

Second in an engaging fantasy trilogy retelling the story of Gwalchmai (later Sir Gawain) of Arthurian legend.



*Although Maelgwn is dated to the early to mid sixth century (died in 547), I’m not sure that Kingdom of Summer is intended as set in the same period; Maelgwn may have been displaced earlier in time to make him contemporary with Arthur’s heyday. The author’s note for Hawk of May commented that ‘the novel is only partially historical’, so chronology is not that important.

Hawk of May, by Gillian Bradshaw. Book review

First published 1980. Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks, 2010, ISBN 978-1402240706, 356 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy supplied by publisher.

Hawk of May is the first part of a fantasy trilogy retelling the Arthurian legends, focussing on Gwalchmai as the central character. Gwalchmai translates literally as “Hawk of May”, hence the title, and in later legend he becomes the character Sir Gawain. Other key figures in the legend feature as major characters – Arthur, his evil sorceress sister Morgause, her sons Agravain and Medraut (Mordred), Bedwyr (Sir Bedivere) and Cei (Sir Kay). Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), not yet Arthur’s wife, gets a walk-on part near the end, and will no doubt reappear in the later books. The historical king of the West Saxons, Cerdic, makes an appearance. So do some other figures from the scanty historical records, such as Maelgwn Gwynedd and Urien Rheged, although they are displaced in time by half a century or more from their actual positions in the mid to late sixth century. The setting for Hawk of May is post-Roman Britain at approximately the end of the fifth century, taking the dates for Arthur’s major battles from Annales Cambriae and for Cerdic’s reign from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. However, as the author’s note says, “...since the novel is only partially historical, geography is not that important.” and neither is chronology. The novel works best when read as a story set in the timeless world of “once upon a time”, rather like the medieval Arthurian legends themselves.

Gwalchmai is the second son of Queen Morgause and her husband King Lot of the Orkney Islands. To his father’s disappointment, he shows no noticeable talent as a warrior, although he is a skilled horseman and harpist. Bullied by his elder brother Agravain, Gwalchmai leads a lonely existence until his beautiful mother, whom he worships, offers to teach him reading and, later, black magic. After witnessing some of its cruelties, he comes to fear and hate sorcery, renounces it, and after an adventure in the Otherworld he comes into possession of a magic sword and the skills to wield it. Magically returned to the real world in southern Britain, Gwalchmai sets off to offer his services to Arthur – but Arthur has his own dark reasons to hate and mistrust Morgause’s son. Will Gwalchmai ever persuade Arthur to accept him, and will either escape the shadow of Morgause’s evil magic?

Hawk of May is a fantasy novel, centred on a supernatural conflict between the forces of good (the Light) and evil (the Darkness). Gwalchmai undertakes a supernatural journey on a magic boat to the Otherworld, where he obtains a magic sword and later acquires a fairy horse. He has superhuman strength in battle, and has to physically fight and kill at least one real demon. The magical elements are key to the plot, whereas the approximate historical setting in somewhere in post-Roman Britain is incidental.

Within this fantasy environment, Hawk of May is a coming-of-age story, as the young Gwalchmai has to break free of his mother’s influence, make his own choices and earn a place for himself in the world. The plot mainly follows his upbringing and the circumstances that bring him to Arthur’s warband, so is fairly slight. Perhaps this reflects the book’s position as the first in a trilogy, setting up characters and situations for the novels to come.

Characterisation is effective, with most of the major players clearly drawn as individuals. Gwalchmai is endearingly humble, ever ready to attribute his battle success to supernatural favour rather than to his own prowess as a warrior. He grows from a child to a young man without losing his youthful idealism. Arthur, as portrayed here, is a charismatic battle leader, human enough to win his followers’ affection as well as their admiration. I can see why men would have been drawn to fight and die for this Arthur (something that isn’t always apparent in Arthurian fiction). Among the secondary characters, Cei and Agravain are archetypal ‘Celtic’ warriors, boastful, quarrelsome, flamboyant, cheerful and always ready for a drink or a fight, preferably both. Bedwyr is an intellectual as well as a warrior, with an interest in philosophy and a disinclination to take sides in petty quarrels. Morgause is pretty much pure evil, but given her traditional role in the legend it might have been rather tricky to make her a nuanced character. Gwenhwyfar is attractive and realistic, as far as I can tell from her very brief appearance, which bodes well for the rest of the series (assuming it is going to develop along the traditional lines).

Fantasy retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of Gwalchmai, describing how he came to Arthur’s following as a young man.