The Candleman

This is a welcome new edition of a book first published in 1994, and which was the 1995 winner of the Tir na n-Og English language award. It’s a fantasy steeped in the landscape and folklore of the Gwent salt marshes and the flood lands of the River Severn. The force of the river itself is personified by the river goddess Hafren, bent on breaching the flood walls, swamping the reens and sweeping away the fields and homes that cling to the river’s margins. Among those endangered families making a perilous living in the shadow of past and possible future disaster are Conor and his mother, the keepers of the Sea Wall Inn. Into their lives comes young Meurig, a travelling fiddle player. He has returned to his family home, the flood watchtower hard by the seawall, and to his ancestral responsibility of holding back Hafren’s relentless ambition. But he returns downcast and desperate, for Hafren holds his soul captive within a candle and, when the candle burns down, Meurig, the last of the watchtower guardians, will be no more. This is an adroit and compelling fantasy with a strong narrative and characters, and a brooding atmosphere rooted both in a singular landscape and a powerful sense of community, history and myth. And all accomplished within two hundred pages.