Return to the Contents Page of Thompson's Interviews with Authors of Modern Arthurian Literature
INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM MAYNE
by
RAYMOND H. THOMPSON
THORNTON RUST, NORTH YORKSHIRE
13 APRIL 1989
My drive to the village where William Mayne lives took me into one of the most beautiful parts of England, the Yorkshire Dales. It was a glorious spring evening when I drove up Garsdale, across the Pennines, then down Wensleydale to the little village of Thornton Rust; and though the next day brought overcast skies and rain, my appreciation of the countryside remained undiminished.
Mayne took me to visit Richmond Castle, the setting of his fantasy novel Earthfasts (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1966). Here he makes use of the legend of Arthur and his knights sleeping in a cavern beneath the hill to explore the responses of his characters to unexpected supernatural phenomena. He also retells the tale of Peredur in The Hamish Hamilton Book of Heroes (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967); and Max's Dream (London: Hamish Hamilton; New York: Greenwillow, 1977) is based upon "The Dream of Macsen Wledig" in The Mabinogion. Since Mayne also offered me some useful advice about the focus of the interviews and the editing process, my visit proved even more rewarding than I had anticipated.
RT: In Earthfasts you make use of the cave legend attached to King Arthur. When you wrote that book, did your interest in Arthurian legend extend beyond the cave legend, or were you just interested in the cave legend itself?
WM: I'm interested in Arthurian legends that can be located. Location seems to me important, and since I happen to live not far from one of the places with Arthurian associations, that's the one I'm currently most interested in. I'm not near Sewingshields, or Alderley Edge, or any of the places in the south country. I'm near Richmond, and so I used the legend associated with it; except I can't say that I used it; it presented itself to me as something that had been in my mind, waiting for the trigger. When the trigger came, I could see the whole thing as complete while I wrote it.
I came across a local thought about perfectly mundane things rising. In these fields in the dry season, stones do rise from the earth, and they're called earthfasts. There seemed to me to be a parallel with King Arthur and his entourage who are earthbound, earthfast, in a cave under the ground. I can't classify it as a thought, but the two things came together and I saw a connection. At certain times things will come out of the ground. What if it were that drummer boy? And what if he had found what he isn't particularly credited with finding, but others have been, not only at Richmond, but at a number of other places?
I daresay that was the course of my thought, but in fact it's not done consciously. The links that are made are beyond mere reason. I didn't take some parts and put them together. They came together, and that's the only way to create anything. Construction isn't any good. It doesn't hold. You can't build; you just have to have geology. Mind you, since I wrote that book twenty-five years ago, you musn't expect me to be too clear about the rather amorphous processes that go on in coming to the final form.
RT: Have you had a long interest in the Arthurian legend?
WM: I can't remember when I didn't have an interest. I think it's always been there to some extent, from family traditions and so on, though not in knightly deeds or anything like that. I did read a retelling of Malory long, long ago. Some bits of it are still boring, and some bits are interesting, and some just garbage. What I enjoy is the formless speculation one is allowed to have when considering the Matter of Britain. It's agreeable to think sometimes, in a rather indulgent way, that there must be a unified field theory about it all. There isn't of course. In fact, who knows how many Arthurs there were?
Then I began to find that there were reminiscences in the landscape, more or less unparalleled in the literature. I've always been interested my onomastic legends, the naming of places, why they were called this, that, and the other. The cave legend at Richmond exercised enough fascination to be remembered.
RT: In Earthfasts Arthur emerges as a very ambivalent figure. At times he can be threatening, at others encouraging. Did you create this ambivalence primarily for the purposes of your novel, or did you find it in tradition and adapt it to the story as you were writing?
WM: Well as for threatening, that's very much in the eye of the beholder. If people feel threatened, they are. Maybe they're wrong. But it certainly seems to me, and seemed to me then, that King Arthur would not be, whoever he was, a mild or safe character. Or predictable. Or even particularly likeable. Always getting into trouble for imposing upon monks, though I never blamed him. At that time Britain was like Lebanon, ruled by various militias. Arthur would be wayward, and he would use whatever power he could, whether of religion or of force, to do who knows what? Perhaps he was just keeping himself going because that was his nature--like any politician he might have been in it for the power.
RT: Do you feel Arthur might have been in it for the power, rather than being a benevolent hero figure?
WM: You can't be a benevolent hero figure. If you're lucky that's what gets added on to you. At the start, however, you do it because you do it. Arthur had a deprived childhood. In some ways he was an early bovver boy, a yobbo with his big boots, kicking people in, but he was a structured one.
RT: You look upon much of the legend about Arthur as misleading then?
WM: It's romantic. There aren't people like that at any level of responsibility. You couldn't have Arthur as king; you could only have him as "Arty rules O.K." You couldn't be a benign despot; you just have to be a despot. The times were wilder than we like to think. In fact, I think the stories themselves are a reflection more of the times than of any one person. Others have been subsumed into the legend, as Arthur, perhaps, was subsumed into an earlier one, maybe taking it over from within.
RT: He can, I suppose, be seen as an expression of longing on the part of people for something better. The Arthur you're recalling is really the earlier, historical figure?
WM: Yes. Within the stories, there he is. There is no way of finding how much is fresh invention and how much is old source. I look at the stories and think, that feels to me like old source; it has another reverberation. Even that relatively modern story about the drummer boy probably has antecedent tales of some sort, although it's been patched together from other things. What was the other activity here? Lead mining: going into some fissure in the rock, some old working. Where does it go? How do you map where things are? Because it's dark, you don't know where you've gone. Someone who has gone in says it is there, but we can't bring it out that way because it won't fit. It must be in the hillside somewhere. So why not sit there thumping something, to give others an idea where the noise comes from. In such manner might the story grow. The treasure might just have been lead, not King Arthur. There are so many possibilities of what it could be, what it could represent, what one can find.
Arthur is metaphorical; but his meaning is not going to be known to us, because as soon as you pin him down, he'll escape and start being red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet somewhere else.
RT: But he sheds light upon life here?
WM: He sheds light upon life here. That's all. In our culture, he's a universal.
RT: Did you go through a number of drafts of Earthfasts before you reached the final form?
WM: No, I wrote it down and sent it straight off. I didn't do anything else to it. Somebody else reads it for words that have been repeated, or left out.
RT: Earthfasts offers a paradoxical combination of change and permanence. On the one hand we have the king sleeping, waiting, changing little if at all in the waiting process. On the other hand we have change taking place because of the reaction of the characters to the supernatural phenomena that take place.
WM: Well, this is what happens when King Arthur stirs, whoever he is. There would be changes, but there are changes anyway.
RT: Once he becomes part of the fabric of life, then inevitably he's part of the fabric of change?
WM: Yes, but perhaps he's nearer to the centre and doesn't move around so quickly. The way in which he faces is different, and so he doesn't move at the speed of the periphery. Thus you have the image in the book where one of the boys could feel the flow of time streaming past him.
RT: Does the candle in the cave, which burns at a very slow rate, recall the tradition that time passes at a different rate in the Other World?
WM: Yes. Time goes at a different rate, which is why they couldn't do much with the candle. Perhaps it was just burning with cold fusion. In another book I did detail the process of cold fusion. Still, there we are. I shall never be acknowledged for the genius I am. Sad, isn't it? But then again, you see, I can look back on something and say, yes, that's what I was thinking of after all, and yet I didn't know.
RT: When you wrote the book, did you think about the form at all, about the fact that you were writing a fantasy?
WM: No, just the story. The actual nature of it doesn't matter. You choose the facts you're going to use. Although at first sight it seems that some facts are less solid than others, it's not really so. It's just that we think that the facts closer to us are more solid than the ones that are more remote. Don't meddle with the facts too much. If you alter anything, then everything else must change. The whole thing only hangs together by a thread, anyway.
RT: The intrusion of supernatural phenomena into the lives of your characters in Earthfasts has a disturbing effect upon them. Do you often use the supernatural in your books for that purpose?
WM: In this case, the less it's used, the more effective it would be. If you can make the whole story look as if it hasn't a logical explanation, and then provide one, you've given the reader a surprise without causing incredulity. Sometimes, too, you provide a different logical explanation from the one he expects. That seems fair to me, and it is a part of the writing craft that you can learn. The rest you can't.
RT: In Max's Dream you create a vivid sense of the real world, and an element intrudes that is perhaps not readily accepted as part of the naturalistic world around us, namely the vision that the narrator has of the doctor and his family on the island.
WM: Since the girl is alone, and fairly far from home, and a bit disarrayed, the experience becomes not only very tense for her, but also unbelievable, which is what I meant it to do. That, however, is only a strong reflection of the original story, "The Dream of Macsen Wledig" in The Mabinogion. Macsen wakens from a very vivid dream to find the world around him only slowly coming back into reality. So it's a reflection of that part of the tale, where he heard the movement of weapons and so on, and only slowly climbed out of the greater reality of his dream. This was so strong that he could describe it and send people out to find what he had dreamed. In my book this last feature is paralleled by the girl going on a comparable journey to an island and a castle, where she finds what Max had dreamed. It's a word for word retelling of that story, but from the messenger's point of view.
I spent thirty-five years or so working out how to do that, because I read the story when I was about fifteen. This was one of the few instances where one can actually relate an experience--that of the messenger--that is mostly disregarded in older writing and has, moreover, a metaphysical reality. I didn't work it out, however, until I was living between the railway sidings and the refinery in the western part of Melbourne. Then it gradually began to come to me: I was actually sitting in the laundrette when it drew into focus. So it took quite a long time, but it is only the same set of facts from the Welsh tale, seen from a slightly different point of view. One can follow it almost word for word, once it's pointed out.
RT: When you wrote it, did you reread the tale and read other tales as well, or did you just rely upon your familiarity with the story?
WM: I was in Australia and hard put to find a copy of The Mabinogion. The one I used was Gwyn Jones'. Someone actually had a copy she had been given by the translator. So I got fairly near my sources in that case, which I was quite pleased to do. I had to read the tale to see that I hadn't drifted too far away. I couldn't quite get everything in, but at least I included an "if thou can," which I felt was quite good.
RT: Did you go looking for a locale, or did you have one in mind at the outset?
WM: No. When it came right, that was it. I knew about the place: it was part of the stock I had, and it seemed to be the right one. Also, the characters kept talking to me in those tones. So that's where it was. But again, it's a fabrication of one sort or another.
RT: The plot is borrowed, and the setting is close to reality. Do you prefer, in your writing, to keep close to actual places when you're creating your settings? Or is this something that varies depending upon the needs of the plot?
WM: It depends. I'll generally stay fairly close to real places, but not entirely. I'll quite cheerfully alter things if I need to. If the rock is as big as this room but I want it three times this size, I'll change it. It's the same with historical events. My stories are merely fabulation, and they don't have to relate to those things. All it can relate to is a reader's not very clear remembrance of those times. I don't mind if my view is regarded as inaccurate, because it's not meant to be a scholarly, historical one. If it were, then the story would start in an entirely different way. It's fiction and, like fiction of that time, would be inaccurate about its own details.
RT: Do you do research into the historical material when you're working on your books?
WM: Sometimes it is necessary, but not often. I don't ordinarily write that kind of book. If an idea comes to mind and I don't know enough about it to do it thoroughly, I'll research it. In the end I've only used one percent of the research, but that's all right. With all the other books, I don't even have one percent and nobody notices. If research has to be done, I choose only the facts that help me.
RT: Do you recall whether you did much research for Earthfasts?
WM: I didn't do any.
RT: What about Max's Dream? As well as reading the original Welsh tale, did you try to check your topography on a map?
WM: No, I couldn't check it. I just had to use what I had in mind, so that's internal research.
RT: Did you do any research for the retelling of the Perceval story?
WM: I did and I didn't. There was a story which I had in mind, and for the book I had to provide a reference to the source. I thought, oh, God, I don't know where I read it, but I'll just look in the book I happen to have, which was Bullfinch's Mythology. So I said that I got it from Bullfinch, but I didn't really. Different versions of the Perceval story vary quite a lot, and I conflated the different accounts. This is what the source is available for. You take what feels right.
RT: Would you sometimes include in your research not only historical and topographical data, but also works of fiction set in the same time and place as you are writing about?
WM: Oh, I don't think so. I'd not read any fiction, except to make certain that there was no cross-infection, that's all, and then it could only be from books I'd read some time in the past. I'm quite prepared to borrow from early views of King Arthur, however. I don't set any value in this Round Table rubbish; that's a nasty modern thing, as far as I'm concerned. Earl Rivers is to blame for that, setting Caxton on and putting Malory in prison, just to be an early Rupert Murdoch. Still, I don't mind borrowing from very early sources, because they're not actually fiction for that time. They're the stuff of prefiction. The Mabinogion, certainly. I wouldn't want to come much further forward than that in borrowing.
But again, I wouldn't set out a rule. Jane Gardam's book, Crusoe's Daughter, has not a great deal to do with Robinson Crusoe, but it does include a very strong reminiscence, by a character in this book, about Robinson Crusoe himself. I had thought of a book called Caliban's Nephew, which could be quite engaging. I daresay I shan't get around to it. So one could look into those books and say, yes, somebody has written a story here that is a spin-off of an earlier one, though not actually relating very directly to it. Max's Dream is a piece of mischief, no doubt.
RT: Have you ever felt tempted to write a sequel to Earthfasts, dealing with some of the characters, say three years later, to see what happens to the drummer boy?
WM: That might happen, but it probably wouldn't, mostly because other things supercede, that's all. It would be something I would tend not to want to do, but if it were going to happen, I wouldn't stand in its way.
RT: Do you, then, have any plans to return to the Arthurian legend in your writing?
WM: Not at the moment. There might be something among some notes of ideas that have come to mind. It might just be possible to do the very plainest thing, perhaps an unmodified retelling of some of the stories. Certainly not all of them, but some of the core ones. It wouldn't be an Arthurian collection, but just stories about different characters.
RT: Is the Arthurian legend important to you?
WM: In a sort of Charles Williams or C. S. Lewis fashion? To respond as they did would be to write on its back, which I don't want to do. My own independence as a writer is in fact slightly more important.
But you shouldn't use the Arthurian legend lightly. It's not merely a source. It's something else as well, and so I don't want to use it in a casual manner at all. I don't think I have. I think it deserves more respect than we know how to understand, to apprehend, or to appreciate, or to give the right reverence to. I'll not use it as a first resource; it's got to present itself as being the necessary one, in which case it probably is, for that particular thing. Otherwise, I'll just hope that nobody else messes its back too much, and degrades it with pictures. I think that to use the legend properly costs one a great deal. It's not just something you can dip into for chromatic colouring. It is more than that. It is like the rainbow itself, standing as a prismatic utterance from our own world, licked by the parts of the sun we don't know can be analyzed out.
RT: Thank you.