Hagwitch by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick

Celtic legend, a malevolent faery queen and Shakespearian London was how Hagwitch was first described to me and after that billing, how could I possibly not want to read it?

 

The story opens in the modern day with 'water rat' Lally, her father, and a small coterie of odd-ball, friendly characters who accompany them on their theatre barge's travels up and down London's canals and help them stage their traditional puppet shows. It's a rural idyll until the barge gets caught up on an ancient piece of timber. Lally helps free the barge and her father insists, against the better judgement of his colleague,s on pulling the timber on board and carving a new puppet from it. From then on, Lally's father becomes more and more obsessed with the puppet, his plays become darker and Lally becomes increasingly suspicious that puppet, and the log from which is was carved, harbour some mysterious and sinister secret.

But before we get to that stage, the print font switches to italic, the voice becomes first person and the setting is the 16th Century. Now we are with Flea, a young lad from Chiswick, who is assistant to a not-so good playwright. Flea's master and his small troupe of players are not doing too well. They've been excluded from London's major playhouses - the plays are too poor and the players are pretty getting close to leaving. But the playwright needs a log for his latest play and the players find one, thinking it will probably be the last thing they do for the man. Flea sees the log as they bring it in and begs them not to. It's hawthorn, and being a country lad he knows what that means: they'll all be cursed if it is brought into the house.

As the book progresses, it cycles between Lally's and Flea's stories and we soon realise that it is the same hawthorn log in both.  In each story the log endows its owner with fantastic creative powers. They write, and write, work and work, day or night with barely any sustenance, increasingly secretive and all the time becoming paler and weaker. At first, the creativity brings advantages. Flea's playwright starts to produce truly powerful plays. Lally's father produces an exquisite puppet, scintillatingly beautiful and extraordinarily fearsome at the same time. But then it all goes wrong.

It's curious, but I was struck while reading the book that in reality it was a metaphor for the creative process. The power exerted by the hawthorn over its victims is not unlike the creative muse, and that need to keep at it, regardless of bodily needs, is familiar to many an artist, writer or musician.

Of course, this might not be at all obvious to the youthful reader. What will come through is the lyrical quality of the writing, the mystical and magical descriptions of weather and setting and the haunting images of the barge and its puppets. In truth, I found the ending a little disappointing. I was expecting something a little more dramatic, especially given the run up to the end in both stories, but maybe it had to be like that.

That aside, this is a story that stays with you and that's the mark of excellent writing.

The lovely folk at Orion Children's Books sent me my copy. If you want one for yourself, please click through the link below. Then Amazon will make a small contribution to the upkeep of this blog. Thank you.