Dring the middle ages, two forces fight to maintain a strong hold on the primitive land of Scotland — humans and the noble red deer. Man attempts to protect and tame the wild land while the deer, or Herla, establish a hierarchy under the leadership of the mighty stag, Brechin.
So begins "Fire Bringer" by David Clement-Davies (Dutton, 500 pages, $19.95), an epic-length thriller that has all the hallmarks of a traditional heroic tale, including the mysterious quest and the successful return of the protagonist.
"Fire Bringer" falls naturally into three sections: Rannock's birth, his flight to freedom while avoiding the destiny of the marked forehead and the eventual battle against the evil Sgorr.
The story is held together with the themes of good vs. evil and the pursuit of one's own birthright and freedoms. In these ways, "Fire Bringer" has obvious connections to at least two other British animal-fantasies — "Watership Down," by Addams, and Brian Jacques' "Redwall" series.
First-time novelist Clement-Davies has juxtaposed Scottish lore (the character of Herne is half man, half deer) with real human history (the conquest of the Norsemen).
The subtle parallel of these two stories builds tension for fast-paced storytelling.
In "Fire Bringer," the reader will find adventure at its very best.
Clement-Davies was born on Twelfth Night in 1964 and studied history and English at Edinburgh University. He is an admitted "dabbler" in many careers — actor, administrator of a children's book fair, house manager of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and a clerk in the "Dickensian basement of a London solicitor's office." It was here that he wrote much of "Fire Bringer."
When he began the book, he was concerned about the notion of talking deer. "Very 'Bambi,' you might think. But the more I watched red deer, graceful and mysterious, sitting in their wallows in Richmond Park, flashing through the trees, the more exciting it became. . . . When the stags rut and fence with those seasonal branches, when their bellows sound, proud and mournful, they say something moving to me about nature."
As Clement-Davies continued to write, he found that symbolism of deer already exists, from ancient Greek transformation myths to pagan legends and Christian iconography. "My deer needed a god and beliefs and stories as powerful as our own. There was already a god . . . the forest god, Herne."
Clement-Davies alternates living in London and traveling as a journalist around the world. He is researching his new book about wolves in Romania, where he has traveled through "thick snows and dark forests."