Duncton Wood is the story of a quest into the nature of love and greed, oppression and freedom, courage and corruption - of a quest, finally, into the nature of grace and the power of the spirit. In this moving epic fantasy Horwood bestows a mythology upon the dark and mysterious world of moles and at the same time gives it a vivid life that takes us beyond the realities of nature itself to the eternal struggle between Good and Evil. The moles of Duncton Wood are a varied lot. There are the aggressive Westsiders, the secretive and sickly Marshenders and the independent eastsiders. Despite their differences, all are members of the same once proud and famous mole system, and all are now tyrannised by Mandrake, a mole so powerful and senselessly destructive that his name seems a curse on those who mutter it. But the source of the evil that spreads through Duncton lies not only in Mandrake but in the growing disinterest in the rites and traditions that surround the now deserted standing Stone that was once the heart of the system itself. It is in the shadow of this towering Stone that the lonely Bracken by chance meets Rebecca, daughter of Mandrake. They exchange a few words and scurry off in different directions, never to forget a moment which will change the course of their lives forever. Only Hulver the Elder, guardian of the old ways, understands that the future happiness of the system depends on their love, and the courage with which they can pursue its suffering and joy. Accompanied by Boswell, the strange scribemole from Uffington, Bracken sets out to revive the ancient rituals and disperse the evil from Duncton.Together they seek the sacred seventh Stillstone. Not since The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down has a non-human world been so originally and imaginatively created.And never has such a closely observed world of the English countryside been so spellbindingly combined with as rich a creation of myth and history.