I believe this is a late novel, if not the last published, from this author. In this, the world of pagan creatures which populated the land and seas is being driven into extinction or hiding. The author is firmly on the side of the pagans: Christianity is on the ascendant with its sexual prudery and attendant hypocrisy.

The story follows two male characters. One, Dylan, has been living on the coast of Caledonia for some years although he has amnesia and cannot recall his family. He is a boy of about sixteen years and also a Roane - I am not sure if these are actually taken from mythology but he has gills and can breathe underwater it seems, although he uses a sealskin for streamlining in the sea. (Towards the end of the story we discover that the seals bring the skins of naturally deceased seals for Roanes to use; Roanes do not hunt them.) His companion is a friendly giant - ant it seems, at least that is how it is shown in the line drawings which accompany the text - called Angus. Their life is shattered when a boat arrives, crewed not by the friendly Romans who had previously visited and taught Dylan Latin, but slave traders. Dylan is sold to be a galley slave and Angus ends up as a performing animal somewhere but makes his way back to Dylan eventually.

The other male character is Nod, seemingly a corn sprite, adopted by a sympathetic woman and her curmugeonly husband. As the story develops we discover a much darker side to the husband who on the surface is a pious Christian. Things change when two women, Stella and Tutelina, arrive at the city who are, to Christian eyes, prostitutes, but just might be sprites of some kind or perhaps more. Nod is invited to a fertility festival in the fields outside the city by the two women and, keen to lose his virginity, tries to find some wine in his father's cellar to take along, but encounters a demonic creature. Escaping he meets Dylan, and they start to form a friendship which becomes firm throughout the story.

The story is about the clash of the two cultures, but is also rather 'dodgy' to modern sensibilities, especially a scene where the heroes escape from Tritons by offering them sex voluntarily rather than the worse alternative that would involve murder as well. By the end of the story, not only is Dylan's amnesia resolved, but the identities of certain other characters are made known.

I liked the more complex character of Dylan in this, which was a change from the often one dimensional protagonists of the author's other books. On the whole, I am awarding this 3 stars.

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