Bucolic I think is the term. It gives such a taste for the "outdoor living?", the more natural life. Swann was much ahead of his time or just in step with a smaller group who realized that fate of man was strongly entertwined (?)with that of nature. Paganism seems such a hard oversimplifying term , holistic is more up to date. He called it the "Great mother" now they speak more of Gaia. This is the kind of fantasy that gives you direction and hope in times of pollution.

Thomas Burnett Swann is one of my favorite authors, despite the fact that most of his stories are identical in plot and structure: at some point in the distant past, a human stumbles into an enclave of mythical beings-dryads, centaurs, sprites and roanes--with whom humanity has an uneasy truce, or of whom our race has hitherto been unaware. It is as if a corner of a pagan Garden of Eden, occupied by strange beings, was allowed to exist for just a little while longer after our exit. Swann somehow found the way back in.

Unfortunately, this bit of the garden is always in danger: the action almost always hinges on a threat of war with the human race, and there is often a threat of civil war among these beings as well. The narrative, then, usually takes place during a moment of transition, in which the protagonists are trying to preserve that fragile paradise which they have carved out of the world for themselves, and mourning its passing as it is destroyed from within and from without. This collapse is often accompanied by the loss of innocence on many levels by a young man in the story: as he is forced to take on the duties of adulthood, he is also initiated into sexual experience, usually at the hands of a woman older than himself. While these sexual adventures are eagerly welcomed, the male protagonist accepts adult life and responsibilities reluctantly, and the paradise in the woods and the embrace of the woman often help him escape from these obligations, however temporarily.

My wife Fayaway, who introduced me to these books, read them in high school, and they have lost none of their charm for her. I enjoy them too, especially when she recites them aloud to me. _Cry Silver Bells_, and the other stories of the Minotaur Trilogy, are among Swann's finest work. There are flaws, such as his reliance on puns for humor, his sentimentalism (a feature which I must confess at times I find to be not a flaw but a virtue in his work), and his sudden, pat endings. Nonetheless, if we see his stories not as narratives, but as modernist poetry--a subject on which Swann wrote several works--in prose, then his stories are easier to appreciate. What matters is not how the narrative flows, but the moment he has captured. That the subject he portrays is not a work of art or a natural object but rather a moment in a mythical past is irrelevant; like de la Mare's poetry, his works put us in mind of other worlds that may have existed; his stories capture the fleeting moment of youth, that moment that will not stay put, the time defined by movement even as it looks for static eternity. Some of his work I may never read again, but the books in this trilogy, as well as _Lady of the Bees_, _Green Phoenix_, and especially _The Gods Abide_, I will re-read for as long as I am able, because of their beautiful portraits of a fragile paradise, in a history that never was, but ought to have been.

Day of the Minotaur was actually written first. The series tells the story of Eunostos, last minotaur, and the other Beasts that inhabit the Forest of Forever. It tells how the prehuman folk, such as the minotaurs, dryads, centaurs, fauns, Thraie, and Bears of Artemis, left the world of humans to find their own country, where they could live in peace.

Day of the Minotaur chronicles the story of Eunostos, last Minotaur, as he finds the children he lost in an earlier book, Forest of Forever. Invaders, intent on recovering the children, try to destroy the last remaining civilization of mythological beasts which live in the forest, such as centaurs, fauns, and dryads. Eunostos defends the forest and tries to keep the children.

This was a book that painted pictures with wonderful clearity. I always wondered if there was a sequel to this book. I had heard another one was in the works, DAY OF THE MINOTAUR? I loaned the book out and never got it back, but I will find it again and re-read it many times.

This was Swann's last published novel, and the only one to ever be released in hardcover. It is the story of Aeneas, wandering hero of Troy, and Queen Dido of Carthage. It features folk from the prehuman era: dwarves, nerieds, and demigods. This novel, by far, was Swann's very best.

Wolfwinter, written by Thomas Burnett Swann, is based on Greek mythology. Erinna, the heroine, falls in love with a satyr, conceives a child by him, and leaves her human husband when he threatens to expose the child to the wolves. She searches for the father of her child with the help of another satyr. It is a fascinating read, as are all the Thomas Burnett Swann books.