John Rowe Townsend cited the theme of ancient but living legend, which also appears in Garner's earlier books, saying that in this book "Garner added to his gift for absorbing old tales and retransmitting them with increased power a new grasp of the inward, emotional content of an incident or situation."
Another fellow reteller of Welsh material in English, Susan Cooper said that the novel can be called "true fantasy", "subtle and overwhelming". Penelope Farmer wrote, "I doubt if you could find any piece of realistic fiction for adolescents that says a quarter as much about adolescence as Alan Garner's The Owl Service .
Discrimination and prejudice are pervasive. There is a condescending English view of the Welsh and its corollary in Welsh resentment of English money. There is the class divide, not only between a working-class boy and richer children, but between a land-owning family and a businessman's family. There is the divide between the urban Welsh and the Welsh-speaking country people. The boy Gwyn speaks Welsh with local people as practice for examinations at school but his mother does not want him "speaking like a labourer". Gwyn's Welsh accent in English marks him as inferior in English eyes as well. Thus Garner creates conflict by bringing mismatched outlooks together, rather than from anyone's malice.
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