The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

A formative book from my childhood, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen kick-started my love of all things magic, heroic, and fantastical. Not only that, but the setting was close to where I grew up – these were locations I knew but viewed through a mythic lens. Loosely based on the legend of the Wizard of Alderley Edge, Alan Garner creates a fantasy world that feels so real as two children are pulled into an adventure where the very future of the world of men is on the line. It remains so influential on my own writing that I still return to… show more.

When I first read this book I lived in London, so my mental landscape was fairly generic “countryside” from day trips. As an adult living in Greater Manchester I can now read this book in the place it was written, grounded in the actual landscape, and it’s so much better for it. This book has layers under layers, bits of local history, folklore, geology, and the imaginative world of children. I definitely got tons more out of this story from reading it as an adult with a deep knowledge of the folk tales and landscape that underpins it.

The story is set near Alderley Edge in Cheshire, UK, and I have done the ‘Wizard’s Walk’ there. I photographed the ancient inn aptly named The Wizard, and admired the freshwater spring, where (if you look closely) you can see the face of a wizard carved in the rock. It’s said this was carved by Garner’s grandfather, but I’ve no idea whether it’s true.

Like The Lord of the Rings, there’s a quest—this one concerns an army of warriors who sleep in their hidden underground cavern. The guardian of the warriors is a wizard called Cadellin Silverbrow. But what… show more.

The 12-year-old son of a friend recommended this book to me, and his judgment was spot-on. Colin and Susan (aged about 11) spend their holidays with Gowther and Bess Mossock on a farm near Alderley Edge, in Cheshire. A strange woman, Selina Place, accosts them and causes the stone in a bracelet Susan wears to change colour. It seems that the bracelet has magical properties, and Cadellin Silverbrow, a wizard who guards a troop of sleeping knights in a cavern under The Edge explains that it could be used to wake up the knights before they are needed. Selina Place… show more.

I adore the way Alan Garner weaves myth and folklore into stories of the everyday world. If I could write as well as him, I’d be one very happy writer. It therefore goes without saying that I had to choose one of his books. The Weirdstone is a fantasy novel for children, but I enjoy his children’s books as much as his adult novels. This was the first book of Garner’s that I read and though he has since fallen out of love with it, I haven’t. The witches of the morthbrood are on the side of darkness in this… show more.