Rediscovering Alderley Edge’s Old Magic

This post was republished into it’s original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen & The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner

After going to see a lecture given by Alan Garner, reported here, I naturally wanted to read more by him, and especially to (re)read the Weirdstone Trilogy. In this post, I will look at my re-reading of the first two books, I’ll deal with the third another day.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen was Garner’s first novel, published in 1960, followed in 1963 by The Moon of Gomrath. I read them in as Puffin paperbacks in the late 1960s and can well remember the covers pictured, although my own copies are gone. Both concern the adventures of Colin and Susan, ten-year-old twins, who have been sent to live with their mother’s old nurse while their parents are away working abroad. Bess and Gowther Mossock live on a farm near Alderley Edge in Cheshire, a large hill which is the scene of local myths and legends.

Garner starts The Weirdstone of Brisingamen with an account of the legend of Alderley Edge, in which a farmer taking his white mare to sell at market sold it to a wizard who appeared on the path over the edge. The wizard took him through iron gates into a cave where sleeping knights and their white steeds lay waiting to be called in the hour of need, but were one horse short. The farmer was allowed to cram his pockets full of treasure, but of course was never to find the cave entrance again.

Susan has a bracelet with a ‘tear’ jewel on it, which had come to her as an heirloom, and unbeknownst to her – it is the missing Weirdstone stolen centuries before. When her bracelet comes to the attention of the local witch Selina Place, the children find themselves hunted by the minions of the evil Nasrond, who had been banished centuries ago.  They find all this out from Cadellin – the Wizard of the legend and his friends the dwarves, who rescue them. Cadellin is then forced to let Colin and Susan be part of the action to rid the Edge of Nasrond and his ilk once again and restore the weirdstone to Fundindelve where the sleeping knights lie.

In The Moon of Gomrath, Colin and Susan are set to have another adventure when the elves borrow Susan’s replacement bracelet.  This is a powerful amulet given to her by Angharad Goldenhand the Lady of the Lake at the end of the first book. Being without the bracelet’s protection, Susan is possessed by an evil spirit, the Brochallan, which had been released when well-workings outside the pub set it free. Colin, with the aid of the dwarves has to seek the mythical Mothan, which only flowers at moonrise on the Old Straight Track – a path of the Old Magic to cure Susan.  More Old Magic is later set free by Colin and Susan when they light a fire to keep warm on the beacon on what happens to be the night of the Moon of Gomrath. This awakens ‘The Wild Hunt’ – the mythical wild horsemen and hounds of legend. To pile on the agony, Colin is abducted by the evil Morrigan and its goblin folk. A pitched battle ensues, primarily between the elves and the Morrigan, and Colin is rescued, but the Old Magic must still be set free.

Garner lives and breathes the landscape, mythology and history of Alderley Edge. All the places named in the book exist – like the Druid’s Circle (below), which he claims was created by one of his forebears – a mason, and the Wizard pub.  It was rich mining area for metals, so the hills are dotted with tunnels. Now run by the National Trust, you can walk the trails and see magnificent views from the top of the escarpment.

(C)2003 ANDREW HUGGETT

Traditional Celtic folklore provides the basis of all the fantasy elements of the novels, and after the MoG, Garner explains where some of this comes from and gives some references including The White Goddess by Robert Graves. The spells are all from real texts – but are incomplete, he adds – just in case.

Around all the mythology is woven the adventures of Colin and Susan, a plucky twosome whose idea of fun is to go out roaming and exploring the edge all day every day.  They were obviously fit and healthy and thought nothing of walking or running miles at a time. Gowther and Bess give them this total freedom, with just little admonitions to come home for supper, or don’t go roaming on the Edge without a torch in the dark. Gowther and Bess understand the power of the place.

Reading these two books as an adult, it’s the mythological content I concentrated on, but as a child – they were such great adventures; grittier and more real than the world of Narnia. By letting the old worlds of magic and the modern age collide, the peril is much greater – there is no option of going back through the wardrobe.

Of the two, The Moon of Gomrath is the more accomplished and, the need for scene-setting over, there is more space for fantasy. The Elves, or ‘lios-alfar’, are particularly tricky folk – Albanac, a human who dwells with the Wizard Cadellin explains:

Remember, too, that no elf has a natural love of men; for it is the dirt and ugliness and unclean air that men have worshipped these two hundred years that have driven the lios-alfar to the trackless places and the broken lands. You should see the smoke-sickness in the elves of Talebolion and Sinadon. You should hear it in their lungs. That is what men have done.

What price progress, eh?  Cadellin, a couple of pages on, explains more about how the worlds of humans and magic have diverged:

“Why do you think men know us only in legend?” said Cadellin. “We do not have to avoid you for our safety, as elves must, but rather for your own. It has not always been so. Once we were close; but some little time before the elves were driven away, a change came over you. You found the world easier to master by hands alone: things became more than thoughts with you, and  you called it an Age of Reason.

“Now with us, the opposite holds true, so that in our affairs you are the weakest where you should be strong, and there is danger for you not only from evil, but from other matters  we touch upon. These may not be evil, but they are wild forces, which could destroy one not well acquainted with such things.

“For these reasons we withdrew from mankind, and became a memory, and, with the years, a superstition, ghosts and terrors for a winter’s night, and later a mockery and a disbelief” .

I like Garner’s explanation very much – and wish it were so in a way. The rationalist in me can’t believe in magical worlds, but I do love to let my imagination soar by reading books where magic is allowed to live in our world.


Source: Own copies.

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