The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: The classic magical fantasy adventure for children

Product Information

Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful ... Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that's the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration. [21] Philip, Neil (1981). A Fine Anger: A Critical Introduction to the Work of Alan Garner. London: Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-195043-6. But if you are a genuine fan of epic fantasy, get a copy of this book, read it and then share it with your children – they will never forget it.

Reimer, Mavis (1989). "The Family as Mythic Reservoir in Alan Garner's Stone Book Quartet". Children's Literature Association Quarterly. 14 (3): 132–135. doi: 10.1353/chq.0.0786. S2CID 143190112. The Alderley Edge stories were brought to Alan Garner's attention by his own grandfather and I too remember stumbling across the story of the sleeping king when I read Folklore, myths and legends of Britain as a child. My father owned a copy from Readers' Digest and I was both haunted and gripped by the stories inside. One of which was the very story which sits rooted at the centre of Garner's story. A six-part radio adaptation by Nan MacDonald was broadcast on the BBC Home Service in 1963. [27] The cast included John Thornley as Colin, Margaret Dew as Susan, Alison Bayley as Selina Place, Geoffrey Banks as Cadellin the Wizard, Brian Trueman as Fenodyree, John Blain as Police Sergeant, Ronald Harvi as Durathror, and George Hagan as Narrator. Harrison, D. & Svensson, K. (2007). Vikingaliv. Fälth & Hässler, Värnamo. ISBN 978-91-27-35725-9 p.58

Vigfusson, Gudbrand and Powell, F. York (eds. & trans.) Corpus Poeticum Boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue. Vol. II: Court Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883. p. 435, l. 534. I have to say that I’m pretty much of the same opinion now. There are some really great elements, but they don’t come together for me because they’re such a mash-up — and there’s no reason given for the mash-up, as in a story like Gaiman’s American Gods. I didn’t really get a sense of great history to some of the mythology, even though the names given are ancient. Worse, I found the last third of the book almost incoherent in its scrambling from plot point to plot point. Why is this happening? What? I don’t follow…

In the 2011 BBC Radio 4 adaptation Robert Powell played the narrator; he has known Garner since he was a schoolboy at Manchester Grammar School. Struan Rodger, who played the dwarf Durathror, was in a radio production of another Garner story, Elidor, when he was thirteen years old. [29] This adaptation was broadcast again in November 2012. Garner and Don Webb adapted Elidor as a BBC children's television series shown in 1995, comprising six half-hour episodes, starring Damian Zuk as Roland and Suzanne Shaw as Helen. [56] [57] Alderley Edge, like its neighbour Wilmslow, is famous for its affluence and expensive houses. It has a selection of cafes and designer shops, and has attracted numerous Premier League footballers, actors and multi-millionaire north-western business people that live in and around the Wilmslow area. It is one of the most expensive and sought-after places to live in the UK outside of central London. I have four filing cabinets of correspondence from readers, and over the years the message is clear and unwavering. Readers under the age of eighteen read what I write with more passion, understanding, and clarity of perception than do adults. Adults bog down, claim that I'm difficult, obscurantist, wilful, and sometimes simply trying to confuse. I'm not; I'm just trying to get the simple story simply told... I didn't consciously set out to write for children, but somehow I connect with them. I think that's something to do with my psychopathology, and I'm not equipped to evaluate it."The Keeper (ITV, transmitted 13 June 1983), an episode of the ITV children's series Dramarama: Spooky series They do find help along the way, in form of light-elves and the lady of the lake, but this book is harrowing encounter after harrowing encounter. There are genuinely tense moments. In the Firefly Online game, one of the planets of the Himinbjörg system (which features planets named after figures from Germanic mythology) is named Brisingamen. It is third from the star, and has moons named Freya, Beowulf, and Alberich. The mythology aspects are pretty cool, too. The references to Ragnarok, etc. I don't know whether it's that whole 'younger readers can accept the unnatural much better than adults' thing that people mentioned when reading Diana Wynne Jones, though, but I found it hard to follow and it all piled in on top of everything else in a haphazard, difficult to process manner. Didn't help that I read parts of it when everyone was around talking, and parts in a cafe, but I think part of it was the writing.

Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful... Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that's the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration. [40]In Christopher Paolini's The Inheritance Cycle, the word "brisingr" means fire. This is probably a distillation of the word brisinga. Susan and Colin, Garner's young heroes, are highly idealized. Both are resourceful, loyal, good-hearted, eager, brave, and determined in equal measure. In later books like Elidor and The Owl Service, Garner shows himself capable of imagining young people with realistic flaws, but in this one and its sequel, The Moon of Gomrath, he clearly did not try. Instead, as several critics have remarked, Susan and Colin function as blank spaces in the stories into which the reader can project himself or herself. Assuming that Garner's purpose was to construct appealing tales fully enjoyable without hard thinking, Susan and Colin do their job perfectly. In a retelling of the old legend of a sleeping army awaiting a call to save the country from danger, two children, Colin and Susan face evil witches, flying spies (see crows, above!) and sinister localised fog, as they try to prevent the eponymous jewel falling into the wrong hands. Even though the modern age may have impinged on Alderley Edge, I have a feeling that, long after the Premier League has collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and The Rovers' Return has served its last pint, people will still be telling stories about the knights sleeping under the hill and the farmer who met a wizard at Thieves' Hole. Admittedly, that isn't just thanks to Garner. Many of the stories he tells in The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath are, if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the mines and paths that have helped shape the Cheshire landscape. You could argue that the local lore and landscape have shaped Garner's books just as much as his dark visions alter the way we look at the place. Indeed, a good part of the book's longevity might be attributed to his ability to work in material that has already stood the test of time, stories long since proven.