There were a few books that I cherished enormously in childhood, two of which have stood out in my mind for years. One was The Midnight Folk by John Masefield, which I have already discussed, shortly after I reread it about half a year ago. The other was The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner, and I gave myself a few months before rereading that, to ration my pleasures and have a reason for exultation later in the year.
I was not disappointed. The book was as marvellous this time round as when I first read it nearly sixty years ago. The writer lived in Cheshire and built both this book and its sequel around old myths of the region, which involved wizards and witches and dwarfs. Cadellin the principal Wizard is the main force for good in the book, but his life has been circumscribed for centuries because he has been given charge of a company of knights who lie sleeping inside a hollow hill, waiting to be reawakened when the Spirit of Darkness they had overcome returns to the charge.
But the Weirdstone which is the instrument to wake the knights has been lost, when missing one white horse for his knights he obtained one from a farmer. He allowed the farmer to help himself from the jewels in the cave, but the farmer had also made off with the Weirdstone.
It comes back to Cheshire on a necklace worn by Susan, who with her brother Colin are the main protagonists in the book. A witch who lives in the area discovers it, and she and a perverted wizard called Grimnir steal it, but they decide to try to use it themselves and not pass it on to Nastrond.
Susan and Colin manage to recover the stone and then they have to get it to Cadellin, who has arranged to meet the dwarfs who have helped them a few days hence. So they have a long journey on foot, avoiding the witch and the horrid creatures who are helping her, a journey through hills and alongside lakes, in which they get help from the forces of good. But when they get to the meeting point Cadellin is not there, and they are surrounded, by goblins and the crows which have been tracking them during their journey.
Unable to hold off the horde, Durathor, a dwarf who possesses a flying cloak given him by the elves, takes off with the Weirdstone but is attacked by crows who finally kill him. One of them gets the stone in its beak, but then it is caught by the wizard the children had thought was Cadellin, rushing to the scene. But it is Grimnir, who then orders that the children be killed and, though he is cloaked, the voice is Cadellin’s.
Nastrond has now got into the act and sends a wolf that covers the sky to devour all those who have been quarrelling over the stone. But as Grimnir flees, a sword is thrust into his back and he dies, and the hood falls off and the children see the face of Cadellin. But then Cadellin climbs over the wall from which he had attacked, and sorrows that he has had to kill his brother, who looks in dying at the Wolf and the witch who is running towards him, and drops the stone into Cadellin’s hand.
That is enough to hold the wolf off from Cadellin and the children and the dwarf who had survived, but everything else is taken away, and the story ends
Blinking in the sunlight of a brilliant sky, the survivors of the wrath of Nastrond looked out over fields of white, wind-smoothed, and as empty of life as a polar shore. No svart or lyblac stained the snow; no gaunt figure lay close by; the pillar of Clulow was bare. Away to the south, a black cloud rolled. There was joy and many tears.
The drama of that ending has stayed with me over the years, the reunion of the brothers, and the overwhelming sorrow of Durathor’s death, which I still mourn.