#Weirdstone Of Brisingamen

[vintagerpg]

Alan Garner’s debut novel, The Weirdstone of Brisigamen (1960) is set mostly in Alderley Edge, in Cheshire, and features a version of the Sleeping King legend, where the wizard of the Edge watches over a sleeping troop of knights who would one day save the world from an untold evil. To do so, though, requires the titular weirdstone, which was lost, but conveniently comes back to the Edge on the wrist of a visiting girl. She and her brother get embroiled in the machinations of a coven of witches, led by Selina Place (actually the Morrigan) and an evil sorcerer Grimnir, who both wish to possess the stone. The siblings wind up lost in the caves and mines of the Edge, are saved by two dwarves and eventually traverse the Cheshire countryside to deliver the stone to the wizard and provoke a final confrontation between the forces of good and evil.

The underground portions of claustrophobic and terrible — any dungeoneer would think twice about spelunking after reading Gardner’s descriptions of stumbling through perfect darkness, squeezing through narrow openings and, worst of all, getting stuck. Nightmarish. The later portion in the Cheshire countryside is deeply strange — mundane fields and woodland becomes overlaid with a fantastic world, populated by witches and terrible creatures — this comes across in Jack Gaughan’s bizarre cover art. The focus on landscape, and its dual nature, is something just about all of Garner’s novels ponder.

The Moon of Gomrath (1963, cover by Jeffrey Catherine Jones) sees the siblings again embroiled in a supernatural conflict with the vengeful Morrigan, an evil spirit called the Brollachan and the Wild Hunt. As an adventure yarn, Moon is probably superior, but it lacks the raw strangeness of Weirdstone. A third novels was meant to wrap things up, but Garner decided he didn’t like the protagonists, so the sequence remained incomplete until Boneland came out in 2012 (which is weird in completely different ways).

#roleplaying game #tabletop rpg #dungeons & dragons #rpg #d&d #ttrpg #Weirdstone Of Brisingamen #Alan Garner #The Moon Of Gomrath

[dgorringeart]

Bodachs, from Alan Garner's YA fantasy book The Moon of Gomrath. They were smaller than Susan, a young adolescent; bald, pointy-eared, covered in flat locks of hair like scales, had the legs of birds and bounded along with an unpleasant pecking motion. They served Morrigan, living only for the scream of blades.

The dwarf Uthecar described them as much like Goblins, but, loath as he was to admit it, braver, more aggressive. They stuck with me from reading that book a long time ago. I remembered their spears and odd legs, but falsely recalled horns and scaled armour, because these things are tricky.

I've settled on some raven or crow forms in their kit, and let them have the lamprey as a favourite animal motif. In the story, they can be eerily still and hard to detect; I decided their fur should accumulate algae and leaf litter like a loth to help them along with this.

I had a lot of fun with these nasty little men, and got to horse around with some new digital tricks. Like them!

#my art #The Moon of Gomrath #Weirdstone #Weirdstone of Brisingamen #Fantasy #Monster #Bodach #Goblin #Alan Garner #fae

[cicelythereaper]

merry christmas! today i am plugging my own series because at this point i’ve written almost 50k of Festive Feelings Fic over the past seven years or so and people should get to enjoy that

this series is a massive crossover (it starts with narnia x the box of delights and then gains fandoms as it goes), but honestly, it’s ultimately about susan pevensie post-canon and my Big Feelings about her. it’s about imagination, it’s about childhood, it’s about regaining access to both. it’s about developing friendships and coming to live with grief. it’s about listening to silenced parts of yourself. and it is, and i cannot emphasise this ENOUGH, about just PILING on the most festive christmas imagery i can muster every year. i’m not kidding. look at the playlists.

anyway, if you read it and leave any form of feedback i will owe you my sword and possibly my soul forever! every individual kudos and comment on any of these is treasured deep in my heart.

#narnia #box of delights #tolkien's father christmas letters #dark is rising sequence #weirdstone of brisingamen #cicely writes #OKAY I'M DONE that's the last of my christmas self-promos

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

So, just started Boneland.

...man, Alan Garner really did look at all the edgy 'all of the Rugrats are dead, Majora's Mask is Link trying to come to terms with his own death, Spirited Away is about child prostitution' theories and said 'hold my beer', didn't he?

#alan garner #boneland #the weirdstone of brisingamen #the moon of gomrath #I mean I wasn't exactly surprised by it #I came into Garner via Elidor and The Owl Service #weird esoteric magical realism is what I expected from this #but it's something else to seriously consider the idea that the Morrigan may just be someone who sexually abused one of your main cast #I mean it's good #i like it #Garner's one of those writers who can conjure a phrase that sticks in my head for years #(particularly thinking about 'she wants to be flowers but you make her into owls. you mustn't be surprised if she goes a-hunting') #so I'm going to have fun with it

[laku-incarnate]

Portrait of Alan Garner by Andrew Tift, 2010.

#Alan Garner #art #portrait #Andrew Tift #Booker Prize #mythology #folklore #archeology #children's fantasy #British folk tales #nature #landscape #The Weirdstone of Brisingamen #The Owl Service #Elidor #The Stone Book Quartet #Treacle Walker #Cheshire #Congleton #writer #author #fiction

[ravenya003]

#okay #whoever did the latest cover art for the weirdstone #was NOT fucking around #the weirdstone of brisingamen #books #cover art #art #creativity

[best-childhood-book]

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Alan Garner

Bardic Voices , Mercedes Lackey

The People, Zenna Henderson

SERRAted Edge, Mercedes Lackey

Callahan's . Spider Robinson

Rivers of London. Ben Aaronovitch

Added them all!

#ask #submission #tales of alderly #bardic voices #the people #serrated edge #lady sally's #rivers of london

[food4dogs]

Elidor

I have embarked on my Alan Garner deep dive: I finished the Weirdstone of Brisingamen last night and this morning straightaway started Elidor.

I was not mistaken - the story pulls you in right from the beginning. It also feels much more 'polished' than Weirdstone; in a word: it reads really well. I have a feeling I'm going to devour this one quite fast, so my final thoughts shouldn't be far away!

This is a nice edition, with illustrations and some extra material on the background of the story, the archaeology, Garner's writing process etc.

Weirdstone was published in 1960, and this one in 1965 (before The Owl Service).

#Alan Garner #Elidor #Fantasy #book

[the-king-and-the-druidess]

Get to know me 🍀 thanks for tagging @frat-ri-cide-yu-ri your hobby is super cool 👌

Animal: least weasel

Film: The Tenth Kingdom series

Season: Spring

Character: Morgana, of course :]

Colour: dark red

Hobby: fandom, editing, fanfics, etc

Book: "The weirdstone of Brisingamen" by Alan Garner

Song: "Sorcerer's Daughter" by Medwyn Goodall

Drink: herbal tea

#tag games

[unspeakable3]

You have great taste 👀 if it's OK could you rec me some comfort reads or watches?

Thank you 💓

oh i don't know about that but that's very kind of you to say, thank you! ✨

comfort is such a subjective thing, but here are some classics that i've loved for years and years, and always take me back to a place of cosiness and comfort and peace (i'm assuming this ask comes after this post, so i'll try not to repeat anything i'd mentioned there!): pride & prejudice, jane austen a christmas carol, charles dickens malory towers, enid blyton anne of green gables, l.m. montgomery heidi, johanna spyri the weirdstone of brisingamen, alan garner treasure island, robert louis stevenson alice in wonderland, lewis carroll carrie's war, nina bawden the wind in the willows, kenneth grahame

school of rock (2003) mr popper's penguins (2011) rushmore (1998) time bandits (1981) edward scissorhands (1990) labyrinth (1986) marie antoinette (2006) matilda (1996) oliver! (1968) boy (2010) (& honourable mention to basically any period drama with keira knightley!)

#speaky recs

[eldcrow]

I've read a lot of books this year, and actually managed to finish a fair few too. Not as many as I would've liked, but hey ho, I'm still happy. Off the top of my head (not including short stories), this year I've finished:

The Great Book of King Arthur by John Matthews Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (first time I read the book as an adult and it's lost none of its charm) The High Book of the Grail translated by Nigel Bryant Dark Sleeper by Jeffrey E. Barlough Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles by Patricia Terry and Samuel N. Rosenberg The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney Dracula by Bram Stoker (via Dracula Daily) The Plantagenets by Dan Jones BleakWarrior by Alistair Rennie (Got this one for Christmas and finished it on Friday!)

There's likely more that I've forgotten now, but all in all, not too bad for someone who used to very rarely finish books. Yes, I did enjoy these books, thankfully.

#books #personal

[rozmorris]

The fairytale bridges hidden in a Surrey wood, travels, psychogeography, Alan Garner Weirdstone Alderley Edge Brisingamen, a little horse... all in my newsletter https://mailchi.mp/4996b689156a/bridge-too-far-something-weird-came-over-me-the-haunt-arrives-in-mysterious-ways?

#literary fiction #roz morris #women writers #self-publishing #writing life #writing #pscychogeography #rural England #rural exploration #landscape #surrey #horses #horse riding #horseback riding #horses of tumblr #dressage #equine #horse #weirdstone of brsingamen #alderley edge #travel writing #personal essays

[frequentsee]

ia902505.us.archive.org/32/items/alan-garner-the-weirdstone-of-brisingamen/Alan Garner The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.mp3

[vtgbooks]

Vintage ALAN GARNER The Weirdstone of Brisingamen 1973 Vintage Knight FANTASY

#bluemelodybooks #vintagebook #bookaesthetic #darkacademia #readingaesthetic #booklover #bookcore #bookart

[verecunda]

11, 24, 34 for the book asks :)

Thankee! :D

11 and 34 are already answered here and here!

24. The book with the best title.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, without a doubt. I've had that one sitting on my shelf for years, and always thought it was a fabulous name for a book. Shame that when I finally got round to it, the actual book was kind of eh. 😅

#m-madeleine #books! #meme

[evilfluffybiteything]

I wanted to ask, where did you get all your info on demonology for your silver swords trilogy? pretty interested in dabbling in stories with that element and wanted some advice for research and such. thanks!

Thanks for your question! I raided the Mesopotamian pantheon for Lamashtu - she's actually a demon/goddess who was revered and feared for doing exactly what she does in this story - killing babies/the unborn. I read somewhere that people feared her so much that they invoked Pazuzu (the demon that appears in The Exorcist) to protect themselves from her.

The gods/goddesses of Sumer, Mesopotamia, Akkad and Babylon etc. are a great place to start, I think.

I based my description of her appearance in Gemfire from the picture below that I found somewhere on the web - but without the wings.

Lady Midday/Pscipolnista was pinched from Slavic legend - though I messed with her a bit to fit her to the story.

Raveners were just creatures I invented, though their appearance is based on creatures that appeared in one of Alan Garner's books (The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel Moon of Gomrath). Revenants are repurposed vampires.

Another useful resource might be the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. I used a couple of demons from that in Shadowsight.

I had hoped to still have the websites I looked at while researching - but it's been so long that I no longer have them, I'm afraid. Wikipedia's a great starting point, though.