Approximate Location
Latitude: 53.29.64N Longitude: 2.11.74W
In a chilling scene (Weirdstone, Chapter 6: A Ring of Stones), Grimnir caused Colin and Susan to become lost in a dense fog and then paralysed them within a stone circle so that he could take Firefrost for himself:
“They were in the middle of a ring of stones, and the surrounding low, dim shapes rose on the limit of vision as though marking the boundary of the world. Facing the children were two stones, far bigger than the rest, and on one of the stones sat a figure, and the sight of it would have daunted a brave man.”
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p61.
According to Alan Garner, in the 1978 television documentary The Writer’s Workshop: Places and Things, the Druid’s Circle was made by his great-great-grandfather, Robert Garner, in the nineteenth century. He was also responsible for creating the Wishing Well and Wizard’s Well as part of a group of features intended to engender a romantic landscape on Alderley Edge created for its landowners Lord Stanley and Sir Humphrey de Trafford.
On the way to the stone circle Susan (understandably) panicked and began to run in the fog. With incredible good fortune she tripped just short of a cliff edge. When Colin dropped a pebble off over the side it took 3 seconds to land. I suspect that the depth of the fall may indicate that the precipice was part of historic stone extraction site in Great Quarry Wood to the south of the Druid’s Circle.
