Header Image: Clulow Cross, looking east (Credit: PMeir / Wikimedia Commons)
Approximate Location
OS Grid Reference: SJ 95194 67402
Latitude / Longitude: 53°12′13″N , 002°04′24″W
Access: Clulow Cross is on private land. It can be seen from Wincle Lane to the east and Hollin Lane to the west.
After Durathror slew the hounds of the Morrigan on Hammerton Knowl and Susan dispatched the mara at the Bullstones on Brown Hill, the company were in danger of being completely overrun in open ground by the morthbrood and their allies. They had seen Cadellin crest the peak of Shuttlingslow but knew that it would be at least an hour before he reached them. To buy themselves some time the fugitives found a more enclosed space which they could defend (Weirdstone, Chapter 20 – Shuttlingslow).
“From the beginning there was little promise of escape, but when they crossed over the top of the hill, and came to a deeply sunk, walled lane, and saw warlocks streaming along it from both sides, they realized finally that this was the end of all pursuits“.
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p214.
Colin, Susan, Gowther, Fenodyree and Durathror made their defensive circle, back-to-back, in a defile on Wincle Lane as it descended between Brown Hill to the east and the field leading down to Clulow Cross to the west. The course of the fight never had great hope and when Fenodyree was wounded their enemies rushed into the gap. In a valiant last attempt to keep Firefrost out of mothbrood hands, Durathror demanded the stone from Susan and took to the sky in his magic cloak Valham. “And the birds fell upon him like black hail. He disappeared from sight as though in a thunder cloud.” A terrible struggle then took place in the air which culminated over a mound in the fields to the east.
“Lower down the hillside a round knoll stood out from the slope, topped by a thin beech wood; and on its crown a tall pillar of gritstone jutted to the sky like a pointing finger. Clulow was its name.”
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p215.
Durathror, mortally wounded, strapped himself to the cross shaft and grimly fought on. In the moment that he killed Arthog, lord of the svart-alfar, he expended his own life. Thus, Grimnir briefly recaptured Firefrost. However, in his moment of triumph, Grimnir was slain by Cadellin on the wall of Wincle Lane and the morthbrood were consumed by the Managarm of Ragnarok (Weirdstone, Chapter 21 – The Headless Cross).
Clulow Cross (more usually spelled Cleulow) one of around 50 high crosses to survive from the Anglo-Scandinavian period and dates to the late ninth or early tenth century. It is one of five known crosses which probably delineated the parish boundary of Prestbury. What makes this one so remarkable is that it is largely intact and is in its original setting. The setting is especially significant as the cross sits atop what may be a prehistoric burial mound.
Another fragment of what is termed an Anglo-Saxon Mercian Pillar Cross has been, somewhat appropriately, relocated to the garden of Toad Hall and the Old Medicine House at the Blackden Trust – Alan Garner‘s home.
