Perhaps the most important and visceral character in Alan Garner’s writing is the landscape itself. Although the first two books of the Weirdstone Trilogy have been conventionally associated with the emerging fantasy fiction genre, they strongly differ from Garner’s immediate predecessors – J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. This is because they are rooted firmly in the all-too-real landscape of eastern Cheshire, especially the enigmatic Alderley Edge.
In the introductory essay to the 50th anniversary edition of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (2010), Garner makes his connection to landscape explicit: “My ability was in language and languages. I had to use that, somehow. And writing was a manual craft. But what did I know that I could write about? I knew the land.”
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen begins with Garner’s retelling of The Legend of Alderley – a folktale, first recorded in the early nineteenth century but probably far, far, older in origin. In the story a farmer is persuaded to sell his milk-white horse to a wizard who guards one hundred and forty sleeping knights. The army slumber within a cave until the day of greatest peril when they will ride out to save England. What is deeply apparent is just how firmly the legend is rooted in the landscape of Alderley Edge. Garner describes the journey from the meeting between the farmer and the wizard near Thieves Hole…
“By Seven Firs and Goldenstone they went, to Stormy Point and Saddlebole. And there they halted before a great rock embedded in the hillside. The old man lifted up his staff and lightly touched the rock, and it split with the noise of thunder.”
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p10.
Every one of these locations exists on the ground. They can be sought out on a map, visited in person and can still cause a mesmeric sense of wonder. As the principal characters, Colin and Susan Whisterfield, explore the Edge and discover its eerie and terrifying secrets, we too can walk in their footsteps. This is the significant difference between Garner and other authors working around the fantasy genre – his writing is rooted in a British mythology which is emphatically set in a tangible landscape. Fans of Tolkien, Lewis and Pratchett can only visit Middle Earth, Narnia and Discworld through their mind’s eye, imagined illustrations or via film adaptations. Adherents of Garner can actually seek out the landscape of the books.
Garner expert, Dr Neil Philip (A Fine Anger 1981, 13), has noted that: “The importance of place to these… books cannot be overemphasised. Alderley is not simply the setting: it shapes the stories. To drive or walk around the area is to be inside the books. ‘This is where the Morrigan stopped her car’; ‘This is where the svarts appeared’; ‘This is where Colin and Susan saw the crow’; here are the Iron Gates, Seven Firs, Stormy Point, Saddle Bole, the Goldenstone.”
He has also gone on to note that one of the reasons for the success of the story was due to “rooting it painstakingly and convincingly in a real topography” (A Fine Anger 1981, 25). Elsewhere, Philip was variously impressed by the deep research which Garner based the books on to create a powerful sense of the landscape, the author’s joy in place-names and the sheer intangible magic of Alderley Edge (A Fine Anger 1981, 27-28). Garner himself has said that “on that hill, the universe opened” (The Listener 15 September 1977).
Some might argue that, by tracking down the sites which inspired the books, the visual imagination could be neutralised by presenting what the individual sites really look like. Fear not… I was concerned about that too. However, what I was perhaps unprepared for was that Garner’s writing is so powerful that most of the locations exactly mirrored my inner vision of them. This was particularly true with the Goldenstone, Castle Rock and Holywell.
Please feel free to use the Locations, Journeys and Map sections as a guide to walking Garner’s landscape. I’ve not suggested specific routes, but the locations are all plotted as accurately as possible so it should be possible to construct your own itineraries should you wish.
To date, most of the locations from The Weirdstone Trilogy have been mapped and included here. The small number of remaining sites will be completed during the coming months.
The website author at Castle Rock, Alderley Edge (Credit: James Wright)
Please see the About section for further information on the background of the website and its author.