The titular weirdstone is key to these machinations. Even kindly farmer Gowther and his wife, Bess, who are the relatives Colin and Susan stay with, are unable to defend the children when they are caught up in a power grab orchestrated by lower-level entities like the terrifying wizard Grimnir against their master, the evil Nastrond. The elves, for example, have been driven from the land not by orcs but by toxic industry of the kind the warlock businessman is presumably engaged in. There is a subtle comment on class in these depictions, much of it tied to environment. A local businessman turns out to be an evil warlock (and an inefficient one at that), while a woman who lives in one of the local manors is a shape-shifting witch. Two children, a brother and sister called Colin and Susan, are sent to stay with relatives of their mother’s when she must join their father abroad for six months.Įven for 1960, this expectation feels harsh, and adults throughout the story are not to be trusted. Alan Garner’s brilliantly titled 1960 fantasy takes North European tropes familiar from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and spins them into a very English children’s fantasy.
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