Alan Garner Quotes

“On a gloomy day in Manchester, Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David are lured into a ruined church, where the fabric of time and place is weak enough to allow them into the twilight world of Elidor.”

“The initial setting, in the remains of a bombed out section of Manchester is creepy enough and it gets weirder from there.”

“Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David, four Manchester children, are led into Elidor, a twilight world almost destroyed by fear and darkness.”

“It is a place almost destroyed by fear and darkness, and the children are charged with guarding its Treasures while a way is sought to save the dying land.”

“An unpredictable story of otherworld passages and Garner’s wonderful ability to paint a scene. Suspense and strangeness everywhere.”

“Then the evil forces find a path through to this world… ”

“it was into Elidor that four young people wandered from the rundown streets of a modern city.”

“Elidor is a fabled world of ruined castles, ancient wizardry, and magical laws beyond those of our own prosaic everyday world. ”

“It was from Elidor that they returned with the four sacred Treasures on which that weird land depended: a spear, a stone, a sword, and a cauldron.”

“The four Watson children are wandering about in the slums of the city. They see a fiddler who leads them into the magical land of Elidor.”

″‘I heard your music,’ said Roland. ‘Why were you playing so far away from people?’ ‘I was near you. Are you not people?’

“Do not be afraid; for living wonders you shall see here.”

″‘How is the bellyache, then?’ Gwyn stuck his head round the door. Alison sat in the iron bed with brass knobs. Porcelain columns showed the Infant Bacchus and there was a lump of slate under one leg because the floor dipped.”

“Bring one down, and we’ll wash it.′ Alison say Gwyn lift a plate from the top of the nearest pile, and then he lurched, and nearly put his foot through the ceiling between the joists.”

“In the darkest corner of the loft a plank lay over the jots, and on it was a whole dinner service: squat towers of plates, a mound of dishes, and all covered with grime, straw, droppings and blackened pieces of birds’ nests.”

“Roger splashed through the shallows to the bank. A slab of rock stood out of the ground close by him, and he sprawled backward into the foam of meadowsweet that grew thickly round its base.”

“It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody’s lives.”

Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend – a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies.

“He leant against the rock. The mountain hung over him, ready to fill the valley. ‘Brrr-’ He rubbed his arms and legs with his fists. The skin was rough with gooseflesh. He looked up and down the river, at the water sliding like oil under the trees and breaking on the stones.”

“Well, when I picked up the top plate, I came over all queer. A sort of tingling in my hands, and everything went muzzy -you know how at the pictures goes out of focus on the screen and then comes back? It was like that: only when I could see straight again, it was different somehow. Something had changed.”

Alison, her stepbrother Roger, her mother and stepfather are holidaying in a gorgeous, isolated valley in Wales, a few hours away from Aberystwyth, staying in an old house Alison inherited from her late father.

“Alison and Roger were playing with three flimsy cut out paper models of birds. One was on the candlestick and the other two were side by side on a chair back. The play Gwyn had brought from the loft was next to Alison’s pillow and covered with scraps of paper.”

“There she found a sand-floored chamber where, in the light of her candle, she could see the marks left by breaking waves in the rock above her head”

“School in the Victorian era in which she lives, time of the growth of railways, costs more money than her family can afford.”

″ And senses her ancestors all around her as many others have followed this path; the footprints are there for her to see. The eldest child, usually a boy, is taken on this journey.”

“When she got back home, her father did give her a book - but it was a different one from what she had expected.”

“She could see the marks left by breaking waves in the rock above her head and, on the wall, the figure of a bull, a stonemason’s mark, and the outline of a hand that exactly matched her own. ”

“Looking down, she saw a myriad of footprints made by earlier generations of her family and, in a timeless moment, felt herself surrounded by a throng of people. ”

“Father’s face was bright, and his beard danced. He took off his cap and swept it in a circle and gave the cry of the summer fields... Mary laughed. The wind blew on the spire and made the weathercock seem alive.”

“Mary wanted to learn to read and asked her stonemason father for a book. In reply, he sent her into a cavern deep under the hills where the stone was quarried.”

“Robert is making his mark as a builder involved in the construction of churches and buildings made from local stone. Mary wants a book, even though she can’t read.”

“Joseph takes Mary on an underground journey following a path where she reads the geology as she finds her way to a spot where her father carved his stonemason’s mark. ”

“The stone became a family heirloom and eventually found its way to Susan’s mother, who passed it on to Susan, oblivious of its history and purpose. When the children meet Cadellin the wizard fails to notice the bracelet even when the children come to visit him in Fundindelve.”

“When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, they are saved by the Wizard. ”

“The Wizard has been searching for the stone for more than 100 years, but the forces of evil are closing in, determined to possess and destroy its special power.”

″ Its nature is revealed when the children are hunted by the minions of the dark spirit Nastrond who, centuries before, had been defeated and banished by a powerful king.”

“He takes them into the caves of Fundindelve, where he watches over the enchanted sleep of one hundred and forty knights.”

“Colin and Susan realize at last that they are the key to the Weirdstone’s return. But how can two children defeat the Morrigan and her deadly brood?”

″ But the heart of the magic that binds them - Firefrost, also known as the Weirdstone of Brisingamen - has been lost. ”

“The novel, set in and around Macclesfield and Alderley Edge in Cheshire, tells the story of two children, Colin and Susan, who are staying with some old friends of their mother while their parents are overseas.”

“Susan possesses a small tear-shaped jewel held in a bracelet: unknown to her, this is the weirdstone of the title.”