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The Well of the Wind
A young girl embarks on a journey to find her brother, lost at the Well of the Wind, only to find him turned to stone, in a beautifully illustrated story of young girl's courage overcoming old evil.
48 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 1998
47 people want to read
About the author
Alan Garner
76 books753 followersAlan Garner OBE (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist who is best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. His work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect.
Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner completed a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), but left the third book of the trilogy he had envisioned. Instead he produced a string of further fantasy novels, Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973).
Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner completed a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), but left the third book of the trilogy he had envisioned. Instead he produced a string of further fantasy novels, Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973).
Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 26, 2023
Found by a fisherman in a crystal box floating on the sea, a brother and sister with a silver star on their foreheads are taken in and raised by this kind man, until finding themselves alone after his death. It is then that a witch begins to visit them, mentioning things to the girl—springs of silver, acorns of gold, the white bird at the Well of the Wind—that she in turn relates to the boy, precipitating various quests to find these objects. When the boy does not return from his search for the Well of the Wind, his sister sets out in search of him, undergoing numerous trials and eventually using a mantra she had overheard the witch chanting—"Gripe, griffin, hold fast!"—to defeat the white bird and save her bother. Now in possession of a fabulous diamond, the pair set out to give it to the king, discovering the secret of their own past in the process...
Published in 1998, this original fairy-tale from British children's author par excellence Alan Garner and celebrated French illustrator Hervé Blondon is a mesmerizing storytelling experience. As someone who has read many, many folk and fairytales, the narrative elements in The Well of the Wind—the three quests, the witch adversary, the children's secret royal identity, the girl setting out to rescue the missing boy—were quite familiar, and reminiscent of many famous tales I could name. That said, the way these elements were put together, and the lovely use of language by Garner, made this feel like an original work of fantasy as well. The accompanying artwork from Blondon, done in pastels in an abstract style, was evocative, and captured the sense of mystery to be found in the text. There is a curious feeling of distance here—one doesn't feel intensely, when reading this book—but yet somehow, one is enchanted. Recommended to folk and fairytale lovers, or picture-book lovers in the mood for something a little different.
Published in 1998, this original fairy-tale from British children's author par excellence Alan Garner and celebrated French illustrator Hervé Blondon is a mesmerizing storytelling experience. As someone who has read many, many folk and fairytales, the narrative elements in The Well of the Wind—the three quests, the witch adversary, the children's secret royal identity, the girl setting out to rescue the missing boy—were quite familiar, and reminiscent of many famous tales I could name. That said, the way these elements were put together, and the lovely use of language by Garner, made this feel like an original work of fantasy as well. The accompanying artwork from Blondon, done in pastels in an abstract style, was evocative, and captured the sense of mystery to be found in the text. There is a curious feeling of distance here—one doesn't feel intensely, when reading this book—but yet somehow, one is enchanted. Recommended to folk and fairytale lovers, or picture-book lovers in the mood for something a little different.
February 13, 2016
fulfills the deep deep need for love and goodness to overcome hate and badness and make sadness joy.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews