The writer Alan Garner has been a companion on my way since I was nine, when our teacher, Miss Ward, read 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' to our class, and our recent holiday in Lancashire offered the opportunity to visit Alderley Edge, where so many of his stories are set, on the journey up.
Except the Northerner realised he'd lost his phone the morning of our trip, and an ensuing, fruitless search meant we were late leaving, and this in turn meant we had to postpone our visit to Cheshire till the return journey - a very different prospect, because by then the focus has switched from the forthcoming holiday adventure to getting home and getting the laundry in the washing machine.
But we were there, and even though it was the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday weekend and the Edge was bearing all the signs of being completely National Trustified, there were indications nevertheless that the Morrigan was still in residence.
I'd found a map online of the walk I wanted to do, to take in the major sites of Garner's stories, but it was only when we'd parked that I realised it hadn't printed properly, and besides, the Northerner was still having problems with his knees, which hadn't responded properly to his latest steroid injection, so we followed the blue arrows that marked a much shorter 'Wizard's Wander'.
The Edge was crowded at first, but as we walked further from the car park and tea room, there were fewer people about and something of its wisht-ness was evident. In places, where there were gaps in the trees, you got a sense of its geography, and how proud of the landscape it stands.
I was delighted when we reached Stormy Point, which features heavily in the stories, with its views towards the Pennines ...
... and even more pleased to find a fragment of blue and white pottery there.
We also reached the Armada Beacon, which plays an important role in 'The Moon of Gomrath', and consists of a stone-built platform on top of a Bronze Age round barrow. Because the immediate area around it is wooded, it's quite hard to appreciate how high this actual spot is and how visible the beacon would have been from the surrounding area.
The woods were lovely, though, and there were some cool, individual trees, which added to the atmosphere ...
... and lots of fungi.
I was also thrilled to spot the Golden Stone at the side of a footpath. It really does have a golden sheen to it, though it's hard to capture in a photo. Believed to be a fallen menhir, it was used as a boundary marker for centuries. It felt a bit magical to me (though that could have been the conjuring of a distant childhood, when all these stories were new).
By this stage, the Northerner's knees were singing him a song, so we decided to go full National Trust and had a cream tea with the nicest scones I've eaten in a long time.
(Perhaps that's the biggest change I witnessed in The North since the early 80s. You can get cider AND clotted cream!)
(Perhaps that's the biggest change I witnessed in The North since the early 80s. You can get cider AND clotted cream!)
Sadly for me, we'd missed the Wizard's Well, which was at some distance from the other sites, but this means, of course, that I'll have to go back, and that's a pretty good way to leave a place, I think. And once home there were feathers from the Morrigan to gloat over, as well a tawny feather, three jay feathers and one from a Great Spotted Woodpecker. A special place.
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