Map of the Roman empire under Hadrian (117–138 AD), showing the location of the Alani at the time in the northeastern Caucasus region.

The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.^[1][2][3]

Name[link]

The various forms of Alan — Greek: Αλανοί, Αλαννοί; Chinese: 阿蘭聊 Alanliao (Pinyin) in the 2nd century,^[4] 阿蘭 Alan (Pinyin) in the 3rd century^[5] — and Iron (a self-designation of the Alans' modern Ossetian descendants, indicating early tribal self-designation) are Iranian dialectical forms of Aryan.^[1][6] These and other variants of Aryan (such as Iran), were common self-designations of the Indo-Iranians, the common ancestors of the Indo-Aryans and Iranian peoples to whom the Alans belonged.

The Alans were also known over the course of their history by another group of related names including the variations Asi, As, and Os (Bulgarian Uzi, Hungarian Jász, Russian Jasy, Georgian Osi). It is this name that is the root of the modern Ossetian.^[7]

Timeline[link]

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   bar:Gaul text:Gaul
   bar:Danube text:Danube
   bar:Forecaucasus text:Forecaucasus
   bar:Caucasus text:Caucasus

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   bar:Forecaucasus from:start till:375 color:sovereign $wide
   bar:Forecaucasus at:20 text:"Ancient Alan kingdoms"

   bar:Forecaucasus at:375 text:Huns
   bar:Forecaucasus from:375 till:455 color:subject $wide
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   bar:Danube at:30 text:"Roxolani & Iazyges"
   bar:Danube from:380 till:480 color:subject $wide
   bar:Danube at:385 text:"Alans settled in Pannonia"
   bar:Gaul from:406 till:464 color:semi $wide
   bar:Gaul at:406 text:"Alan kingdoms at~Orléans and Valence"
   bar:Africa from:429 till:534 color:sovereign $wide
   bar:Africa at:430 text:"Kingdom of the~Vandals and Alans"
   bar:Forecaucasus from:455 till:1239 color:sovereign $wide
   bar:Forecaucasus from:721 till:965 color:semi $wide
   bar:Forecaucasus at:750 text:"Khazars"
   Bar:Forecaucasus at:1000 text:"Medieval Alania"
   
   bar:Forecaucasus from:1239 till:1440 color:subject $wide
   bar:Forecaucasus at:1245 text:Mongols
   bar:Forecaucasus from:1440 till:1774 color:semi $wide
   bar:Forecaucasus from:1774 till:end color:subject $wide
   bar:Forecaucasus at: 1810 text:"North Ossetia~/Alania"
   bar:Danube from:1318 till:end color:subject $wide
   bar:Danube at:1500 text:"Jassic (Jazones) in Hungary"
   bar:Caucasus from:1239 till:1440 color:subject $wide
   bar:Caucasus from:1440 till:1804 color:semi $wide
   bar:Caucasus at:1500 text:"Tuallag"
   bar:Forecaucasus at:1500 text:"Iron~Digor"
   bar:Caucasus from:1804 till:1991 color:subject $wide
   bar:Caucasus at:1810 text:"South Ossetia"
   bar:Caucasus from:1991 till:end color:semi $wide

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Early Alans[link]

The first mentions of names that historians link with the "Alani" appear at almost the same time in Greco-Roman geography and in the Chinese dynastic chronicles.^[8]

The Geography (XXIII, 11) of Strabo (64/63 BC–ca. 24 AD), who was born in Pontus on the Black Sea, but was also working with Persian sources, to judge from the forms he gives to tribal names, mentions Aorsi that he links with Siraces and claims that a Spadines, king of the Aorsi, could assemble two hundred thousand mounted archers in the mid-1st century BC. But the "upper Aorsi" from whom they had split as fugitives, could send many more, for they dominated the coastal region of the Caspian Sea: "and consequently they could import on camels the Indian and Babylonian merchandise, receiving it in their turn from the Armenians and the Medes, and also, owing to their wealth, could wear golden ornaments. Now the Aorsi live along the Tanaïs, but the Siraces live along the Achardeüs, which flows from the Caucasus and empties into Lake Maeotis."

Chapter 123 of the Shiji (whose author, Sima Qian, died c. 90 BC) reports:

Yancai lies some 2,000 li [832 km]^[9] northwest of Kangju. The people are nomads and their customs are generally similar to those of the people of Kangju. The country has over 100,000 archer warriors, and borders on a great shoreless lake.^[10]

The mouth of the Syr Darya or Jaxartes River, which emptied into the Aral Sea was approximately 850 km northwest of the oasis of Tashkent which was an important centre of the Kangju confederacy. This provides remarkable confirmation of the account in the Shiji.

The Later Han Dynasty Chinese chronicle, the Hou Hanshu, 88 (covering the period 25–220 and completed in the 5th century), mentioned a report that the steppe land Yancai was now known as Alanliao (阿蘭聊):

The kingdom of Yancai [literally "Vast Steppe"] has changed its name to the kingdom of Alanliao. They occupy the country and the towns. It is a dependency of Kangju (the Chu, Talas, and middle Jaxartes basins). The climate is mild. Wax trees, pines, and ‘white grass’ [aconite] are plentiful. Their way of life and dress are the same as those of Kangju.^[11]

The 3rd century Weilüe states:

Then there is the kingdom of Liu, the kingdom of Yan [to the north of Yancai], and the kingdom of Yancai [between the Black and Caspian Seas], which is also called Alan. They all have the same way of life as those of Kangju. To the west, they border Da Qin [Roman territory], to the southeast they border Kangju [the Chu, Talas, and middle Jaxartes basins]. These kingdoms have large numbers of their famous sables. They raise cattle and move about in search of water and fodder. They are close to a large shoreless lake. Previously they were vassals of Kangju [the Chu, Talas, and middle Jaxartes basins]. Now they are no longer vassals.^[12]

By the beginning of the 1st century, the Alans had occupied lands in the northeast Azov Sea area, along the Don and by the 2nd century had amalgamated or joined with the Yancai of the early Chinese records to extend their control all the way along the trade routes from the Black Sea to the north of the Caspian and Aral seas. The written sources suggest that from the end of the 1st century to the second half of the 4th century the Alans had supremacy over the tribal union and created a powerful confederation of Sarmatian tribes.

From a Western point-of-view the Alans presented a serious problem for the Roman Empire, with incursions into both the Danubian and the Caucasian provinces in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Ammianus Marcellinus considered the Alans to be the former Massagetae: "the Alani, who were formerly called the Massagetae"^[13] and stated "Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty; their hair is somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce".^[14]

Archaeology[link]

Archaeological finds support the written sources. Late Sarmatian sites were first identified with the historical Alans by P.D. Rau (1927). Based on the archaeological material, they were one of the Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes that began to enter the Sarmatian area between the middle of the 1st and the 2nd century.

The Alani were first mentioned in Roman literature in the 1st century and were described later as a warlike people that specialized in horse breeding. They frequently raided the Parthian empire and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman Empire. In the Vologeses inscription^[15] one can read that Vologeses I, the Parthian king, in the 11th year of his reign, battled Kuluk, king of the Alani.

This inscription is supplemented by the contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus (37–100), who reports in the Jewish Wars (book 7, ch. 8.4) how Alans (whom he calls a "Scythian" tribe) living near the Sea of Azov, crossed the Iron Gates for plunder and defeated the armies of Pacorus, king of Media, and Tiridates, King of Armenia, two brothers of Vologeses I (for whom the above-mentioned inscription was made):

4. Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have formerly mentioned somewhere as being Scythians, and inhabiting at the Lake Meotis. This nation about this time laid a design of falling upon Media, and the parts beyond it, in order to plunder them; with which intention they treated with the king of Hyrcania; for he was master of that passage which king Alexander shut up with iron gates. This king gave them leave to come through them; so they came in great multitudes, and fell upon the Medes unexpectedly, and plundered their country, which they found full of people, and replenished with abundance of cattle, while nobody durst make any resistance against them; for Pacorus, the king of the country, had fled away for fear into places where they could not easily come at him, and had yielded up everything he had to them, and had only saved his wife and his concubines from them, and that with difficulty also, after they had been made captives, by giving them a hundred talents for their ransom. These Alans therefore plundered the country without opposition, and with great ease, and proceeded as far as Armenia, laying all waste before them. Now, Tiridates was king of that country, who met them and fought them but had luck to not have been taken alive in the battle; for a certain man threw a net over him from a great distance and had soon drawn him to him, unless he had immediately cut the cord with his sword and ran away and so, prevented it. So the Alans, being still more provoked by this sight, laid waste the country, and drove a great multitude of the men, and a great quantity of the other prey they had gotten out of both kingdoms, along with them, and then retreated back to their own country.

Flavius Arrianus marched against the Alani in the 1st century and left a detailed report (Ektaxis kata Alanoon or 'War Against the Alans') that is a major source for studying Roman military tactics, but doesn't reveal much about his enemy. In the late 4th century, Vegetius conflates Alans and Huns in his military treatise — Hunnorum Alannorumque natio, the "nation of Huns and Alans" — and collocates Goths, Huns and Alans, exemplo Gothorum et Alannorum Hunnorumque.^[16]

In Cathay and the Way Thither, 1866, Henry Yule writes:

The Alans were known to the Chinese by that name, in the ages immediately preceding and following the Christian era, as dwelling near the Aral, in which original position they are believed to have been closely akin to, if not identical with, the famous Massagetæ. Hereabouts also Ptolemy (vi, 14) appears to place the Alani-Scythæ, and Alanæan Mountains. From about 40 B.C. the emigrations of the Alans seem to have been directed westward to the Lower Don; here they are placed in the first century by Josephus and by the Armenian writers; and hence they are found issuing in the third century to ravage the rich provinces of Asia Minor. In 376 the deluge of the Huns on its westward course came upon the Alans and overwhelmed them. Great numbers of Alans are found to have joined the conquerors on their further progress, and large bodies of Alans afterwards swelled the waves of Goths, Vandals, and Sueves, that rolled across the Western Empire. A portion of the Alans, however, after the Hun invasion retired into the plains adjoining Caucasus, and into the lower valleys of that region, where they maintained the name and nationality which the others speedily lost. Little is heard of these Caucasian Alans for many centuries, except occasionally as mercenary soldiers of the Byzantine emperors or the [p. 316] Persian kings. In the thirteenth century they made a stout resistance to the Mongol conquerors, and though driven into the mountains they long continued their forays on the tracts subjected to the Tartar dynasty that settled on the Wolga, so that the Mongols had to maintain posts with strong garrisons to keep them in check. They were long redoutable both as warriors and as armourers, but by the end of the fourteenth century they seem to have come thoroughly under the Tartar rule; for they fought on the side of Toctamish Khan of Sarai against the great Timur.^[17]

Migration to Gaul[link]

Alan migrations in the 4th–5th centuries. Red: migrations; Orange: military expeditions; Yellow: settlement areas.

Around 370, the Alans were overwhelmed by the Huns. They were divided into several groups, some of whom fled westward. A portion of these western Alans joined the Vandals and the Sueves in their invasion of Roman Gaul. Gregory of Tours mentions in his Liber historiae Francorum ("Book of Frankish History") that the Alan king Respendial saved the day for the Vandals in an armed encounter with the Franks at the crossing of the Rhine on December 31, 406). According to Gregory, another group of Alans, led by Goar, crossed the Rhine at the same time, but immediately joined the Romans and settled in Gaul.

Under Biorgor (Biorgor rex Alanorum), they infested Gallia round about, till the reign of Petronius Maximus and then they passed the Alps in winter, and came into Liguria, but were there beaten, and Biorgor slain, by Ricimer commander of the Emperor's forces (year 464).^[18][19]

Under Goar, they allied with the Burgundians led by Gundaharius, with whom they installed the usurping Emperor Jovinus. Under Goar's successor Sangiban, the Alans of Orléans played a critical role in repelling the invasion of Attila the Hun at the Battle of Châlons. After the 5th century, however, the Alans of Gaul were subsumed in the territorial struggles between the Franks and the Visigoths, and ceased to have an independent existence. In order to quell unrest, Flavius Aëtius settled large numbers of Alans in various areas, such as in and around Armorica. Several towns with names possibly related to 'Alan', such as Allainville, Yvelines, Alainville-en Beauce, Loiret, Allaines and Allainville, Eure-et-Loir, and Les Allains, Eure, are taken as evidence that a contingent settled in Armorica, Brittany, which retained a reputation for outstanding horsemanship with Gregory of Tours and into the Middle Ages, preferring to remain mounted to fight in contrast with all their neighbors, who dismounted in battle.^[20] Other areas of Alans settlement were notably around Orléans and Valentia.^[21]

Hispania and Africa[link]

Kingdom of the Alans in Hispania (409-426 AD).

Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in north Africa (526 AD).

Following the fortunes of the Vandals and Suevi into the Iberian peninsula (Hispania, comprising modern Portugal and Spain) in 409, the Alans led by Respendial settled in the provinces of Lusitania and Carthaginiensis: "Alani Lusitaniam et Carthaginiensem provincias, et Wandali cognomine Silingi Baeticam sortiuntur" (Hydatius). The Siling Vandals settled in Baetica, the Suevi in coastal Gallaecia, and the Asding Vandals in the rest of Gallaecia.

In 418 (or 426 according to some authors, cf. e.g. Castritius, 2007), the Alan king, Attaces, was killed in battle against the Visigoths, and this branch of the Alans subsequently appealed to the Asding Vandal king Gunderic to accept the Alan crown. The separate ethnic identity of Respendial's Alans dissolved.^[22] Although some of these Alans are thought to have remained in Iberia, most went to North Africa with the Vandals in 429. Later Vandal kings in North Africa styled themselves Rex Wandalorum et Alanorum ("King of the Vandals and Alans").

There are some vestiges of the Alans in Portugal,^[23] namely in Alenquer (whose name may be Germanic for the Temple of the Alans, from "Alan Kerk",^[24] and whose castle may have been established by them; the Alaunt is still represented in that city's coat of arms), in the construction of the castles of Torres Vedras and Almourol, and in the city walls of Lisbon, where vestiges of their presence may be found under the foundations of the Church of Santa Luzia.

In the Iberian peninsula the Alans settled in Lusitania (cf. Alentejo) and the Cartaginense provinces. They became known in retrospect for their massive hunting and fighting dog of Molosser type, the Alaunt, which they apparently introduced to Europe. The breed is extinct, but its name is carried by a Spanish breed of dog still called Alano, traditionally used in boar hunting and cattle herding. The Alano name, however, has historically been used for a number of dog breeds in a few European countries thought to descend from the original dog of the Alans, such as the German mastiff (Great Dane) and the French Dogue de Bordeaux, among others.

Alans and Slavs[link]

Some historians argue that the arrival of the Huns on the European steppe forced a portion of Alans previously living there to move northwest into the land of Venedes, possibly merging with Western Balts there to become the precursors of historic Slav nations^[25]).

It's believed that some Alans resettled to the North (Barsils), merging with Volga Bulgars and Burtas, eventually transforming to Volga Tatars.^[26]

Medieval Alania[link]

Map showing the location of Alans, c. 650.

Some of the other Alans remained under the rule of the Huns. Those of the eastern division, though dispersed about the steppes until late medieval times, were forced by the Mongols into the Caucasus, where they remain as the Ossetians. Between the 9th and 12th centuries, they formed a network of tribal alliances that gradually evolved into the Christian kingdom of Alania. Most Alans submitted to the Mongol Empire in 1239–1277. They participated in Mongol invasions of Europe and the Song Dynasty in Southern China, and the Battle of Kulikovo under Mamai of the Golden Horde.^[27]

In 1253, the Franciscan monk William of Rubruck reported numerous Europeans in Central Asia. It is also known that 30,000 Alans formed the royal guard (Asud) of the Yuan court in Dadu (Beijing). Marco Polo later reported their role in the Yuan Dynasty in his book Il Milione. It's said that those Alans contributed to a modern Mongol clan, Asud. John of Montecorvino, archbishop of Dadu (Khanbaliq), reportedly converted many Alans to Roman Catholic Christianity.^[28][29]

Religion, language, and later history[link]

In the 4th–5th centuries the Alans were at least partially Christianized by Byzantine missionaries of the Arian church. In the 13th century, fresh invading Mongol hordes pushed the eastern Alans further south into the Caucasus, where they mixed with native Caucasian groups and successively formed three territorial entities each with different developments. Around 1395 Timur's army invaded Northern Caucasus and massacred much of the Alanian population.

As the time went by, Digor in the west came under Kabard and islamic influence. It was through the Kabardians (an East Circassian tribe) that Islam was introduced into the region in the 17th century. After 1767, all of Alania came under Russian rule, which strengthened Orthodox Christianity in that region considerably. Most of today's Ossetians are Eastern Orthodox Christians.

The descendants of the Alans, who live in the autonomous republics of Russia and Georgia, speak the Ossetic language which belongs to the Northeastern Iranian language group and is the only remnant of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect continuum, which once stretched over much of the Pontic steppe and Central Asia. Modern Ossetic has two major dialects: Digor, spoken in the western part of North Ossetia; and Iron, spoken in the rest of Ossetia. A third branch of Ossetic, Jassic (Jász), was formerly spoken in Hungary. The literary language, based on the Iron dialect, was fixed by the national poet, Kosta Xetagurov (1859–1906).

Notes[link]

See also[link]

• Migrations period
• Sarmatians
• Scythians
• Ossetians

References[link]

• Agustí Alemany, Sources on the Alans: A Critical Compilation. Brill Academic Publishers, 2000 ISBN 90-04-11442-4
• Bernard S. Bachrach, A History of the Alans in the West, from their first appearance in the sources of classical antiquity through the early Middle Ages, University of Minnesota Press, 1973 ISBN 0-8166-0678-1
• Bachrach, Bernard S. "The Origin of Armorican Chivalry." Technology and Culture, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Apr., 1969), pp. 166–171.
• Castritius, H. 2007. Die Vandalen. Kohlhammer Urban.
• Golb, Norman and Omeljan Pritsak, Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982.
• Hill, John E. 2003. "Annotated Translation of the Chapter on the Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu." 2nd Draft Edition. [1]
• Hill, John E. 2004. The Peoples of the West from the Weilüe 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between 239 and 265 CE. Draft annotated English translation. [2]
• Yu, Taishan. 2004. A History of the Relationships between the Western and Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Western Regions. Sino-Platonic Papers No. 131 March 2004. Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania.

External links[link]

• Strabo and Hou Han Shureferences discussed
• Caucasus Foundation: Caucasus Today: Ossets

Alan Garner
Garner in 2011
Born	Alan Garner (1934-10-17)17 October 1934 Congleton, Cheshire, England
Occupation	Author, Folklorist
Nationality	English
Genres	Fantasy, low fantasy, folklore
Notable work(s)	The Weirdstone of Brisingamen The Moon of Gomrath Elidor The Owl Service
Spouse(s)	Griselda Garner

Alan Garner OBE (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist who is best known for his work in children's fantasy 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 into its plot. It was followed by a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), although Garner never produced the envisioned third part of the trilogy. 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.

Biography[link]

Early life: 1934-1956[link]

Garner was born in the front room of his grandmother's house in Congleton, Cheshire, on 17 October 1934.^[2] He grew up not far away, on Alderley Edge, a well-to-do rural Cheshire village that had effectively become a suburb of Manchester.^[2] Growing up in a "a rural working-class family",^[3] Garner's ancestry had been connected to Alderley Edge since at least the 16th century, with Alan tracing his lineage back to the death of William Garner in 1592.^[4] The Garner family had passed on "a genuine oral tradition", teaching their children the folk tales about The Edge, which included a description of a king and his army of knights that slept under it, guarded by a wizard,^[3] and in the mid 19th century, Alan's great-great grandfather Robert had carved the face of a bearded wizard onto the rock of a cliff next to a well that was known in local folklore as the Wizard's Well.^[5] Living in this rural environment, Robert Garner and his other relatives had all been craftsmen, with each successive generation trying to "improve on, or do something different from, the previous generation."^[6]

Alan's own grandfather, Joseph Garner, "could read, but didn't and so was virtually unlettered", but instead taught his grandson the various folk tales about The Edge,^[3] with Alan later remarking that as a result he was "aware of [the Edge's] magic" as a child, when he would often play there with his friends.^[7] The story of the king and the wizard living under the hill played an important part in the young Alan's life, becoming "deeply embedded in my psyche" and heavily influencing his later novels.^[3]

Garner faced several life-threatening childhood illnesses.^[2] He meanwhile went to a local village school, where he found that despite being praised for his intelligence, he was punished for speaking in his native Cheshire dialect.^[2] Moving on, he went on to attend Manchester Grammar School,^[2] before proceeding to study Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford.^{[citation needed]} Garner was the first member of his family to receive anything more than a basic education, although he noted that this resulted in him being removed from his "cultural background" and led to something of a schism with other members of his family, who "could not cope with me, and I could not cope with" them.^[3]

[edit] The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath: 1957-1964

In 1957, Garner purchased and began renovating Toad Hall at Blackden in Cheshire.

In 1957, Garner purchased Toad Hall, a Late Mediaeval building in Blackden, seven miles away from Alderley Edge. In the late 19th century the Hall had been divided into two agricultural labourers' cottages, but Garner obtained both for a total of £670, and proceeded to convert it back into a single home.^[8]

It was at Toad Hall that Garner set about writing his first novel, which would be titled The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley. Set in Alderley Edge, it revolved around two children, Susan and Collin, who are sent to live in the area with their mother's old nurse maid, Bess, and her husband, Gowther Mossock. Setting about to explore the Edge, they discover a race of malevolent creatures, the svart alfar, who dwell in the Edge's abandoned mines and who seem intent on capturing them, until they are rescued by the wizard Cadellin who reveals that the forces of darkness are amassing at the Edge in search of the titular "weirdstone of Brisingamen". Whilst engaged in writing in his spare time, Garner attempted to gain employment as a teacher, but soon gave that up, believing that "I couldn't write and teach; the energies were too similar", and so began working as a general labourer for four years, remaining unemployed for much of that time.^[3]

Garner sent his debut novel to the publishing company Collins, where it was picked up by the company's head, Sir William Collins, who was on the look out for new fantasy novels following on from the recent commercial and critical success of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954–55).^[9] Garner, who would go on to become a personal friend of Collins, would later relate that "Billy Collins saw a title with funny-looking words in it on the stockpile, and he decided to publish it."^[9] Following its release in 1960, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen proved to be a "resounding success... both critically and commercially", later being described as "a tour de force of the imagination, a novel that showed almost every writer who came afterwards what it was possible to achieve in novels ostensibly published for children."^[10]

With his first book published, Garner abandoned his work as a labourer and gained a job as a freelance television reporter, living a "hand to mouth" lifestyle on a "shoestring" budget.^[3] He also worked on a sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, which would be known as The Moon of Gomrath.

The Moon of Gomrath also revolves around the adventures of Colin and Susan, with the latter being possessed by a malevolent creature called the Brollachan who has recently entered the world. With the help of the wizard Cadellin, the Brollachan is exorcised, but Susan's soul also leaves her body, being sent to another dimension, leading Colin to find a way to bring it back.

In a later interview given in 1989, Garner admitted that he had left scope for a third book following the adventures of Collin and Susan, envisioning a trilogy, but that he had intentionally decided not to write it, instead moving on to write something different.^[3] However Boneland, the conclusion to the sequence, will be published in August 2012.^[11]

[edit] Elidor, The Owl Service and Red Shift: 1964-1973

Set in contemporary Manchester, Elidor told the story of four children who enter into a broken down Victorian church, only to find a portal to the magical realm of Elidor. Here, they are entrusted by King Malebron to help rescue four treasures which have been stolen by the forces of evil who are attempting to take control of Elidor. Successfully doing so, the children return home to Manchester with the treasures, but are pursued by the evil forces who need them to seal their victory.

The Owl Service was set in Wales, and used as its basis a story in the Mediaeval Welsh epic, the Mabinogion.

Garner at his home in Blackden, 2011.

[edit] The Stone Book Quartet and Folkloric collections: 1974-1994

The Stone Book (which received the Phoenix Award in 1996) is poetic in style and inspiration. Garner pays particular attention to language, and strives to render the cadence of the Cheshire tongue in modern English. This he explains by the sense of anger he felt on reading "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight": the footnotes would not have been needed by his father. This and other aspects of his writing are the subject of Neil Philip's A Fine Anger, (Collins, 1981), which offers a detailed analysis of his work.

In a 1989 interview, Garner noted that whilst writing The Stone Book Quartet had been "exhausting", it had been "the most rewarding of everything" he'd done to date.^[3]

[edit] Strandloper, Thursbitch and Boneland: 1995-present

1996 saw the publication of Garner's novel Strandloper.

His collection of essays and public talks, The Voice That Thunders, contains much autobiographical material (including an account of his life with bipolar disorder), as well as critical reflection upon folklore and language, literature and education, the nature of myth and time. Garner is an accomplished public speaker.

Garner's next novel, Thursbitch, was published in 2003.

Garner's latest novel, Boneland, is set for release in 2012.

Literary style[link]

Although Garner's early work is often labelled as "children's literature", Garner himself rejects such a description, informing one interviewer that "I certainly have never written for children" but that instead he has always written purely for himself.^[3] Neil Philip, in his critical study of Garner's work (1981), commented that up till that point, "Everything Alan Garner has published has been published for children",^[12] although he went on to relate that "It may be that Garner's is a case" where the division between children's and adult's literature is "meaningless" and that his fiction is instead "enjoyed by a type of person, no matter what their age."^[13]

The English author and academic Charles Butler noted that Garner was attentive to the "geological, archaeological and cultural history of his settings, and careful to integrate his fiction with the physical reality beyond the page."^[14] As a part of this, Garner had included maps of Alderley Edge in both The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath.^[15] Garner has spent much time investigating the areas that he deals with in his books; writing in the Times Literary Supplement in 1968, Garner commented that in preparation for writing his book Elidor:

I had to read extensively textbooks on physics, Celtic symbolism, unicorns, medieval watermarks, megalithic archaeology; study the writings of Jung; brush up my Plato; visit Avebury, Silbury and Coventry Cathedral; spend a lot of time with demolition gangs on slum clearance sites; and listen to the whole of Britten's War Requiem nearly every day.^[16]

Recognition and legacy[link]

The Medicine House, an Early Modern building that was moved to Blackden by Garner.

In the fiftieth anniversary edition of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, published by HarperCollins in 2010, several notable British fantasy novelists praised Garner and his work. Susan Cooper related that "The power and range of Alan Garner's astounding talent has grown with every book he's written", whilst David Almond called him one of Britain's "greatest writers" whose works "really matter".^[17] Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, went further when he remarked that:

"Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful... Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that's the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration."^[18]

Another British fantasy author, Neil Gaiman, claimed that "Garner's fiction is something special" in that it was "smart and challenging, based in the here and the now, in which real English places emerged from the shadows of folklore, and in which people found themselves walking, living and battling their way through the dreams and patterns of myth."^[18] Praise also came from Nick Lake, the editorial director of HarperCollins Children's Books, who proclaimed that "Garner is, quite simply, one of the greatest and most influential writers this country has ever produced."^[19]

Awards[link]

He was appointed OBE for services to literature in the 2001 New Year's Honours list.

• 'The Owl Service' won the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal in 1968
• The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (before 1980)^{[clarification needed]}
• Artist Patrick James Lynch won the 1987 Mother Goose Award for his illustrative work on 'A Bag of Moonshine'.
• 'The Stone Book' received the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association (USA) in 1996
• The 1981 film 'Images' won First Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival
• Karl Edward Wagner Award (British Fantasy Award, Special Award) won in 2003
• On 20 January 2011, the University of Warwick awarded him the degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa).^[20]

Television and radio adaptations[link]

• The Owl Service (1969), a British TV series transmitted by Granada Television based on Garner's novel of the same name.
• Elidor was read in installments on a BBC children's radio program in the early 1970s
• Red Shift (BBC, transmitted 17 January 1978); directed by John Mackenzie; part of the BBC's Play for Today series.
• To Kill a King (1980), part of the BBC series of plays on supernatural themes, Leap in the Dark: an atmospheric story about a writer overcoming depression and writer's block. The hero's home appears to be Garner's own house.
• Garner and Don Webb adapted Elidor into a children's television series for the BBC. The series consisted of six half-hour episodes starring Damian Zuk as Roland and Suzanne Shaw as Helen^[21]

Works[link]

Novels[link]