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The Lad of the Gad
From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service The much-loved classic, finally in ebook. In 'The Lad of the Gad' Alan Garner has reworked five stories from the Gaelic layers of British folktale. Folk and fairy tales have not always been relegated to children, and older readers will appreciate Garner's ability to give these stories a new vitality for our time.
- GenresFiction
116 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
4 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Alan Garner
76 books751 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 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 13, 2012
If you have read any of Garner's other collections of folk-tales you will know more or less what to expect here.
There are only five stories in this short book they range from 10 to 35 pages in length, they are all originally Gaelic stories.
Garner in his introduction explains that with these stories he has attempted to find "the middle ground" explaining that they are somewhere between the text originally taken down word for word from the last of many generations of storytellers in the nineteenth century before they were lost to a purely oral tradition and the bowdlerized children's stories that they were often corrupted into. Even so the texts that Garner does present us with are hardly the sort of narratives we are used to today, things happen because they happen, not for any reason. Often much of a story is baffling but there is much good to be found throughout, the most consistently enjoyable story I found was the first "Upright John" and the most baffling the last "Lurga Lom."
There are only five stories in this short book they range from 10 to 35 pages in length, they are all originally Gaelic stories.
Garner in his introduction explains that with these stories he has attempted to find "the middle ground" explaining that they are somewhere between the text originally taken down word for word from the last of many generations of storytellers in the nineteenth century before they were lost to a purely oral tradition and the bowdlerized children's stories that they were often corrupted into. Even so the texts that Garner does present us with are hardly the sort of narratives we are used to today, things happen because they happen, not for any reason. Often much of a story is baffling but there is much good to be found throughout, the most consistently enjoyable story I found was the first "Upright John" and the most baffling the last "Lurga Lom."
December 12, 2017
I love Garner’s Stone Book Quartet, which are magical and beautiful. I’m less in love with his more fantastical works but generally enjoy them. But this retelling of old oral stories just didn’t float my boat at all and I found myself skim reading the final story. I’m sure this collection has its champions but it left me cold. It’s rare that I give a book just one star, especially when it was written by a wordsmith of Garner’s quality, but I couldn’t truthfully bring myself to award The Lad any more.
uncertain
May 8, 2024Storytellers we may become, but
there's no longer a living oral tradition
of British folk tale. What is recorded
and available to us was in the main
captured by nineteenth century
collectors. Since then, says Alan
Garner, British folktale has become
either the province of the scholar or
something we use for children's moral
education. 'There remains no middle
ground.' He voices these thoughts in
the introduction to his latest book The
Lad of the Gad (Collins,
0 00 184711 2, £4.95) which is 'an
attempt to recover the middle ground.'
Garner is acutely conscious that 'the
word in the air is not the same as the
word on the page.' But, 'I have tried to
place my literate ear in the way of a
preliterate voice so that. .. the force
may be recreated and felt.' And it is.
The language is powerful, and the
vigorous rhythms of 'ordinary' speech
are moulded into the poetry of the
storyteller. (Impossible to escape
metaphors of craftsmanship in trying to
describe Garner.) The reader/ listener
moves through a landscape peopled by
men and women whose lives, spent
accepting the 'crosses and spells',
enchantments and quests placed on
them, are lived with the logic of
dreams. Get it, share it, and let the
yeast of the images work in your
imagination.
- Books for Keeps, 5Nov1980
there's no longer a living oral tradition
of British folk tale. What is recorded
and available to us was in the main
captured by nineteenth century
collectors. Since then, says Alan
Garner, British folktale has become
either the province of the scholar or
something we use for children's moral
education. 'There remains no middle
ground.' He voices these thoughts in
the introduction to his latest book The
Lad of the Gad (Collins,
0 00 184711 2, £4.95) which is 'an
attempt to recover the middle ground.'
Garner is acutely conscious that 'the
word in the air is not the same as the
word on the page.' But, 'I have tried to
place my literate ear in the way of a
preliterate voice so that. .. the force
may be recreated and felt.' And it is.
The language is powerful, and the
vigorous rhythms of 'ordinary' speech
are moulded into the poetry of the
storyteller. (Impossible to escape
metaphors of craftsmanship in trying to
describe Garner.) The reader/ listener
moves through a landscape peopled by
men and women whose lives, spent
accepting the 'crosses and spells',
enchantments and quests placed on
them, are lived with the logic of
dreams. Get it, share it, and let the
yeast of the images work in your
imagination.
- Books for Keeps, 5Nov1980
August 8, 2018
Strange are the tales and strange the telling of them. Ancient invocations; images that hang at the edge of consciousness; symbols that once were and may be again.
Alan Garner has returned to us our folklore unrestrained and unsimplified but, to the modern mind it is evocative but often impenetrable. So, instead of seeking meaning, let your inner eye wander through the landscapes of myth and magic.
Alan Garner has returned to us our folklore unrestrained and unsimplified but, to the modern mind it is evocative but often impenetrable. So, instead of seeking meaning, let your inner eye wander through the landscapes of myth and magic.
June 29, 2021
The concept is an interesting one, but the longer stories in particular tend to be repetitive.
January 31, 2025
Normally I love Alan Garner’s work, but I really didn’t understand these folk tales at all, especially the last three. Perhaps I need to be in a different mood to appreciate them. Still, I’m glad I’ve finally read this and can stop wondering about what it is.
Perhaps a re-read in the spring is needed.
Perhaps a re-read in the spring is needed.
August 2, 2016
7/31/16 Reread for the manyth time. Maybe my favorite story, the quest.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews