Editing The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (section)

===Mythology and folklore===
====Story====
The legend of [[Alderley Edge#The Wizard of the Edge|The Wizard of Alderley Edge]] revolves around a king and his sleeping knights who rest beneath the hill, waiting for the day when they must awake to save the land. Each knight had a steed, a pure white horse.  However, at the time the knights were placed under their enchanted slumber, the wizard whose job it was to guard the king and his knights found that they lacked one horse.  One day, he encountered a local farmer taking a pure white mare to sell at the market.  The wizard bought the horse, offering the farmer many rich jewels taken from the king's secret store of treasure under the Edge in payment.<ref name="Philip 1981. p. 23"/>

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|quote     = "As I turned toward writing, which is partially intellectual in its function, but is primarily intuitive and emotional in its execution, I turned towards that which was numinous and emotional in me, and that was the legend of King Arthur Asleep Under the Hill. It stood for all that I'd had to give up in order to understand what I'd had to give up. And so my first two books, which are very poor on characterization because I was somehow numbed in that area, are very strong on imagery and landscape, because the landscape I had inherited along with the legend."
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|source    = Alan Garner, 1989
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====Language====
The majority of the non-English words used in ''The Weirdstone of Brisingamen'' have been adopted from [[Norse mythology]]. For instance, the [[Svartálfar|svart-alfar]], which means 'black elves' in Scandinavian, are described as the "maggot-breed of [[Ymir]]", a reference to the primeval giant of Norse myth; while the realm of Ragnarok, which in Garner's story is the home of the [[malevolent spirit]] Nastrond, is actually named after the [[Ragnarok|Norse end-of-the-world myth]].<ref>[[#Phi81|Philip 1981]]. p. 35</ref> [[Fimbulwinter]], the magically induced winter weather that hinders the children's escape, also refers to Norse [[eschatology]].

====Characters====
Other terms are taken not from Norse mythology, but from the [[Welsh mythology]] encapsulated in Mediaeval texts like the ''[[Mabinogion]]''. For instance, Govannon, one of the names with which Garner addresses Grimnir, has been adopted from the mythological character of [[Govannon ap Dun]]. Although Garner avoided incorporating his story into [[Arthurian mythology]], the benevolent wizard in the novel, Cadellin Silverbrow, does have a link to the Arthurian mythos, in that "Cadellin" is one of the many names by which [[Culhwch]] invoked Arthur's aid in the Mediaeval Welsh Arthurian romance about ''[[Culhwch and Olwen]]''.<ref name="Philip 1981. p. 23"/>

Other words used in the novel are taken from elsewhere in European mythology and folklore. The name of Fenodyree, a benevolent dwarf in Garner's tale, is actually borrowed from [[Manx folklore]], where it refers to [[fenodyree|a type of grotesque goblin or brownie]].<ref>[[#Phi81|Philip 1981]]. p. 34.</ref> Meanwhile, the Morrigan, whom Garner presents as a malevolent shapeshifting witch, has a name adopted from [[Irish mythology]], where she is [[Morrigan|a war goddess who is the most powerful aspect of the tripartite goddess Badb]]. Literary critic Neil Philip also argued that further folkloric and mythological influences could be seen in the character of Grimnir, who had both a foul smell from and an aversion to fresh water, characteristics traditionally associated with the [[Nuckelavee]], a creature in Scottish folklore. Accompanying this, Philip opined that Grimnir was also "half identified" with the creature [[Grendel]], the antagonist in the Old English poem ''[[Beowulf]]''.<ref>[[#Phi81|Philip 1981]]. p. 36.</ref>