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Hmm.
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A search of online weather records reveals that March 1969 was the coldest on record in Northern England, among other things the Emsley Moor TV mast (forty or so miles away from Alderley) collapsed though weight of ice and because the wind singing in the wires caused resonance the structure couldn’t deal with. The cold persisted into early April.
This unseasonal March of snow, ice and blizzards extended right across Europe and into Poland.
Reflections: The culminating action of Weirdstone of Brisingamen is a battle, fought in an utterly unseasonal blizzard in early spring, when the forces of Evil pull out all the stops to grab the Weirdstone. The party of adventurers – including Gowther Mossock – treks through the snow, taking refuge at Redesmere, trying to reach safety in Fundindelve. Susan is given her moon-avatar-bracelet in exchange for the Stone by Angharad, and thus has protection conferred on her from things of Evil.
Now unseasonal weather – called into being by the snow-trolls, the Mara – would drive all other humans into shelter. Not many people would notice weird things abroad and those who do would think in terms of local mythology – “the boggarts are walking” and half-accept it anyway, disinclined to investigate further. But more people would remark on the unlikeliness of a blizzard in March/early April. Unless that blizzard was part of unseasonal weather – freakish but not impossible for the time of year and experienced over a far wider geographical area, ie not local to Cheshire. In fact, all the way across Europe and back into Siberia, as weather records accessible from the Internet indicate.
We are told at the climax, when the sky-wolf Fenris walks and conveniently clears up the battlefield of all that is evil, (leaving only pristine snow and no strange unhuman corpses that would make human authorities very curious indeed), that Cadellin calls down protection to save the immediate party: they are safe inside a magical shield.
But the Fenris-wolf stalks off to the east, presumably back to whichever eastern fastness his master Nastrond dwells in.
By appalling coincidence, on April 2nd 1969, a local flight took off from an airport in Poland, towards the Carpathian mountains (symbolic of dark evil – Slavonic legends of vampires, werewolves et c). It has British and American people aboard. The official story is that the pilot and crew of Sierra Papa Lima Tango Foxtrot, Flight one-six-five , were disorientated in a massive snowstorm and crashed into a mountain. SP-LTF, Flight 165. There were no survivors.
What if. On its way back to the lair of Nastrond, the Fenris-wolf, sensing the parents of Colin and Susan, who were not protected by Cadellin, chose to kill them, or was ordered to do so, as an act of vengeance and gratuitous malice? This would fit with the “magic is dangerous” quality of the story, its darker side. And the Mossocks would also have remembered their involvement with Faerie. Independent witnesses.
This ties into Colin and Susan then being formally adopted by the Mossocks. With no hint of further trouble and malice to come.
This one piece of solid, objective, evidence in the time-line then becomes the datum-point – the midpoint of mensuration, as Colin might say – into establishing the relative degree of “objective truth” in the rest of the story. Garner is too good an author not to have inserted this at random.
And – who knows? The collapse of that TV mast might have been down to the Mara, too!
This unseasonal March of snow, ice and blizzards extended right across Europe and into Poland.
Reflections: The culminating action of Weirdstone of Brisingamen is a battle, fought in an utterly unseasonal blizzard in early spring, when the forces of Evil pull out all the stops to grab the Weirdstone. The party of adventurers – including Gowther Mossock – treks through the snow, taking refuge at Redesmere, trying to reach safety in Fundindelve. Susan is given her moon-avatar-bracelet in exchange for the Stone by Angharad, and thus has protection conferred on her from things of Evil.
Now unseasonal weather – called into being by the snow-trolls, the Mara – would drive all other humans into shelter. Not many people would notice weird things abroad and those who do would think in terms of local mythology – “the boggarts are walking” and half-accept it anyway, disinclined to investigate further. But more people would remark on the unlikeliness of a blizzard in March/early April. Unless that blizzard was part of unseasonal weather – freakish but not impossible for the time of year and experienced over a far wider geographical area, ie not local to Cheshire. In fact, all the way across Europe and back into Siberia, as weather records accessible from the Internet indicate.
We are told at the climax, when the sky-wolf Fenris walks and conveniently clears up the battlefield of all that is evil, (leaving only pristine snow and no strange unhuman corpses that would make human authorities very curious indeed), that Cadellin calls down protection to save the immediate party: they are safe inside a magical shield.
But the Fenris-wolf stalks off to the east, presumably back to whichever eastern fastness his master Nastrond dwells in.
By appalling coincidence, on April 2nd 1969, a local flight took off from an airport in Poland, towards the Carpathian mountains (symbolic of dark evil – Slavonic legends of vampires, werewolves et c). It has British and American people aboard. The official story is that the pilot and crew of Sierra Papa Lima Tango Foxtrot, Flight one-six-five , were disorientated in a massive snowstorm and crashed into a mountain. SP-LTF, Flight 165. There were no survivors.
What if. On its way back to the lair of Nastrond, the Fenris-wolf, sensing the parents of Colin and Susan, who were not protected by Cadellin, chose to kill them, or was ordered to do so, as an act of vengeance and gratuitous malice? This would fit with the “magic is dangerous” quality of the story, its darker side. And the Mossocks would also have remembered their involvement with Faerie. Independent witnesses.
This ties into Colin and Susan then being formally adopted by the Mossocks. With no hint of further trouble and malice to come.
This one piece of solid, objective, evidence in the time-line then becomes the datum-point – the midpoint of mensuration, as Colin might say – into establishing the relative degree of “objective truth” in the rest of the story. Garner is too good an author not to have inserted this at random.
And – who knows? The collapse of that TV mast might have been down to the Mara, too!
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A Polish Airlines Flight 165 went down in April 1969 in the Carpathian Mountains in heavy snow; it is noted four British and American people were on board.
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A Polish Airlines Flight 165 went down in April 1969 in the Carpathian Mountains in heavy snow; it is noted four British and American people were on board. EDIT: The registration number of this aircraft was.... SP-LTF.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOT_Polish_Airlines_Flight_165
A lot about the crash remains controversial and unclear owing to Cold War era excessive security and what looks like sloppy record-keeping. But four people on the flight were known to be British or American.
A lot about the crash remains controversial and unclear owing to Cold War era excessive security and what looks like sloppy record-keeping. But four people on the flight were known to be British or American.
