The Lad of the Gad Read online

  The smith said nothing and hammered the sword.

  Lusca said, “Where is Lurga Lom?”

  The smith said, “The sword is ready. Have you come?”

  Lusca cast about him to find a man, but there was no man in that place if not himself.

  The smith said, “The sword is ready. Have you come?”

  Lusca cast about him again to find a man, but there was no man if not himself.

  The smith said, “Have you come?”

  Lusca took a step to the sword. He said, “And if I am not Lurga Lom.” He reached the sword. He said, “Yet I have come.” And the sword knew him.

  Lusca went from there in the power of the sharp-travelling wind till he came again to the City of the Red Stream, the Sword of Light in his hand. He trod the brown flames and the stream was at once made cold and dried up, so that Lusca and his people crossed by the seven stones over to the city and gave shortness of life to all they found in it, except to the Kings of the World and to Faylinn alone.

  It was then that Lusca was freed from his crosses and his spells; and Lurga Lom he became from that time out. His big brother took Behinya, and his little brother took Grian Sun-face, and he himself took to him Bright-eyed Faylinn, the Cat of the Free Isle; and they agreed.

  The Kurrirya Crookfoot wrote this story in poet’s wands; it is the fifth language into which it has been made.

  And the Kings of the World were sent to their lands.

  About the Author

  Alan Garner was born in Cheshire on the 17th October 1934, and his childhood was spent in Alderley Edge, where his family has lived for more than four hundred years. His attendance at the local primary school was interrupted by several serious illnesses, from three of which he nearly died.

  At the age of eleven he went to Manchester Grammar School and became the fastest schoolboy sprinter in Britain.

  Before going to Oxford, he spent two years’ National Service as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Realising then that his original ambition to become Professor of Greek was no longer valid, he decided to become a writer. He found his present mediaeval home, dug himself in, and wrote.

  He has won many awards, including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Award, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, the Phoenix Award of America and the Karl Edward Wagner Special Award from the British Fantasy Society.

  In 2001, Alan was awarded the OBE for services to literature, and in 2007 he was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in recognition for his achievements in advancing the archaeological understanding of Cheshire.

  Praise

  “Mr Garner’s renderings are alive, vigorous and occasionally poetic, singing of sea and islands and the wide wild spaces of north and west… He has brought us five fine tales and has told them so they fall well on the ear, hold the attention and stir the imagination.”

  The Literary Review

  Also by the Author

  THE WEIRDSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN

  THE MOON OF GOMRATH

  ELIDOR

  THE OWL SERVICE

  RED SHIFT

  THE STONE BOOK QUARTET

  THE LAD OF THE GAD

  FAIRY TALES OF GOLD

  BOOK OF BRITISH FAIRY TALES

  A BAG OF MOONSHINE

  Copyright

  HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of

  HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  Hammersmith,

  London W6 8JB

  First published in 1980 by

  William Collins Sons & Company Ltd.

  Reprinted by Collins in 1995

  © Alan Garner 1980

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

  Source ISBN 9780001847118

  Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN 9780007539109

  Version 2013-08-05

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  HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

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