The Owl Service by Alan Garner
The Owl Service by Alan Garner is a gritty, intricate tale that explores how previous experiences influence people in the present. It is full of atmosphere from the setting and legends. They discover tensions of a more personal sort developing between them as Alison, Gwyn, and Roger find themselves reenacting a historic tragedy. Alan Garner’s story of adolescence and mythology, which deals with themes of social class, prejudice, and cultural identities, heavily relies on dialogue. This keeps the reader on their toes because we sometimes have to read between the lines, and it also gives the story energy and a sense of immediacy.
The Owl Service by Alan Garner
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Along with her mother, her stepfather, and her stepbrother, Roger, Alison is spending the summer on vacation in the old family home in a Welsh valley. The local, extremely superstitious housekeeper and her son Gwyn are also house guests. Gwyn befriends Alison, much to the chagrin of Alison’s mother, who doesn’t want her daughter to develop a close relationship with a person of lower social standing. Alison convinces Gwyn to look into some weird noises coming from the attic above her bedroom, and when he does, he finds an antique dinner set that has been lavishly painted with green and gold floral patterns.
When Gwyn speaks to Huw Halfbacon, a fey, otherworldly man who has lived in the valley for decades, he learns of an old Welsh legend of resentment and revenge as well as of a tragedy that appears to be about to revisit them. Gwyn’s mother is terrified and warns her son not to dabble with what he doesn’t understand.
While on vacation in a stunning, remote valley in Wales, a few hours from Aberystwyth, Alison, her stepbrother Roger, her mother, and her stepfather are staying in an old home that Alison inherited from her late father. Short-tempered Nancy and her son Gwyn, along with the eccentric handyman and gardener who has worked at the house for many years and whom Nancy despises, Huw Halfbacon, have all been recruited to work there during the family’s stay. In the home’s loft, Alison, Gwyn, and Roger find a dinner set adorned with a floral owl motif.
As soon as they discover it, strange things begin to happen, and the teenagers find themselves at the centre of a mysterious curse that dates back hundreds of years, bound to relive the terrible tale of Bloduewedd, Lleu Llaw Gyffes, and Gronw Pebr.
