Gog-Magog - the story
Gog-Magog is a fantasy quest in the tradition of classics like The Hobbit and The Wizard of Earthsea.
Gwern, last-born of the exiled Gog clan of the Mharos (giants), seeks the lost head of Bran the Blessed, the king who promised to protect his people even after his death.
Gwern travels from Tibet to England, with no knowledge of the modern world. He is helped by the unlikely figure of a somewhat unpredictable Buddhist hermit, and meets Fairies, Wiccans, Elves and Goblins. He must face the descendants of the Giants' nemesis of old, Jack.
In quieter moments between adventures, Gwern recounts the Mharos's past, and tells the true version of what are fairy tales to us, but history to him.
Exciting and fast-paced for readers young and old, its themes of friendship and care for the earth are relevant to all.
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I have a long-time fascination with Britain's ancient myths. The oral tradition was gathered into some of our oldest literature, in the magical fables of The Mabinogion, and Geoffrey of Monmouth's mythic histories of Albion and Lloegyr (England).
Gwern, the giant who narrates this story, relates some of these histories. They tell how the head of Bran the Blessed was lost, and the root of the old curse which means his people can no longer have children.
Giants feature in folk tales from all over the world. I always suspected that they represent our fears of strangers and "other". I think it is timely to reclaim "giant history", because this is the forgotten origin myth of Albion and Britain. We find that the first inhabitants were refugees, fleeing war and persecution. The founding myth is not nationalistic, but inclusive, and has a unifying power even today.
- author Glyn Carter
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EXTRACT
From Chapter 15: After many adventures, Gwern sets foot on a beach under the White Cliffs of Dover. He stands for the first time in Albion, homeland of the Gog giants, and homeland too of the Lloegri, later known as Englishmen:
On the west wind blowing down from the clifftop came the odour of the dog who had just been walking the path above, and the odour too of the dog’s master.
The old words came irresistibly to my lips from some ancient cavern in my mind:
Fly foe fear flee, I smell the blood of a Lloegri.
Fly foe fear flee the cruel blood of the Lloegri.