Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3) (1985)
Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3) is a 1985 fantasy book written by Susan Cooper.
Simon, Jane, and Barney travel to a small Cornish fishing town, called by their great-uncle to help recover a golden grail lost to the Dark. There they meet Will Stanton, a quiet boy who is more than he appears, and witness the making of the Greenwitch, a great figure of leaves and hawthorn that the villagers cast into the sea each spring for luck. Susan Cooper weaves real folk custom into her long struggle between Light and Dark. Shorter and stranger than its neighbors in the sequence, this third book turns on old magic, the pull of the sea, and a wildness older than either side.
Quick answers
What is Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3) about?
Simon, Jane, and Barney travel to a small Cornish fishing town, called by their great-uncle to help recover a golden grail lost to the Dark. There they meet Will Stanton, a quiet boy who is more than he appears, and witness the making of the Greenwitch, a great figure of leaves and hawthorn that the villagers cast into the sea each spring for luck. Susan Cooper weaves real folk custom into her long struggle between Light and Dark. Shorter and stranger than its neighbors in the sequence, this third book turns on old magic, the pull of the sea, and a wildness older than either side.
When was Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3) published?
Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3) was published in 1985.
Who made Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3)?
Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3) was written by Susan Cooper.
Similar books
Explore Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3) guides
A few thoughts on Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3)
Susan Cooper draws on real British folklore, so its best company is other stories steeped in the uncanny countryside. Over the Garden Wall shares the autumn dread and the sense of old powers watching children. The 2007 film The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising adapts an earlier book in this sequence, if a screen version tempts you.
British fantasy classics where an unlikely kid carries an ancient legacy
Greenwitch drops ordinary siblings into a war between Light and Dark that is centuries older than they are, the same inheritance this shelf of British children's fantasy hands its own young heroes. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Magician's Nephew, Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, and Redwall all put a huge old struggle on small shoulders.
Folk magic and fairy-tale dread that feels older than the story telling it
Susan Cooper builds Greenwitch from real Cornish custom, a village spring ritual turning strange and consequential, and this group shares that sense of folklore left half-alive. The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising continues the same sequence on screen, Over the Garden Wall steeps its journey in half-remembered folk-horror, and The Girl Who Drank the Moon and The School for Good and Evil spin fresh tales from old bones.
Modern myth quests for kids who turn out to be more than ordinary
Will Stanton looks like any other quiet boy until Greenwitch reveals what he actually is, and this run of books plays the same trick with Greek myth instead of British folklore. The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian all send an unremarkable kid on a quest that turns out to matter to gods far older than school.
Manga steeped in old spirits and hungry folklore
The Greenwitch itself, a hawthorn figure drowned each spring for luck, is exactly the kind of folk custom that turns out to have teeth, and these manga carry the same old, half-worshipped dread. Dororo, Inuyasha, xxxHolic, and Saiyuki all let ancient spirits, demons, and folklore leak straight into ordinary life until nobody is quite safe from what the land remembers.