The Dark Is Rising

“On a bookcase in one corner of the room now stood a portrait of Lieutenant Stephen Stanton, R.N., looking rather uncomfortable in dress uniform, and beside it a carved wooden box with a dragon on the lid, filled with the letters he sent Will sometimes from unthinkably distant parts of the world. They made a kind of private shrine.”

Stephen would have been 20 years old by the time Will was old enough to remember him clearly, and they have a special relationship. For Will, Stephen represents adulthood and all its mysteries: the faraway, the strange, and the wonderful.

“Will tossed uneasily. He had never known a feeling like this before. It was growing worse every minute. As if some huge weight were pushing at his mind, threatening, trying to take him over, turn him into something he didn’t want to be. That’s it, he thought: make me into someone else. But that’s stupid. Who’d want to?”

Will doesn’t simply wake up with new powers. He undergoes a transformation that he does not want. He struggles out of the cocoon of childhood, illustrating Coming of Age As a Leap Into the Adult World. In the story, he is also making a much greater and more terrifying transformation from 11-year-old boy to immortal and immensely powerful Old One.

“He was woken by music. It beckoned him, lilting and insistent; delicate music, played by delicate instruments that he could not identify, with one rippling, bell-like phrase running through it in a gold thread of delight. There was in this music so much of the deepest enchantment of all his dreams and imaginings that he woke smiling in pure happiness at the sound.”

Will wakes to the announcement of the special world represented by music. Will associates music with enchantment and imagination, symbolizing the power of fantasy in storytelling. Will’s entire family loves music, and it is a binding and strengthening force in Will’s community.

“‘They can do me no harm,’ the smith said. ‘I come of the wrong breed for that. And in this time I belong to the road, as my craft belongs to all who use the road. Their power can work no harm on the road through Hunter's Combe. Remember that, for yourself.’”

Wayland the Smith is a figure of English, Germanic, and Norse folklore, sometimes considered a minor god. His earliest mention is in the Poetic Edda, and he makes an appearance in Beowulf. Smithing, in general, was a highly respected craft, and smiths had a roguish reputation for making bargains with the devil and winning. His appearance in The Dark Is Rising speaks to The Reality and Timelessness of Myth.

“Will saw a strong, bony head, with deep-set eyes and an arched nose fierce as a hawk’s beak; a sweep of wiry white hair springing back from the high forehead; bristling brows and a jutting chin. And though he did not know why, as he stared at the fierce, secret lines of that face, the world he had inhabited since he was born seemed to whirl and break and come down again in a pattern that was not the same as before.”

Merriman, or Merlin, plays the role of herald in this paragraph, announcing the beginning of the quest. The image of a pattern breaking and reforming suggests the story of Odin hanging for three days from the world tree until twigs fall and form a pattern of runic lettering; this becomes the first written language. Will is beginning to be able to “read” the new pattern of his life. This reading foreshadows his reading of the Book of Gramarye, which gives him full knowledge of his powers and the history of the battle between the Light and Dark.

“Will stood up, and the old lady smiled encouragingly at him. He said to her suddenly, ‘Who are you?’

‘The lady—’ Merriman began.

‘The lady is very old,’ she said in her clear young voice, “and has in her time had many, many names. Perhaps it would be best for now, Will, if you were to go on thinking of me as—the old Lady.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Will said, and at the sound of her voice his happiness came flooding back, the rising alarm dropped away […]”

The Lady is never clearly identified in this book, although in the final book in the series, she is identified with the Lady of the Lake, as she embarks on a boat with Arthur (much as the Lady of the Lake, in several versions of Arthurian legend, helped take the dying king to Avalon). In the context of the mythology Cooper has built around her story, the Lady is probably a representation of the White Goddess described in the book of the same name by Robert Graves. If so, she is a matriarchal earth goddess presumed to have been worshiped before the rise of patriarchal religions. The association with the White Goddess makes Arthur a link between Christianity and the older Druidic belief system.

“Make no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden, and this more than any, and you will often long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law.”

Merriman doesn’t follow this admonition with a warning as to the consequences of refusing—i.e., sitting out the fight or even turning to the Dark. The implication is that Will would simply be unable to do so. If that is the case, then the Old Ones lack the same free will that mortals possess. Even the servants of the Dark were once mortals who made the choice—as Hawkin did—to serve evil. It is unclear whether the Dark allows its agents more freedom of choice than the Light, but according to Merriman, agents of the Dark always have the option to turn back to the Light and be welcomed.

“‘He betrayed the Old Ones once, long ago, and this was his doom.’ His voice softened a little. ‘It has been a hard age for him, the carrying of the second Sign. He has one more part in our work, before he may have rest, if he chooses. But that is not yet.’”

Having given over the Sign, the Walker’s final role in the story is to call the Lords of the Dark into the hall on the night that Will acquires the Sign of fire. The question of free will applies here; if Merriman had taken the Walker back to his own time, he would not have been able to call the Dark. That would seem like a simple way to prevent what might have been a disaster. On the other hand, according to Merriman, the Walker/Hawkin’s actions had already been ordained by fate, and the Old Ones had no power to change them. If Merriman had taken Hawkin home to his own time, the Rider might simply have brought him back. Apparently, even knowing the future, Merriman had no power to change it.

“His father chuckled. ‘Pay no attention, I was only showing off. I don’t imagine Frank would have called it that. A mandala is a very ancient kind of symbol dating back to sun-worship and that kind of thing—any pattern made of a circle with lines radiating outward or inward. Your little Christmas ornament was just a simple one—a circle with a star inside, or a cross. A cross, I think it was.’”

The mandala is one of the oldest known symbols, appearing in Neolithic artwork. It generally represents the unity of matter and spirit. The reference to sun-worship links the Signs to the oldest and most primal magic—a connection that will be significant when the rector notices the Signs and associates them with Christianity. The absence of Will’s birth sign from the box of ornaments is never explained, nor how the ornament wound up in the hands of the Rider. Fortunately, the Dark cannot use the symbol of the Light to work magic on Will.

“She stood up, and said clearly, ‘We are glad to see you, Will Stanton, Sign-Seeker. Very, very glad.’ And there was a general rumble of voices, low and high, soft and deep, all approving and agreeing; it was like a wall, Will thought, you could lean against it and feel support. Very strongly he could feel the strength of friendship that came out of this small group of unfamiliar, handsomely-dressed people; he wondered whether all of them were Old Ones. Looking up at Merriman beside him, he grinned in delight, and Merriman smiled down at him with a look of more open relaxed pleasure than Will had yet seen on the stern, rather grim face.”

This is Will’s first exposure to a crowd of his own kind. It appears that all the Old Ones feel a similar sense of comfort and connection. Their isolation from short-lived mortals makes these gatherings especially important. It’s a comfort to Will to realize that he has another family he can turn to when he can’t share his second life with his first family.

“He might read no more than one line—I have journeyed as an eagle—and he was soaring suddenly aloft as if winged, learning through feeling, feeling the way of resting on the wind and tilting round the rising columns of air, of sweeping and soaring, of looking down at patchwork-green hills capped with dark trees, and a winding, glinting river between. And he knew as he flew that the eagle was one of the only five birds who could see the Dark, and instantly he knew the other four, and in turn he was each of them.”

Instantaneous learning is a convenient story device to get Will up to speed on his powers. The book’s method of teaching invokes some English folktales in which a magician (frequently a blacksmith) engages in a shape-shifting contest against the devil or sometimes in pursuit of a reluctant lover; in T. H. White’s 1958 Arthurian saga The Once and Future King, Merlin employs a similar tactic to train young Arthur.

“He saw one race after another come attacking his island country, bringing each time the malevolence of the Dark with them, wave after wave of ships rushing inexorably at the shores. Each wave of men in turn grew peaceful as it grew to know and love the land, so that the Light flourished again.”

The history of England is one of colonization with wave after wave of invaders from Rome, Scandinavia, France, and Germany. Cooper associates the violence of those conquests with the Dark. However, each new conquest brought language and mythologies that were absorbed and incorporated, turning the history of England back toward the Light. One consequence of this mixing of language and culture was the amalgamation of different mythologies.

“He saw a time when the first great testing of the Light came, and the Old Ones spent themselves for three centuries on bringing their land out of the Dark, with the help in the end of their greatest leader, lost in the saving unless one day he might wake and return again.”

The “greatest leader” refers to King Arthur. English legend has it that Arthur, having been taken away to the land of Avalon, would come back when his former kingdom was in great need. The prophesied return occurs in the final book of Cooper’s series, Silver on the Tree, when the Dark is finally repelled for good and humans are left to cope only with the evil in their own hearts.

“‘And as a result, in this room in the next few minutes, Hawkin will betray me and betray the Light and mould the whole course of your quest, young Will. The shock just now of actually risking his life, for me and the Book of Gramarye, was too much for his loyalty.’ Merriman pointed across the room. ‘See where it begins.’”

Given that Merriman knows what will happen, it might seem as though he should be able to prevent Hawkin’s betrayal, yet he is helpless to act differently. This is another instance of the Old Ones lacking full agency. As creations of the Light, they sometimes seem to walk through their roles like puppets. Merriman’s use of Hawkin also illustrates that Dark May Be Evil but Good Is Not Nice.

“It was the sound of the besieging Dark, which he had heard outside the Manor Hall where he had sat with Merriman and the Lady, in some century unknown. But in a church? said Will the Anglican choirboy, incredulous: surely you can’t feel it inside a church? Ah, said Will the Old One unhappily, any church of any religion is vulnerable to their attack, for places like this are where men give thought to matters of the Light and the Dark.”

This section of the book holds Christianity up against the tapestry of older mythology and finds it wanting. The Light and Dark are infinitely older than Christianity; the church can offer no protection against something so much more ancient than itself. The passage also underscores the relationship of the Light and the Dark to humanity; unlike the Old Ones, humans can choose between good and evil, so moments in which they are explicitly considering the two are opportunities for the Dark to intervene.

“This time, his fear was adult, made of experience and imagination and care for others, and it was the worst of all. In the moment that he knew this, he knew too that he, Will, was the only means by which his own fear could be overcome, and thus the Circle fortified and the Dark driven away. Who are you? he asked himself—and answered: you are the Sign-Seeker.”

The adult Will is asserting himself. He declares his identity and recognizes the strength that identity gives him. The question of identity is a particularly common theme in young adult fiction, reflecting a time of life when young people are trying to differentiate themselves from their families, find their place in a social order, and choose a goal and direction in life. Sometimes the conclusion of the story leaves the individual free to choose their own way. In other stories, a protagonist like Will is given a destiny and must find a way to incorporate it into their sense of self.

“The rector stood up, his smooth, plump face creased in an effort to make sense of the incomprehensible. ‘Certainly it has gone,’ he said, looking slowly round the church. ‘Whatever—influence it was. The Lord be praised.’ He too looked at the Signs on Will’s belt, and he glanced up again, smiling suddenly, an almost childish smile of relief and delight. ‘That did the work, didn’t it? The cross. Not of the church, but a Christian cross, nonetheless.’

‘Very old, them crosses are, rector,’ said Old George unexpectedly, firm and clear. ‘Made a long time before Christianity. Long before Christ.’

The rector beamed at him. ‘But not before God,’ he said simply.”

Cooper makes a point of presenting the rector as courageous, kindly, deeply good, and unconventional (he rides a motorcycle) but nevertheless limited in the scope of his imagination—unable to see past his own belief system. His relief and delight at seeing a cross reduce the incomprehensibility of the Dark into something familiar.

“They had the half-solemn expressions of players in a game of charades, mingling earnest purpose with a bubbling sense of fun. At the front came boys with sticks and bundles of birch twigs; at the back were the players of pipe and drum. Between these, six boys carried a kind of platform made of reeds and branches woven together, with a bunch of holly at each corner. It was like a stretcher, Will thought, except that they were holding it at shoulder height. He thought at first that it was no more than that, and empty; then he saw that it supported something. Something very small. On a cushion of ivy leaves in the centre of the woven bier lay the body of a minute bird: a dusty-brown bird, neat-billed. It was a wren.

Merriman’s voice said softly over his head, out of the darkness: ‘It is the Hunting of the Wren, performed every year since men can remember, at the solstice. But this is a particular year, and we may see more, if all is well. Hope in your heart, Will, that we may see more.’”

The hunting of the wren is another of the ancient midwinter traditions that seems to have congealed from—or spawned—a number of variations. The wren is one of the few birds that sings in midwinter. It came to represent the past year, so the hunting of the wren and bearing it back on a decorated bier on Midwinter’s Day commemorated the ending of the old year and the beginning of a new. Cooper’s association of the wren with the Lady probably comes from one of the earliest pieces of folklore concerning the bird, which links it with a fairy queen or enchantress who lured men to their doom. When she was caught, she turned into a wren and flew away.

“It was like an untidy hotel with everyone camping in the foyer. Miss Greythorne was sitting stiff and upright in her wheelchair beside the fire, reading The Phoenix and the Carpet to a speechless group of village children. Like everyone else in the room, she looked uncommonly bright and cheerful.

‘Funny,’ Will said, as they picked their way through. ‘Things are absolutely awful, and yet people look much happier than usual. Look at them all. Bubbling.’

‘They are English,’ Merriman said.

‘Quite right,’ said Will’s father. ‘Splendid in adversity, tedious when safe. Never content, in fact. We’re an odd lot. You’re not English, are you?’ he said suddenly to Merriman, and Will was astonished to hear a slightly hostile note in his voice.”

The English take a certain pride in their stoicism, characterized by the “stiff upper lip.” This scene also illustrates the value of community. The frightened villagers bear up under the strain of their situation by taking their attention off their own fears and putting their energy into caring for their neighbors. Will’s father has a strong sense of national pride and a streak of independence that causes him to resist accepting the protection of the Manor.

“All gone: all except the Sign of Fire. It was in his palm, warm to the touch, one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Gold of several different colours had been beaten together with great craftsmanship to make its crossed-circle shape, and on all sides it was set with tiny gems, rubies and emeralds and sapphires and diamonds, in strange runic patterns that looked oddly familiar to Will. It glittered and gleamed in his hand like all kinds of fire that ever were. Looking closer, he saw some words written very small around the outer edge:

LIHT MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN

Merriman said softly: ‘The Light ordered that I should be made.’”

The Sign of fire is likely partially inspired by the Alfred jewel, which was on display at the Ashmolean Museum when Cooper was at Oxford. The jewel bears the Old English inscription, “AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN,” or: "Ælfred commanded to make me.” The connection is made more probable if the king in the longship who holds the Sign of water is meant to be Alfred the Great.

“He said over his shoulder, ‘Who was he?’

There was grave respect on Merriman’s face as he watched the long-lost ship go. ‘An English king, of the Dark Ages. I think we will not use his name. The Dark Ages were rightly named, a shadowy time for the world, when the Black Riders rode unhindered over all our land. Only the Old Ones and a few noble brave men like this one kept the Light alive.’

‘And he was buried in a ship, like the Vikings.’ Will was watching the light glimmer on the golden stag of the prow.

‘He was part Viking himself,’ Merriman said. ‘There were three great ship-burials near this Thames of yours, in days past. One was dug up in the last century near Taplow, and destroyed in the process. One was this ship of the Light, not destined ever to be found by men. And one was the greatest ship, of the greatest king of all, and this they have not found and perhaps never will. It lies in peace.’”

Oblique references suggest that the king is intended to be Aelfred (Alfred) the Great (CE 848-899), the first king of a united England. He was descended from Vikings, and although his reign was characterized by near-constant battle to keep invading Danes from conquering England, he was also a strong proponent of education and the church—an important repository of learning in the Middle Ages. The king might also be associated with Beow (the probable origin of the fictional Beowulf) and/or Beow’s son Tætwa—both of whom appear in Aelfred’s genealogy. Tætwa was buried in a barrow underground, which is more similar to the rising of this king from the earth. Merriman possibly refrains from naming the king because he is an amalgam of historical characters created for Cooper’s particular mythology. The “greatest king of all” is another reference to Arthur.

“The figure on the horse bent down towards him. He did not see the face, but only felt the mask lifted from his hands—and his hands fell back as if they had been relieved of a great weight, even though the head had from the beginning seemed so light. He backed away. The moon came sailing suddenly out from behind a cloud, and for a moment his eyes dazzled as he looked full into its cold white light; then it was gone again, and the white horse was moving out of the shadow, with the figure on its back changed in outline against the dim-lit sky. The rider had a head now that was bigger than the head of a man and horned with the antlers of a stag. And the white mare, bearing this monstrous stag-man, was moving inexorably towards Will. He stood, waiting.”

The description of Herne as a “stag-man” is a reference to the Celtic god Cernunnos (“Horned One”), who was depicted with stag antlers and known as “Lord of Wild Things.” Modern neopagans associate Cernunnos with the classical horned and goat-legged god Pan, another god of nature and wild things. During the time that Cooper was writing the Dark is Rising series, feminists, neopagans, and Wiccans were associating Cernunnos with the Mother Goddess, who in this story is represented by the Lady.

“The yellow eyes looked at Will again, but they did not see him now; they had grown cold, abstracted, a chill fire mounting in them that brought the cruel lines back to the face. But Will saw the cruelty now as the fierce inevitability of nature. It was not from malice that the Light and the servants of the Light would ever hound the Dark, but from the nature of things.”

Nature gods and primal forces are neither specifically friendly nor unfriendly to humankind. Will realizes that the Light and the Dark are in that sense no more “good” or “evil” than the hunter who hunts because it is his nature to do so. The Light is a force of creation in the universe, and the Dark is a force of destruction. Will and the other Old Ones oppose the Dark because they are its opposite. The Hunter opposes the Dark because the Dark threatens his very nature as an earth spirit. Morality lies within human beings, who have choice.