The setting and landscape are based on real-life spaces that Cooper was familiar with and while she may have taken liberties with them as she says in her introduction, through her descriptions one certainly gets a good sense of the Welsh countryside and landscape. Be it the Brenin Llwyd or the Grey King, who haunts the mountains (and who in the book, acts among others, through the ferocious Milgwn or grey foxes) or the golden harp which has magical powers, which here is one of the Things of Power which the forces of Light need to defeat Dark, Cooper weaves them in to tell an exciting tale. The Grey King is strongly rooted in Wales and its legends. Amidst this, Will must pursue his quest, though it turns out that he is not quite as alone on it as he first believed. But the Dark, in the form of the Grey King or Brenin Llwyd is not simply lurking, it is making its menace felt, acting not directly but through willing minds, with the dangers he unleashes becoming very real. Bran has a dog Cafall, who we soon see is special, and through them Will is reawakened to the truth-the prophecy and his quest. At the farm, as he begins to recover his health (the story in this respect feeling much like the usual farm story where the convalescent child protagonist from the city experiences the ‘magic’ of the country and plenty of delicious food), he meets a strange boy Bran, about his own age but an albino and thus shunned by all around him.
As he is fetched from the station by their son Rhys, the forces of Dark already begin to strike but Will is happily unaware. But of course, it is also his illness that actually gets him to Wales as Will is sent to stay with his relations, David and Jen Evans, to convalesce at their farm, Clwyd. But even before Will reaches Wales, his difficulties begin, for he falls seriously ill with hepatitis and forgets not only who he really is but also the verses that the Greenwitch’s secret revealed, and on which his quest will be based.
In The Grey King, Will Stanton, the last of the Old Ones must take on his only sole quest, which is no easy task, as Will is the youngest of the Old Ones and hasn’t come into his full strength just yet. From all the books in the series so far, this was the hardest one to read for me because of something that happens (and which one knows is coming, even though one hopes it doesn’t). The fourth entry in The Dark is Rising sequence, and my final completed read of 2022, The Grey King, takes us to a completely new setting (as indicated at the end of Greenwitch)-Wales-and is rich in place, language and legend, besides Arthurian lore.
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