The Whispering Knights by Penelope Lively

There is not really much about knights in the story entitled The Whispering Knights. It is an adventure involving three children named William, Susie, and Martha, who fight against a witch named Morgan.

The title of the book comes from the old legend of The Rollright Stones, which are an ancient and mysterious group of megaliths spread across fields close to the village of Long Compton on the border between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire in England. Each group of stones is probably from a different time period, testifying to the continuing importance of the site to those who held it sacred. The small group of stones making up The Whispering Knights appear to lean in toward each other in a conspiratorial way, and local legend has it that these warriors were plotting against their king when a witch turned them into stone. In the novel, Penelope Lively changes the names of the places slightly, and Sharnbrook where the children fish and play is in reality about 60 miles from where the stones are located.

The story starts with the three children mixing a witches’ brew in a neighbor's barn just for fun. But when the neighbor, Miss Hepplewhite, hears what they have done, she suspects they may have awoken an ancient evil from its slumbers, since the barn is a place of importance to Morgan le Fay, sister of King Arthur, who once lived there, and who was in the area more than once in the past. Miss Hepplewhite fears that Morgan will seek out the children - and that is exactly what she does. From this point, things become dangerous both for the three children, and for the entire village, the continued existence of which is suddenly threatened by the building of a new road. Are the ancient stones known as The Whispering Knights friends or foes, and will they help the children to thwart the witch’s wicked schemes?

The author's descriptions of situations and settings are vivid, haunting and compelling, and the juxtaposition of the modern/commonplace and ancient/arcane is particularly effective. However, compared with other novels by this author, such as Astercote and The Driftway, the plot is not quite so convincing. Apart from the ending being somewhat predictable, there is also a central part of the story which is never satisfactorily explained: the three children William, Susie, and Martha have attracted the attention of Morgan by boiling up the witches’ brew and intoning a spell, but what threat they pose to Morgan and why she pursues them so relentlessly is never made plain. There is nevertheless a genuine feeling that wild and menacing supernatural forces have been unleashed, and the pursuit of the children by Morgan is reminiscent of the chases which occur in Alan Garner's celebrated Tales of Alderley (although I am of the opinion that Penelope Lively’s children’s books are superior to those written by Garner).

In a similar vein to Astercote, The Whispering Knights can also be understood on a higher level, and adult readers will likely be conscious of the tension due to the encroachments of modern developments like motorways and industrialization on rural village life which runs through the book. Indeed, since this book was published at the beginning of the 1970s, much has been lost which might have been preserved if more forethought had been exercised by the relevant authorities.

Overall, despite its weaknesses, The Whispering Knights should be an absorbing and satisfying read for audiences of all ages.



Following are some quotations from the book which resonated with me:

William, when he dreamed at all, dreamed adventures, he said. 'Like in old films on the telly. And it's always me who's the captain or whatever. Smashing.'

You must never play the game according to her rules. The one weapon we have against her, apart from disbelief, is reason. And she knows very little about science.

She has a strong dislike for the laws of nature: she is always trying to go against them. Our strength is to use them against her.

She talks lovely, Susie thought to herself, like a book—with commas and full-stops and no 'urns' and 'ahs' when she can't think how to put things. And she talks to you like you were grown-ups, leaving in the long words.

High above them soared the spire of the church, black against the sky, with the clouds and the rooks moving around and above it so that if you stared long enough you began to feel as though the whole world was wheeling and spinning and only the spire was still and solid at its centre.

'It doesn't matter what you look like or who you are. It's courage and conviction that count,' said Miss Hepplewhite, watching them with a great intensity.

People see only what they expect to see: we can no longer endure the unexplained.

She sighed, and decided suddenly to pursue the matter no further. There were always some things you were never going to be sure about.

Nobody'll ever know that it was us did it,' said William, a little sadly. 'Never mind. You will always have cause for self-congratulation. Private triumph is often the most satisfactory. '


( )

William ,Susie and Marthe are children . They are best friends and go to the old barn every day. One day , they cooked a witch's brew ,looking the strange book that William brought. They thought it just a game and did't know that they woke up a dangerous woman...
I like this book. There are many scenes that children are nearly catched by
the enermy and I feel thrilled. The scene that children think hard how to beat the enermy is also interesting .I was impressed with their courage. ( )

Intermediate-High,