The Owl Service

The Owl Service is a set of dinner plates that Gwyn finds stacked in the loft above Alison's room. At first they appear to be harmless, a pretty collection of plates each bearing a floral owl design which the girl Alison starts to trace on paper, realizing that she can twist the designs into paper owls. As soon as she does so, however, the paper owls disappear and the plates lose all of their design and color.

Later in the story it emerges that the plates were created by one of Huw's relatives in the potteries near Stoke-on-Trent (in England, UK) in an attempt to imprison the magic of Blodeuwydd. As Alison releases the owls from each plate, she starts to release the 'pattern' of the myth into their valley and their lives.

The Stone of Gronw

The Stone of Gronw (an actual object in...