A bottle of cold tea; bread and a half onion. That was Father’s baggin. Mary emptied her apron of stones from the field and wrapped the baggin in a cloth.

First paragraph. Delightfully sparse. Evokes the countryside of long ago. The man eats a lunch or snack of bread and half an onion, a “baggin” presumably. The “baggin,” Garner surely knows, is a signal to the reader to nevermind not knowing a word, infer it from context, and nevermind not knowing the theme, infer it from context. Mary has an apron of stones. We later find out what they are for. Since we know the title is “The Stone Book,” we are signaled right away that literally the story will concern stones. Tea was introduced into Britain around 1700, so the reference to tea helps date the story.  Tea, bread and onion: the basics of life.  Stones: the earth, from which food comes.  Cloth.  Two paragraphs later we have a weaver.  Garner starts at the beginning.  We begin by living, then we move on to what living is for.

***This blog entry is part of a series where I reflect on one of my favorite books, Alan Garner’s The Stone Book Quartet.  A fantastic overview essay by B. Renner is here.