Where do we find our stories?

From the cover of Ghost Knight

Children's author Cornelia Funke reveals the origins of her latest book, Ghost Knight

Where do we find our stories? There is rarely a reading where I don’t have to answer that question. Yes, where?

For me it has very often been a place that delivered the magical seed. A stay in Venice gave me The Thief Lord and this book taught me how much it enchants readers to track down the settings of a story in our world. We all didn’t find the way to Narnia yet, to Middle Earth or Hogwarts (unless we visited the movie sets) but some places can show us how magical our very own world is and that we can go there and touch, hear and see what we met for the first time in a book.

When I stepped into Salisbury Cathedral I knew immediately that I had found another of these magical places.

I felt as if the stones whispered a thousand stories to me (well, probably they did) and it was an unforgettable adventure to find the heroes of my story in the myth and history of this extraordinary place. And what a thrill to take thousands of readers from all over the world with me on this adventure and have them discover such hauntingly beautiful places as Salisbury, Lacock Abbey, the graveyard of Kilmington or Stonehenge.

Of course places need heroes to tell their stories, heroes and villains. It was the toughest task once I had felt the enchantment to decide which ghosts I would call from the past to have them tell their story. There are so many layers of history at Salisbury Cathedral! They led me to Old Sarum and to the grave of Ela of Salisbury at Lacock Abbey. They made me learn about a woman who was the first female sheriff of Wiltshire more than six hundred years ago.

Even the most gifted storyteller will admit that reality tells the best stories and that all our imagined worlds are fed by the world that gives birth to us. I learned about so many men and women just walking down the aisle of the cathedral that I could have written a dozen books.

I found more inspiration at the old Bishop’s Palace that by now is a school. I found stories on gravestones and in the cellars of medieval houses. I found them in the whisper of old trees, in stone carvings at the cloisters, in the rooms of an old house that now boards choristers and other students….the list is endless. I can’t wait to hear about the first boy who climbs the wall around the cathedral at night (The Dean says that’s fine) and kneels down in front of the tomb of William Longespee, brother of Richard Lionheart, to call him for help.

I hope Longespee agrees with how I brought him back -and I wish I could meet the ghost of his magnificent wife Ela and ask her about her incredible life.

Read our review of Ghost Knight