Magical Classics: ‘The Crock of Gold’ by James Stephens

This is an enchanting and also completely lunatic book by the poet James Stephens, a friend of Yeats and James Joyce - who asked for his collaboration in finishing 'Finnegan's Wake', although this never actually happened. It was published in 1912, and a later edition was apparently to have been illustrated by Arthur Rackham, which would have been wonderful, but sadly Rackham died before it could come to pass.

The book begins with the tale of two Philosophers ‘wiser than anything in the world except the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into which the nuts of knowledge fall’.  The Philosophers live in the depths of a pine wood and are uncomfortably married to The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath (both women of the Sidhe), by whom they have two children: one boy, Seumas, and one girl, Brigid.  These Philosophers answer all the questions of anyone who passes by, until one day, one of them decides to die - on the grounds that he now knows everything and ‘it is all bosh’.

So saying, the Philosopher arose and removed all the furniture to the sides of the room so that there was a clear space left in the centre. He then took off his boots and his coat, and standing on his toes he commenced to gyrate with extraordinary rapidity. In a few moments his movement became steady and swift, and a sound came from him like the humming of a swift saw; this sound grew deeper and deeper, and at last continuous, so that the room was filled with a thrilling noise. In a quarter of an hour the movement began to noticeably slacken. In another three minutes he was quite slow. In two more minutes he grew visible as a body, and then he wobbled to and fro, and at last dropped in a heap on the floor. He was quite dead, and on his face was an expression of serene beatitude.

This should give you an idea of the sort of book it is.  The Grey Woman laments her husband: 'Who will gather pine cones now when the fire is going down, or call my name in the empty house, or be angry when the kettle is not boiling?'

Which also gives an idea of the sort of book it is… The Grey Woman follows her husband’s example and spins herself to death, after which the Thin Woman ‘smacked the children and put them to bed, next she buried the two bodies under the hearthstone, and then, with some trouble, detached her husband from his meditations.’

Next day, a neighbour, Meehawl MacMurrachu, comes to ask the remaining Philosopher about the whereabouts of a missing washboard, and – after a surreal conversation on the subject of washing in general (‘Cats are a philosophic and thoughtful race, but they do not admit the efficacy of water or soap… There are exceptions to every rule, and I once knew a cat who lusted after water and bathed daily; he was an unnatural brute and died ultimately of the head staggers’) – is advised to look for it in the hole belonging to the Leprechauns of Gort na Cloca Mora.  Meehawn does so, and finds not a washboard, but a crock of gold.  “‘There’s a power of washboards in that,’ said he.” And he takes it.

Which deeply annoys the Leprechauns, who therefore steal away the children. (‘A community of Leprechauns without a crock of gold is a blighted and merriless community.’) And in the meantime, Meehawl’s beautiful daughter Caitlin runs away with the god Pan…and the Philosopher sets out on a journey to find the god Angus Mac an Óg who may be able to persuade her home – and the Leprechauns lay ‘an anonymous information at the nearest Police Station showing that two dead bodies would be found under the hearthstone in the hut of Coille Doraca, and the inference to be drawn… was that these bodies had been murdered by the Philosopher for reasons very discreditable to him’ – and the Police therefore set out after him, to the general terror– and it’s all utterly wonderful.

If you can read this book aloud in an Irish accent, do so: if not, at least try to imagine one. It’s a bit like an Irish ‘Wind in the Willows’ for grown-ups – that's if you like ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ (as I do) as well as the comic tricks of Toad. There’s wisdom and laughter and pathos and joy, and Stephens doesn’t at all mind going over the top, and all in all you won’t find any other book quite like it. One last quote: a man who’s been sacked and lost everything, describes himself watching a young couple out in the rain:

There was a big puddle of water close to the kerb, and the girl, stepping daintily, went round this, but the young man stood for a moment beyond it. He raised both arms, clenched his fists, swung them, and jumped over the puddle.  Then he and the girl stood looking at the water, apparently measuring the jump.  They were bidding each other goodbye.  The girl put her hand to his neck and settled the collar of his coat, and while her hand rested on him the young man suddenly and violently flung his arms around her and hugged her; then they kissed and moved apart. The man walked to the rain puddle and stood there with his face turned back laughing at her, and then he jumped straight into the middle of the puddle and began to dance up and down in it, the muddy water splashing over his knees.  She ran over to him crying, “Stop, silly!” 

When she came into the house, I bolted my door and I gave no answer to her knock.

Picture credits: James Mackenzie, from the 1928 Macmillan edition, which can be viewed and read online here: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/stephens/james/crock/

Magical Classics: 'The Stone Cage' by Nicholas Stuart Gray

Kate Forsyth writes about a much-loved childhood classic: 

I first read Nicholas Stuart Gray’s novel The Stone Cage when I was about eleven. It was an utter revelation to me. 

The Stone Cage is a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale, told from the point of view of the witch’s cat. It was the first fairy tale retelling I had ever read, and I remember being amazed that a writer could take an old, well-known story and turn it into something utterly new and surprising. 

I was also utterly enchanted by the story itself, and particularly by the characters of Tomlyn the cat, and Marshall, the witch’s raven. One was sleek, self-assured, coolly amused, and tantalised by the bewitching power of sorcery. The other was hunched and tattered and miserable, with a great heart.

What I remember most about The Stone Cage was the absolute assurance of the voice. It sounded exactly how I imagined a cat would speak:

‘My name is Tomlyn. I am very beautiful. Marshall says I am spiteful and wicked and a barbarian to boot. He’s jealous of my thick grey fur, my white chin and breast, and the snowy end of my tail. I suppose he can’t help being envious, the great rusty-black thing! He’s got a big, blunt beak, and stubby wings, and tiny little eyes... He’s old and stupid and a coward; with an endless flow of long words that he can’t possibly understand.’

I had always been fascinated by ‘Rapunzel’, and reading The Stone Cage made me want to write my own retelling of the tale. I even had a go at it, when I was in my mid-teens. And, yes, my story had a cat in it too. Many years later, I did write my own retelling of the tale, though my novel Bitter Greens is very, very different. 

Nicholas Stuart Gray was born on 23 October 1922, in Scotland. From a young age, he made up stories and plays to amuse his brothers and sisters, and to try and escape his unhappy childhood. He described his mother as ‘beautiful and terrifying’.‘She was a megalomaniac,’ he said in an interview in 1973. ‘We grew up terribly unsure of ourselves and doubtful of other people, always prepared to be cut down … We were always ugly, stupid, gullible, useless people in her eyes.’

Gray admitted that the character of the witch in his play The Wrong Side of the Moon (1966) is ‘almost a biography’ of his mother and I wonder if she influenced the character of the witch in The Stone Cage, who was utterly egocentric and had no feelings of remorse for any of her actions.  ‘The sad thing about people like (my mother) is they are completely alone,’ Gray said in the same interview. 

Gray left home at the age of fifteen, finding work as an actor and stage manager. His first play was produced before he was twenty years old, and he turned to writing for children in 1949 after seeing a hundred or more children queuing up for the cinema and wondering why there was no comparable entertainment for them in the theatre. He wrote the play Beauty and the Beast as a result, and it was shown at the Mercury Theatre in London in 1950. 

Gray wanted, he said, ‘to give the children a sense of magic. Nobody attends to this enough. They give them too much realism. They can see it all on the box, they can see frightful things there. But they’re not being given a world to escape to … the world of the imagination. Children must have an escape line somewhere.’

His first novel, Over the Hills to Fabylon, was published in 1954. It is about a city that can fly away across the mountains any time the king feels his home is in danger. 

Other important works include The Seventh Swan, which tells what happened to the boy left with one swan wing instead of an arm; Down in the Cellar, an eerie story of  a family of children who find a gateway to another world in their basement;  Grimbold's Other World, about a black cat that teaches a boy about the world of the night; The Apple Stone, which tells of the adventures of a family of children who find a magic stone, and, of course, The Stone Cage, published 50 years ago this year.

Gray’s story line follows the basic plot of the well-known Grimm fairy tale, which had been translated into English in 1882 by Lucy Crane. Her translation was based upon the 1857 edition of the Grimm’s Kinder-und-Hausmärchen, in which the character of Rapunzel is at its most passive and childlike. There is no mention of any sex, or pregnancy, or birth of twins in that tale, and Rapunzel betrays herself to the witch (rather stupidly), by complaining how much heavier she is to pull up than the prince.

Within the narrow confines of that tale, Gray created a story that celebrates the redemptive power of love. Tomlyn the cat and Marshall the raven – natural enemies and rivals for the witch’s rare expressions of affection – are united in their desire to save Rapunzel. They protect her from the witch, an old, ugly and malicious woman who craves power. 

The story begins when the witch tricks a woodcutter into giving up his newborn daughter. He asks her what she intends to do with the baby. ‘Mother Gothel answered the man’s question in a small and faraway voice: “I will teach her my craft. Teach her to be the greatest and wickedest witch in all the world.”’

However, her plans are thwarted when Tomlyn and Marshall lay a spell on the little girl so that she was unable to work magic.  Rapunzel grows to maturity, frustrating and angering the witch in her inability to remember even the simplest of spells.

Then the two conspirators bring a young man to the witch’s garden in the hope he would rescue Rapunzel, but unwittingly she betrays him and he is cast down from the tower and blinded. Again, the cat and the raven work to bring Rapunzel and the prince together again, even though Rapunzel has been banished to the dark side of the moon.

In the final confrontation, the raven tells the witch he no longer fears her. Rapunzel agrees, ‘very clearly and gently:

‘I’m not afraid of Mother Gothel, either.’

‘The witch gave a shrill cry … “You must fear me! You must! Sorcery can only thrive on fear.’

Rapunzel’s courage – and the bravery of her animal friends – together overcome the witch, who is transformed by the raven’s magic into a bare and lifeless-looking tree. There she must stay, ‘dead and dried, till a heart may grow inside.’

Rapunzel and her prince return to the human world, but the raven and the cat stay with the witch on the dark side of the moon, to look after her until she returns to being human.  In the final scene, Tomlyn the cat pours a few drops of water on the tree’s roots, and a small, green leaf uncurls from a bare twig. In this way, Nicholas Stuart Grey shows how the animals’ faithfulness and compassion to the witch, despite her wickedness, hold out the hope of her redemption.

Gray’s dramatic training shows in the swift, graceful pace, and the quick, vivid character sketches – not a word is ever wasted. The dialogue is brilliantly done, being clever, witty and poignant in turns. Tomlyn the witch’s cat steals every scene. He speaks and acts and thinks just like a cat should, and I was not at all surprised to discover that Gray is most probably the only person ever to write a biography of his own cats (The Boys,1968).  I also have a deep affection for Marshall the raven, and sympathise with his yearning to read, and his longing to love and be loved.

Haunting, whimsical, funny and heart-breaking, The Stone Cage is one of the most beautiful and profound books ever written for children. At its heart, The Stone Cage tells us that love, compassion and courage will win out over hatred, cruelty and cowardice, and that is a lesson that cannot be taught often enough. 

All quotes from The Pied Pipers: Interviews with the Influential Creators of Children’s Literature, 1973

Kate Forsyth's adult fantasy 'Bitter Greens', based on the fairytale 'Rapunzel', is published in the UK by Allison & Busby. Kate is the bestselling author of more than twenty books, ranging from picture books to poetry to novels for both children and adults. She has won numerous awards and been published in fourteen countries around the world. She lives by the sea in Sydney with her husband, three children, a rambunctious Rhodesian Ridgeback, a bad-tempered black cat, and many thousands of books. Her new novel, 'The Wild Girl', about the love affair between  Wilhelm Grimm and Dortchen Wild, is to be published in the UK in 2013, and you can visit her website at www.kateforsyth.com.au