Friday Fiction: More of Timmy's Tale

They said a quick grace and doled out the sides, Tim taking his usual portions of cole slaw and mashed potatoes and a jalapeno ranch dipping sauce for his strips. While his Mom and Granny started discussing ‘family business,’ which was largely gossip about what his numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins were up to, the boy mechanically chewed his way through the meal, taking seconds as a matter of course, just staring up at the ceramic frog in a chef’s hat on top of the fridge clutching it’s wooden fork and spoon that (as far as he knew) never got used for cooking.

Conversation was winding down and there were signs that they would be leaving soon when Tim buckled down, took a final gulp of Big Red, cleared his throat, and asked, rather nonchalantly, “Granny, have you decided what you’re getting me for my birthday?”

Her eyes grew wide with surprise and she smiled.

“Why, kiddo, that’s five months away! You must have something big in mind to be asking about it so soon.”

Mom looked scandalized.

“Now, Timmy! Don’t go begging something big and expensive from your poor old Granny! You got to remember she’s not that rich, and she has twenty other grandkids to provide for!”

“Well, it is pretty big,” Timmy conceded. “But it wouldn’t cost her a dime, really.” His voice went up a little; it was serious, but now there was a bit of beg in it. “Granny, would you give me Uncle Sam-Sam’s books?”

Mom’s scandal turned to shock at the enormity of the request.

“Timmy! Granny has plans for them! She was going to sell all those books. You think this won’t cost her anything?”

Granny looked thoughtful. She touched Mom’s arm.

“Now, now, Patty, it was never about making money, it was about saving expenses. I suppose I could make something if I offered them for sale on eBay or something, but frankly, I don’t want to take the trouble.”

Mom groaned.

“No, you’ll just pass it on to me, if he has his way. You know it’s me that will have to make room for all that crap now, if he gets his wish!”

Granny grinned.

“But it will solve my problem.” She looked at Timmy. “And now that I think of it, I seem to remember it always Sammy’s wish that his books would go to some nephew or niece who really wanted them. So I’d really be fulfilling two obligations with one stone.”

“But, Timmy, I don’t think you know what you’re really asking!” Mom fretted. She turned to Granny. “I remember when Kate just had to have a baby calf, nothing else would do, and Pop had to get her one. You know that didn’t end well. I just think this might be more than Timmy can handle.”

“Well, it won’t end in hamburgers anyway.” Granny laughed and bent over the table and looked Timmy in the eye. “Okay, it’s all yours on one condition. There’s no way you can possibly want every single volume. Choose what you want and if you sell the rest, I get half, okay?”

Mom unbent a little. It seemed this was going to happen.

“And it’s got to gone through in one month, you hear?” She looked grim. “I’m not having all that laying around my house for the next twenty years. Anything still packed up, out it goes.”

“By then I’ll be having my next garage sale,” Granny agreed. “Well.” She stood up. “You just take the bins in your car on home now, then. I’ll be over with the truck tomorrow to dump off the rest. And … Happy Birthday, kid.”

Timmy smiled hugely. It seemed the grown-up negotiations were over, and he had won. He squirmed in his chair.

“Thank you, Granny. This will be my best birthday gift ever.”

“Yeah, swell,” Mom grumped. She stood up. “Well, we’d better be getting home and tell your Dad the good news. There’s room to be made and plans to be laid.”

Into the Archive: Howdy, Huck

Classics Illustrated: Huckleberry Finn

As I’ve said before, my sister is going through a bunch of her kids' old stuff and getting ready for a garage sale. That’s at least thirty years of paraphernalia she’s been storing, and the storage had been having a detrimental effect on the stuff itself. There are things that have been ruined and can simply be thrown away. But she cannot justify holding onto everything either, so, after a winnowing down to sentimental essentials, she is planning another huge sale, something she hasn’t done for years.

Part of this are books that they’ve been going through; some are staying, but many are now packed up in bins, ready to move out. The lids are still off, so I cast a curious eye into one while I was in the house, and my attention was immediately riveted.

Right on top was a batch of goodities that struck my immediate reaction of ‘Aw, why is this one going?’ There was Roald Dahl’s The Witches and Mary Norton’s Bed-knob and Broomstick [especially tempting since it had different illustrations by an Anthony Lewis; a variation!] and E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, all in spanking new editions that could well replace my crinkly and creaking old copies, or at least supplement them.

After a few moments I wrestled down my bibliophilic impulses with the thoughts of ‘did I really need them’ and ‘they might go to some kid who really did.’ There was one slender item that I could not resist, though, and that was the Classics Illustrated edition of Huckleberry Finn.

Now I have several items like this, Classics Illustrated ‘comic books’ that started their run in 1941 (as ‘Classic Comics’) and ended it in 1969. As such the artwork can sometimes be a little primitive (especially in the run of Classics Illustrated Junior, that featured fairy tales, myths, and legends), if fancier in some adaptations; the series was reprinted through several mutations over the years. In 1997-1998 these digest-sized reprints came out, recolored with newly air-brushed backgrounds. Some had new covers. This new cover is oddly disturbing. Not totally inaccurate, but that’s an interesting, Johnny-Winter-like interpretation of Huck. Here is the original.

Wideo Wednesday: Enchanting

 

Kate Bush – Into the Sensual World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1DDndY0FLI

Enya - Caribbean Blue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8iYAo90pE

Loreen McKennitt – The Mummer’s Dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxTpvA-pUG0

Annie Lennox – Into the West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfoU0R2v1Io

The Lord of the Rings: The Muster of Rohan (Part Seven and Last)

 

The Tale

Under the deepening darkness from Mordor, Theoden gets ready to lead his Riders on the eastern road. Their hearts are heavy, but they are a stern folk and loyal to the king. Even in the camp where the women, children, and elderly are housed, there is little weeping. ‘Doom hung over them, but they faced it silently.’ Two hours pass as ranks are formed. Theoden, white haired and erect on his white horse gleaming in the dark, gives his people hope as he stands unbent and unafraid.

On the flats beside the river 5500 fully armed Riders are marshalled, with ‘many hundreds of other men with spare horses lightly burdened.’ A single trumpet sounds, Theoden raises his hand, and the army begins to move out silently. First come twelve of the king’s household men, an elite batch of warriors. Then Theoden and Eomer; he has said his grievous farewell to Eowyn already and turns his mind to the road ahead. After them follows Merry on his pony and the two riders from Gondor, and then twelve more picked Riders.

As they pass to the front of the long ranks, Merry notices a slight young Rider near the end of the line who glances at him with keen grey eyes. Merry shudders, for it seems the face ‘of one without hope who goes in search of death.’

The army goes along the Snowbourne (‘snow-born’) river, past Underharrow and Upbourn, two villages where sad faces look out of dark windows and doors at them. There are no horns or song or music as they pass, though there are songs sung years later of their fearful, fate-driven ride, five days to Mundberg (Minas Tirith) in Sunlending (translated from Anorien, ‘the land of the sun’), six thousand spears strong, and how they passed into darkness.

It is dark when they reach Edoras at high noon, where they are joined by about sixty more Riders, late to the muster. Theoden halts a short while to eat, then he bids Merry farewell. The hobbit is to stay safely here. Merry begs again to go with him; why did the king make him his swordthain (squire), if not to be with him. He does not want it to be said of him in song that he was only left behind!

Theoden reminds him that his pony is too small to make the long journey, and in the fighting they expect at the end there is little the hobbit can do. No rider can bear him as a burden. Theoden took him to keep safe, and here safe he shall stay. He will say no more.

‘Merry bowed and went away unhappily.’ He passes through the lines of Riders getting ready to move out, and in their busy ranks he is suddenly approached by the young doom-laden rider he noticed earlier, who speaks softly into Merry’s ear.

‘Where will wants not, a way opens, so we say,’ he whispered.' And he has found it so for himself. Merry obviously wants to go with Theoden, and good will and great heart should not be denied. The hobbit can ride with him, hidden under his cloak in the darkness, and none shall notice. Merry thanks him, though he remarks he does not know his name.

‘Do you not?’ said the Rider softly. ‘Then call me Dernhelm.’

So when the army rides out, Dernhelm’s steed Windfola secretly carries both Rider and Merry easily, ‘for Dernhelm is less in weight than many men, though lithe and well-knit in frame.’ They ride through the willows running along the Snowbourne into the Entwash, then rest for the night twelve leagues (about 36 miles) from Edoras. Then the next day through Folde and Fenmarch and past where Halifirien skirts the hills on the borders of Gondor.

As they go they find rumor of war in the north, lone men riding fleeing attacks by orc-hosts on the eastern borders, marching on the Wold of Rohan. But it is too late to turn aside. They must make haste to Gondor. ‘Ride on! Ride on!’ urges Eomer.

‘And so Theoden departed from his own realm, and mile by mile the long road wound away, and the beacon hills marched past: Calenhad, Min-Rimmon, Erelas, Nardol. But their fires were quenched. All the lands were grey and still; and ever the shadow deepened before them, and hope waned in every heart.’

 

Notes

And so we come at last to the end of this chapter, which we have been on since the start of the New Year. I have taken it in easy stages, usually writing it up in the early hours of the same day I post it, simply stopping at what seems a natural pause.

The Folde (Old Norse for land or country) is the center of the kingdom where the king and his kin live; it is bordered by the Eastfold and the Westfold.

The Fenmarch is the stretch of marshy land that follows the Mering Stream. It is the border between Rohan and Gondor.

The Firienwood (also called Firien Holt) stood beneath the Halifirien (‘holy wood’), an oakwood left unfelled to cover stealthy passage between the kingdoms.

Theoden, while impressing the distance to Minas Tirith on Merry, says it is a 102 league (306 mile) ride.

Dernhelm comes from dern (hidden, secret) and helm. So, helmet of secrecy, or as we might say, disguise. An odd entanglement, perhaps, as Grima (Wormtongue’s actual name) means ‘mask.’ Windfola means ‘foal of the wind’. The name implies the steed is as swift as the wind, being its child. It recalls old Greek legends of the land of Hyperborea (‘Beyond the North Wind’) where Boreas, the North Wind, fertilizes mares by blowing on them. Some writers identify Hyperborea with Britain, which makes an odd little connection with the Rohirrim and the English.

‘Where will wants not, a way opens’ loosely translates to ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ In other words, if you want something enough, you’ll find a way. For years I misread it as ‘a way will open up where you didn’t want it, or least expected it.’

I’m going to be as cagey about Dernhelm as Tolkien himself is here, until the proper time comes. I imagine it will be no surprise to most people.

I Got Nothing

What can I tell you? I'm not feeling any post today. Not a diary entry (I seem to have got out of sync with my five-years-ago posting, and rather than going back to fix it I think it'd be easier to just let real time catch up). Not the shortest, feeblest example of my writing or 'poetry', nor anyone else's. Part of this must be my realization that I need to get a new computer mouse; my old one is making cutting and pasting an annoying task. Besides, all my energy is devoted to my Monday chores. It is a beautiful, bright sunny day (though cold; 41 degrees right now) and it's making me, well, lazy is not the right word, but let's say carefree. Tomorrow I may venture the roundtrip bus ride to Walmart to get a mouse. Today I cannot fit it into my schedule. My glucose is 120 this morning, and for me that's pretty good. 

The Reporter, a Prose Poem by Ivan Turgenev

 

Two friends were at a table drinking tea.

A sudden hubbbub arose in the street. They heard pitiable groans, furious abuse, bursts of malignant laughter.

'They're beating someone,' observed one of the friends, looking out of the window.

'A criminal? A murderer?' inquired the other. 'I say, whatever he may be, we can't allow this illegal chastisement. Let's go and take his part.'

'But it's not a murderer they are beating.'

'It's not a murderer? Is it a thief then? It makes no difference, let's go and get him away from the crowd.'

'It's not a thief either.'

'Not a thief? Is it an absconding cashier then, a railway director, an army contractor, a Russian art patron, a lawyer, a Conservative editor, a social reformer? ... Any way, let's go and help him!'

'No ... it's a newspaper reporter they are beating.'

'A reporter? Oh, I tell you what: we'll finish our glasses of tea first then.'

July, 1878

[The Moral: Some people's sympathies only go so far.]

The Wistfulliest Wish List: The Land of the Lord High Tiger

 

A while back I posted about books on my Wish List that I was unlikely ever to get. The Old English Exodus by Tolkien, Shakespeare’s Boy Actors by Robertson Davies, and Jurgen by James Branch Cabell (illustrated by Frank C. Pape. I could have added The Anatomy of Puck by Katherine Briggs, Walt Disney’s Uncle Remus Stories, The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey by Peter S. Beagle, and the reprint of The History of Four-Footed Beasts, Serpents, and Insects by Edward Topsell (3 Vols.). Most of these were only out of reach because of cost. But there was one volume most unlikely to ever even be seen by me, a book that had only been published once in 1958. It was unavailable anywhere on the usual sites. Here is the most I could find out about it, a couple of reviews on Goodreads.

 

The Land of The Lord High Tiger

Roger Lancelyn Green, John S. Goodall (Illustrator)

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1958

 

About the author

Roger (Gilbert) Lancelyn Green was a British biographer and children's writer. He was an Oxford academic who formed part of the Inklings literary discussion group along with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Born in 1918 in Norwich, England, Green studied under C. S. Lewis at Merton College, Oxford, where he obtained a B.Litt. degree. He delivered the 1968 Andrew Lang lecture. Green lived in Cheshire, in a manor which his ancestors owned for over 900 years. He died in October 1987. His son was the writer Richard Lancelyn Green

Reviews

 A children's book with the pun-wit of The Phantom Tollbooth rather than the in-depth stories of Narnia. Speaking of which, "Narnia North" is a stop on the rail line in The Land of the Lord High Tiger...Off of the "Inner Ring," in fact. Also "Screwtape" is mentioned very early on in the book. All titles of works by Lewis. Not sure who inspired/borrowed from whom on those points. [The Narnia books began to be published in 1950; it was Green who suggested that the book series be called 'The Narnia Chronicles.']

This is not an easy book to find, as there was only one edition printed (and the publisher is long out of business). Though the story is more fanciful wordplay than a real, solid story, it is worth bringing back into print. – Jody, on Goodreads

 

“You are Prince Roger of the Land of the Lord High Tiger and the clocks have given you three wishes to use while you are in my land. Go out on your quest, oh Prince, and take with you your three friends. And when there is need of magic, I will be ready in my Den of Enchantment to help you” (20).

With these words, Sir Timothy, the Lord High Tiger, sends Roger on his fairy tale adventure.

The Land of the Lord High Tiger by Roger Lancelyn Green is a work of original fantasy fiction from an author better known for his retellings of classic myths and stories, as well as his biographies of other writers. Green was also a member of the Inklings, the writers’ group of which Lewis and Tolkien were famously members.

Published in 1958, Land of the Lord High Tiger might prompt a few casual comparisons to Lewis’ Narnia books, but the similarities are mostly superficial. While Narnia is grand, sweeping, and full of deeper meaning, Lord High Tiger is a funny romp through fairy tale tropes.

King Katzekoph, rule of the land that is truly that of the Lord High Tiger, is under threat from the Black Wizard and his minions – the sworn enemies of both himself and Sir Timothy the Lord High Tiger. The Lord High Tiger says that to stop the Wizard, they must summon a prince from another land “where I live also” (11).

In the midst of telling bedtime stories to his stuffed toys, Roger sees the light of the oh-so-rare blue moon and knows that this night will be the night he can travel to the land he so often dreamed of. After instructions from the Lord High Tiger, he decides to use one wish immediately to bring his friend (or possibly sister?) Priscilla along for the adventure. The door to his room now opens up to a much longer hall than it ever has before, and walking down the hall, he finds himself in the royal castle of King Katzekoph.

Roger and Priscilla soon enter a royal ball, where Priscilla plays a Cinderella role (with some creative twists). Soon Roger is off on an adventure to rescue Priscilla, accompanied by his no-longer-stuffed-toy friends, a fox, a lion, and a squirrel. Through this adventure, we meet a Phoenix with a magic carpet (a clear nod to the work of E. Nesbit), a giant who would like to put them in a stew, a mad gardener, a strange tower, a horde of robbers, an old woman with a slightly suspicious cottage, and of course the evil wizard.

The Land of the Lord High Tiger is full of funny puns (“Make your footmark here – it’s the sole signature needed”), nods to well-known works such as Narnia (the king must dance with the Queen of Narnia at the ball), and just general funny moments (Leo the lion is always pulling just the right item out of his seemingly endless pockets). At 160 pages, it is a relatively fast read and if it were more available, I am sure it would still be loved by young readers.

The Land of the Lord High Tiger is absolutely a five-star book for me. I can see why perhaps it is not a great classic like Narnia or Lord of the Rings, but it is absolutely a shame that this book is so long out of print and rare/hard-to-find. We’ve seen other very rare children’s books come back into print, so perhaps this could be another book to add to our reprinting wish lists!

Thank you to the Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature in the Andersen Library at the University of Minnesota for holding a copy of this book so I could visit the library and read it today! – Kirsten Hill, on Goodreads