Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Wind in the Willows

As a follow up to last week's satyr spotlight, I got to thinking about that bit from "The Wind in the Willows" that I mentioned. Hardly anybody knows about it because the Disney short rather stole the spotlight later on. Even I admit that the cartoon was fun, but it barely captured the spirit of Kenneth Grahame's most famous piece of literature. First, let's have a light look at the man behind the story.

I have read the complete works of Kenneth Grahame and I noticed early on that he had a deep and profound adoration for ancient mythology--primarily of the Greek variety. He would weave it into his writing almost constantly. He did it so much in "Pagan Papers" (1893) that I barely understood anything. It is my least favorite of his books because of this.

He cleaned things up and became much more focused in his two books "The Golden Age" (1895) and "Dream Days" (1898). These are two wonderful books, by the way. They detail stories about his childhood entirely from their perspective. He saw him and his brothers and sister as Olympians going out into the world to have adventures born entirely of their imaginations. He took the perspective of children seriously and always presented them seriously to the reader so that you could understand what it was like to be so young. It is something I also saw in the 1983 film "A Christmas Story." The narration of this movie likewise took the child's perspective with great reverence and presented it to the audience in such a way.

It is also important to mention that the famous children's story "The Reluctant Dragon" originated from "Dream Days." This was a brilliant and fun story that I encourage everyone to read at some point. Disney made a short film of it in 1941 which was surprisingly close to the original story. In some ways, it was even an improvement on it.

Mister Grahame went on to write a hilarious story called "The Headswoman" in 1898. This was about a woman who becomes a town's very first female executioner. She was apparently so beautiful that all the condemned men looked forward to being killed by her. It was a clever comedy, but certainly not his best work.

Easily "The Wind in the Willows" (1908) was Kenneth Grahame's masterpiece. Everything he loved and adored was combined with every ounce of his imagination. He threw it all together in one of the most beloved tales ever written in history. And no wonder. There is not one part of the book that seems bereft of his own personal love for mythology and nature.

In this book, animals and humans live together in modern times as if there was nothing strange about it at all. It is very much as if the days of mythology were entirely real and society progressed onward as usual regardless. The fairies slipped away from our everyday lives, but the supernatural element of talking animals stayed with us.

The animals are still animals, mind you. They are really still creatures of nature that do not have much of an interest in human contrivances. They do live in houses, but generally away from human civilization. And often, these houses are built into trees or logs or whatever they fancy. They do interact with humans from time to time and are bound by their laws. An animal breaking a law will be tossed into jail just as quickly as a human doing the same. This is usually not a problem, but some animals do make trouble. It was usually the more mischievous ones such as weasels, ferrets, and stoats; however, there is a particular focus on one animal known as Toad who obsesses over automobiles.

The interesting thing about Toad is that he is not happy to simply be a toad. He is trying so very hard to be a human. he even lives in a large mansion in the city. He buys automobiles without thinking of the cost and often crashes them only to waste money on another. The Disney film focuses on his problem, but the book generally stays with the characters Rat and Mole who seem to be the real protagonists.

These two animals seem to have a profound love for one another. Nothing romantic, I assure you. They possess a mighty brotherly love that just about jumps out of the pages at you. It is one of the most endearing aspects of the book.

Back to the satyr thing: There is a scene--the one I eluded to in the previous blog--where an otter family looses their little boy who, if I remember correctly, was washed down the stream by a mighty current. Rat and Mole go out looking for him purely in the name of being good neighbors. This is a scary time for all involved because there is a good chance that the little boy, known as Portly, has died.

They come across a grove where they run into none other than the satyr Pan himself. Portly is asleep nearby as Pan plays a soothing melody on his flute. Pan is described as a benevolent and wise god of the wild. In the case of this book, he is a still living entity that is choosing to guard animals from harm. Rat and Mole kneel before him and show him their respect. The next day, they don't seem to recollect the encounter with Pan all that well, but that is okay because Portly has been saved. The whole incident was a very uncanny yet beautiful scene and one of my favorite moments of the book.

There were no other fairies mentioned in the book, but there was no real reason for there to be any more than just Pan. It was clear that Greek Mythology was right in the back of Mister Grahame's mind as he wrote it. It was the driving force, but there was no reason to pander to it throughout. All he seemed to want to do was create a magical world that was also very normal. He gave us talking animals (which were also done to scale, by the way), and they were living right among us as if it was the simplest thing in the world. It didn't come across as a joke as it did in "Pinocchio." Kenneth normalized it, and that is why the book works so well.

If you have yet to read this amazing story, I highly recommend you find the time to do so. It is very straight forward and poignant throughout. It has it's sad moments, it has its funny, and it also has a healthy dose of calm. This book was everything Kenneth Grahame had been building up to in his previous books, and it will go down in history as one of the most beautiful fairy tales ever written.

Thank you for reading my blog! If you enjoyed it, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. Thanks!