Something about Nicholas Stuart Gray's Grimbold's Other World

I recently read Nicholas Stuart Gray's Grimbold's Other World (1963) for the first time. 

This little fantasy book is written in the style of fairy tales; each chapter is followed by a poem. 

I wish that I had encountered this book when I was very young and could read it just for the settings, the stories, the characters and the humour as I did with Nicholas Stuart Gray's Over the Hills to Fabylon: the references to not belonging and the dangers of being involved with magic and other worlds are the main interest now.

Grimbold and Muffler
Grimbold is a black cat who introduces a boy called Muffler, who was found in a hen's nest by some villagers and is 'different', to the night world and its inhabitants.

Muffler has a whole series of adventures in his world and the night world. He is involved with a variety of characters including a sorcerer, talking animals, birds and trees and mythological beings such as dwarves. 

Children will enjoy the stories for their own sake, but adults who are interested in unseen influences may notice some sad and alarming messages.

The quotations speak for themselves – and for the author and others who don't feel at home in this world.

The villagers say this about Muffler:

“We must be gentle, and not let him suffer for being different.”

The narrator makes this depressing – but true - comment:

“This, of course, was not possible. Everyone must suffer who is different.”

Grimbold's Other World contains many warnings about what happens to people who get involved with magic and the night world.

In memoriam: Nicholas Stuart Gray

The writer Nicholas Stuart Gray died on March 17th 1981, 40 years ago today. He was only 68 years old.

There are a few articles on here featuring characters from his books; here is another, more general, post to mark the occasion.

Nicholas Stuart Gray
Nicholas Stuart Gray was a very private person and there is little information available about his life, Much of the material that does exist can be found in a short Wikipedia entry and The Pied Pipers by Justin Wintle and Emma Fisher, which contains interviews with some influential creators of children's literature. 

Nicholas Stuart Gray was interviewed in 1974. He said something that I agree with very strongly. He said that he wrote plays -

“...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. They can read it in the papers. But they’re not being given a world to escape into…the world of the imagination...Children must have an escape line somewhere.”

Diana Wynne Jones, who was also of Celtic origin, had very similar views. She wrote about the uselessness and harmful effects of realistic children's books versus the beneficial effects of magic and fantasy. 

Both writers enhanced the lives of many children. They provided pathways into other worlds for children who needed to escape from something and escape to somewhere. They knew what this was like themselves; they both had awful mothers and as children they both made up stories to make their younger siblings' lives more bearable:

“From a young age, he (Nicholas Stuart Gray) made up stories and plays to amuse his brothers and sisters, and to try and escape his unhappy childhood.”

Stella Gibbons too created wonderful fairy tales that she told to her two younger brothers to help them escape from and temporarily forget their unhappy situation. 

More magic and witch wisdom from Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett’s comic fantasy novels about the Discworld are a goldmine when it comes to definitions of and ideas about magic and witches.

The points he makes and the warnings he gives have a much wider application than just to his imaginary world and characters. 

What he says is not always what some people expect or want to hear, but it is all worth considering and putting to the test. 

Material from his books has appeared in several articles, and I have found a few more wise words to quote. 

Using magic
Miss Tick gives more lessons to the young witch Tiffany Aching:

“’But can’t you use a keeping-warm spell?’ said Tiffany.

‘I could. But a witch doesn’t do that sort of thing. Once you use magic to keep yourself warm, then you’ll start using it for other things.’

‘But isn’t that what a witch is supposed to--‘ Tiffany began.

‘Once you learn about magic, I mean really learn about magic, learn everything you can learn about magic, then you’ve got the most important lesson still to learn,’ said Miss Tick.

‘What’s that?’

‘Not to use it. Witches don’t use magic unless they really have to. It’s hard work and difficult to control. We do other things.’”

This is not an easy lesson to learn. It may not at first make sense; it may not be acceptable. Despite that, a wise person will take it to heart. The senior witches in Terry Pratchett’s books know what they are talking about.

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part VII

This is the final article in the series inspired by Stella Benson’s fantasy novella Living Alone. There is still more to say about Sarah Brown and the House of Living Alone and some related issues, and there is a very strange statement about the nature of reality that deserves to be highlighted.

Science fictional solipsism

The woman who holds the weekly gatherings where the occult is discussed is called Miss Meta Mostyn Ford. Miss Ford is the one who helps herself to a packet of magic powder in Angela’s absence and lets the magic loose, causing all sorts of damage.

She says something very strange while under the influence:

“No place and no person matters when I am not there. There are no places and no people existing where I am not. I have suspected it before, and now I am sure that everything is all a pretence, except me. Look how easy it was to dismiss that gross grocer from sight. He was just a bit of background. I have painted him out."

The ‘gross grocer’ is the Mayor, who was made invisible by her actions.

So while Sarah Brown believes that she is not real but most other people are, Miss Ford believes the opposite.

Such ideas remind me very much of themes such as constructed reality and pantheistic solipsism that are often found in science fiction.

Only the narrator or main character is real, everyone else is an actor or construct. The environment is all specially constructed too, like a stage set. The Truman Story is a good example of this. 

Robert A. Heinlein wrote a short story called They about a man who suffers from the delusion that he is one of the few ‘real’ entities in the universe, and that the other ‘real’ entities have created the rest of the universe in a conspiracy to deceive him.

I would not have expected to see similar ideas put forward as early as 1919. Where did Stella Benson’s inspiration come from?

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part VI

This article in the series inspired by Stella Benson’s fantasy novella Living Alone has more to say about Richard the Wizard and his mother. 

Richard is the son of Lady Arabel Higgins. He is an illiterate young soldier; he is also a powerful wizard.

His mother’s attitude towards him is strange: she both knows and doesn’t want to know that he is a magic person.

Lady Arabel’s denial and dissociation

Lady Arabel is very unhappy about Richard’s difference from other boys. Although she knows that he isn’t normal, she is in denial of what he really is. She refuses to accept that he has occult powers. She complains about her friend’s always bringing Richard’s name up whenever anything tiresome or out of the way happens:

“One would think you considered the poor boy a wizard.”

Lady Arabel pretends to notice nothing when Richard performs his magic:

“The wizard's mother obviously had great difficulty in not noticing the phenomena connected with her son, and she wore a striving smile and a look of glassy and well-bred unconsciousness whenever anything magic happened."

She talks a little nervously on very insipid subjects throughout the supper party at which Richard manifests his powers. When Richard does something so spectacular that she can’t possibly ignore it, she turns scarlet and murmurs that he is so merry and ingenious.

It is not only Richard’s magic that Lady Arabel refuses to see. When Sarah Brown tells her that Richard has gone to visit his ‘True Love’, Lady Arabel says, “You are quite mistaken, and I must beg of you to be careful how you repeat idle gossip about my son.”

It is the truth not idle gossip, but she just won’t accept it.

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part V

This article in the series inspired by Stella Benson’s Living Alone has more to say about the effect that Angela the Witch’s magic has on people.  

Sarah Brown is not the only person to be inadvertently given the wrong impression and led to disaster by Angela.

When Angela gives a demonstration of her magic to the charity committee, it has such a strong effect on some of them that they seek her out at her place of work. Each one, the Mayor in particular, thinks that she was speaking to them personally.

Angela and the Mayor

The Mayor, a grocer who is Chairman of the committee, makes the fourth person to visit the magic shop to see Angela again.

“And then the Mayor arrived. The witch saw at once that there was some secret understanding between him and her that she did not understand. Her magic escapades often left her in this position.”

He thinks that she is interested in him personally, but this is a mistake. It is wishful thinking, but he is not altogether to blame; she has inadvertently caught him in her net.

Magic and the Maharishi Yogi

This article is yet another in the series inspired by Joyce Collin-Smith’s account in Call No Man Master of the time that she spent with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s.

This topic for this article is the Maharishi’s magical practices; any remaining material of particular interest will be covered separately.

Levels of operation

I have described how I use a systematic, multi-level approach  when looking for causes and explanations, giving as an example someone who had behaved unprofessionally and out of character.

This approach also works well when looking for the reasons for the powerful effect that some people have on others.  People with a very strong influence, cult leaders for example, often operate on several levels.

Diana Wynne Jones’s fictional witch Aunt Maria used her powers and influence on several levels; the Maharishi Yogi is another person of interest who seems to have done the same.

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part IV

The time has come to deal with the end of the relationship, such as it was, between Angela the Witch and Sarah Brown.

After coming under Angela’s influence, Sarah Brown is led by her to what will look like disaster to most people.

If anyone else had said and done to Sarah Brown what Angela did, I would expect them to be cruel, malevolent, a cult leader who makes people burn all their bridges behind them or even a front for something evil.

Angela is definitely not evil or even malicious: she is just lacking in understanding and empathy and she has no feelings of responsibility for the effect that she and her magic have on people and their lives. It means nothing to her; it is their problem not hers. She is bored or baffled by it all.

After all, she is not completely human; she is a magic person.

First, some details of the context in which the disaster happens.

Angela lays the trail

Angela makes her first appearance when she bursts in on the charity committee. She gives them a small demonstration of her powers.

Angela has a strange effect on some of the people at the committee meeting, Sarah Brown in particular. Perhaps because they have fallen slightly under her spell, some of the members feel an inclination to see her again. She leaves her broomstick - whose name is Harold - behind. Was this deliberate, or was it an accident? 

Her address is on Harold’s collar, which makes it easy for them to find her.

Four visitors for Angela

The four people who seek Angela out at the magic shop want more from her than just the taste of her magic that she gave them. They sense her powers and think that she can help them.  

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part III

We now come to Sarah Brown and the House of Living Alone.

Sarah Brown’s initials are the same as Stella Benson’s; she is an autobiographical character: much of what is said in Living Alone by and about Sarah and her life applies to Stella Benson herself, as can be confirmed by reading her biography.

The same applies to the House of Living Alone where Sarah Brown goes to live; Stella Benson knew it well.

Sarah Brown

Sarah Brown is the third main character of interest in Living Alone. 

She is a young woman who lives in London and is a member of the charity committee.

Her health is not good and her life is not satisfactory. Just like the witch Angela, she often goes short of food for lack of money and has to settle for scratch meals.

Sarah Brown is not very good at dealing with the real world; she says this about herself:

“You don't happen to know of a suitable job. I can't cook, and if I sew a button on it comes off quicker than if I hadn't.“

She has written a little poetry and means to write a book some day...some people have a creative temperament without having much creative ability. This does not apply to Stella Benson!

Sarah Brown accepts that magic exists. She can see it in action but cannot practise it herself. She has always wished to be friends with a witch. People who can’t operate very well in the real world or deal very well with real people often look for magical - or other - alternatives:

 “She was not really used to being alive at all, and that is what made her take to magic so kindly.”

This turning to the world of magic can be dangerous. People who seek salvation may be lured to destruction.

Angela the Witch supplies Sarah with sandwiches that, judging by the effects, were enchanted:

 “Sarah Brown would have been very susceptible to such a drug; her mind was always on the brink of innocent intoxication… Therefore, I think, she was a predestined victim of magic, and it seems unlikely that the witch should have missed such an opportunity to dispense spells.”

Sarah accepts Angela’s invitation to come and live in the House of Living Alone. This could be the best thing she has ever done, or it could be the worst.

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part II

Stella Benson’s fantasy novel Living Alone contains an assortment of characters.

There isn’t much to say about the purely supernatural element, which includes fairies, a magical white horse and a small dragon.

The ‘real people’ in the book include a policeman, a grocer who is also Mayor and some ladies from a charity committee. They are mainly caricatures or stereotypes, and most of them don’t inspire much in the way of commentary either.

The characters who are of particular interest are a witch, a wizard and someone who is neither magical nor a completely real person.

This article covers the two practitioners of magic, Richard the Wizard and Angela the Witch.

Richard the Wizard

We first learn about Richard from what his mother says about him. She says that he isn’t like other women’s boys. He cannot read or write; he disappears without explanation. The servants are all gone because they can’t stand him and his ways.

Living Alone was first published in 1919; one hundred years later, some of the things that we are told about Richard could be taken as a description of someone with mild autism or something similar.

Richard’s mother tells Angela the Witch:

“Do you know, I have only once seen him with other boys, doing the same as other boys, and that was when I saw him marching with hundreds of real boys ... in 1914.... It was the happiest day I ever had, I thought after all that I had borne a real boy... He deserted twice—pure absence of mind—it was always the same from a child—'I wanted to see further,' he'd say...“

We are told that Richard seems to have none of the small skill in details that comes to most people before they grow up. He does everything as if he were doing it for the first time.

Stella Benson’s Living Alone: Part I

I recently re-read Stella Benson’s fantasy novel Living Alone to see what she has to say about witches. As with many other books featured on here, I first read it many years ago and just for entertainment. 

At the time, I overlooked things that now seem very significant indeed; I now see that there is enough material about witches, wizards and magic to generate more than one article.

There are also some autobiographical elements in the book; they will be included in an article about Stella Benson herself.

Part I starts with an overview of Living Alone and continues with some material from the book about magic and its practitioners.

About Living Alone

Living Alone consists of just ten chapters, so it is sometimes called a novella.

Living Alone has been described as a comedy, but it mentions desolation and has a horrible ending.

It is a very strange and unusual book, yet there are some familiar elements:

There are whimsical descriptions in Living Alone that make me think of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

The witches and their broomsticks in the book remind me of Terry Pratchett's witches.

There are a few scenes that remind me of the use of magic in Diana Wynne Jones’s Charmed Life.

London has a magic of its own. There are many references to locations in London, places that I know well and enjoy reading about. Stella Benson was writing from experience: she too knew London well.

Anyone who wants to read Living Alone will find it on Project Gutenberg.

The Three Hostages: a sinister scenario

I was very young when I first read John Buchan’s thriller The Three Hostages, an adventure story that features Richard Hannay and contains a fascinating mystery to be solved.

At the time, certain expressions that would now be considered ‘politically incorrect’ and offensive did not register, nor did I see anything particularly noteworthy in the horrific mental state of the hostages and the unpleasant, alien conditions in which they were forced to live. At the time, the clues to the hiding places of the hostages and the challenge of finding and freeing them were the most gripping aspects of the story. 

The details of life as lived by privileged, well-connected people were very interesting too. I found the book exciting and informative. I envied Richard Hannay: I wanted that sort of action and lifestyle for myself!

Now, after many years of investigating unseen influences, it is the references to magic, wizards and the stealing of souls, the discussions of psychology and the subconscious mind and the descriptions of hypnotism and mind control that are for me the most significant aspects of the book. 

As his friend and colleague Sandy Arbuthnot says to Richard Hannay:

“…the compulsion of spirit by spirit.  That, I have always believed, is to-day, and ever has been, the true magic.”

There is a lot of general information in The Three Hostages about the sinister and unethical practices mentioned above, and about the attributes, abilities and personality of the kind of man who would make use of them.

Now, what holds my attention above everything else is the effect that these practices have when applied to the hostages, also the details of hostages’ lives while in captivity.  Much of this has relevance to the real world; some of it is also very familiar to me. The resemblances that I can see and the connections that I can make to my own life are very painful to dwell on. 

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part II: Terry Pratchett’s books

I have found that Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books brighten the atmosphere: they are ideal for driving away black moods and dispersing the dark clouds of depression. 

I particularly like the books that feature his three main witch characters, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. The three witches in Macbeth were the inspiration for these ladies. He said that three is a natural number for witches. It is just a coincidence that when I was at school, someone likened me and my two sisters to the three witches in Macbeth!

Not only do these books entertain, amuse and raise one’s spirits, they also contain material that seems to me to be relevant to some topics on this blog. I have already made a connection between the effects that Terry Pratchett’s illusion-creating elves have on humans and the effects that some glamorous energy vampires have on their victims.

Some of what Pratchett says about magic and how it attracts undesirable entities could apply to unconscious or psychological black magic and how it attracts – or is even caused by - forces that sabotage the lives of the practitioners.