Hello everyone!
So this week I had a little debate with myself about which book I should put in Thursday's blog post, since I finished a couple more than just one prior to writing it, but I decided to somewhat follow in the line-up I read them in, which meant that the others I finished (a short trilogy) will most likely be featured next week, unless I find and/or finish another book or short book series that annoys me about as much as that one did haha! Not even joking, but back to the book I'll be talking about today, it's actually a childhood favourite of mine. I had a couple of those while I was growing up, and have since then not picked that many again for a reread, but this one sort of happened once, by accident, and then I think my mother bought me the Slovene translation and it's been sitting on my shelf in paperback version ever since.
The book I'm talking about is Elizabeth Goudge's 'Little White Horse', as you could already tell from the title of this blog. It's not a long story, it's actually a children's book, and as such you're probably thinking what on Earth am I doing reading it? Well, as a sort of fairtyle, it's something I've always had a soft spot for, and it has horses in it. It was a good enough excuse for me!
Our story begins when the heroine, Maria Merryweather, becomes orphaned at thirteen and, along with her governess, Miss Heliotrope, and her dog, Wiggins, travels to the West Country of England to the estate (and, as she finds out later, kingdom) of her cousin, sir Benjamin. There, she finds out that she comes from a long line of Merryweathers who have always lived in Moonacre (the before-mentioned kingdom), and that she is a so-called 'Moon' Merryweather (having been born during the night) and her cousin Benjamin is a 'Sun' Merryweather (born during the day), which means they instantly like each other since the two branches always got along splendidly.
But, soon after her arrival, she discovers a mystery: for one, her room at the top of the tower (yes, she gets a tower room) has a set of doors only big enough for her to go through, and each morning as she wakes up, she finds a dress laid out for her, ready for the day, indicating that someone is guiding her activities. There is generally an air of mystery surrounding the valley, and a sad story behind it all.
Long ago, when the original Merryweather was given the valley, another family resided in the woods that bordered onto it, and the lord Hugo wanted it for himself; the family had a daughter, and he set out to woo her, which he successfully accomplished. She came to Moonacre with a set of stunning pearls and a dog as a gift for her husband, and he gave her a little white horse in return, which he had caught on the slopes of a hill where his farmers raised sheep. For a time, all was well, until the greed of sir Hugo got the best of him; for his rival remarried, and had a healthy son, which meant the moon princess (as the lady had become known as) would not inherit her father's properties anymore. This tension escalated until the marriage was no longer happy, and one night, the moon princess simply disappeared, taking with her the pearls, and the little white horse, never to be seen again. The dog she had given her husband left and returned to the forest as well, and sir Hugo later died alone and bitter, and in Maria's time, it was said that he rode around and around the hill where he had found the little white horse (and did a whole lot of other bad things too), never to reach Heaven, the closest being Heaven Hill.
So, Maria learns that, every generation, the moon princess comes to Moonacre again (not the original one, but apparently a descendant), and for a short time there's laughter and light and love, but then, inevitably, she and her Merryweather husband quarrel, and she leaves.
Everyone hopes that Maria will be the one to break the spell, and she begins to right the wrongs her ancestors had done to the people and the land: she returns Heaven Hill to God, rescues animals from poachers from the wood, and sets out on a quest to prove that the moon princess never left Moonacre, but remained in the valley until her death, that her father sailed, weary of the conflict, into the west, and the little white horses brought his ship back to port one morning, empty. Of course, she also has to bring peace between the Merryweathers and their sour forest neighbours, descendants of the original De Noir family, and to do so she must find the fabled Moonacre pearls from legend - as well as settle a domestic dispute over pink flowers between her cousin Benjamin and his once-betrothed Loveday. Along the way, other characters in the story also find love and acceptance, since it IS a fairytale.
It seems like a lot to handle for a young girl, but she has help in the form of Loveday's son, Robin, who eventually ends up as the love interest of our protagonist, but as stories go, it is settled a couple of years in the future. I won't go into too many details this time since I feel like you have to read this story yourself to fully understand it, but I will say that I love it to this day, and for some reason it always brings tears to my eyes as I read the last lines.
And the little white horse?
'He is lost and gone and now; I do not know if it was a little white horse that I saw, or only a moonbeam astray in the silver night ...' (Goudge, E, introduction to Little White Horse)
xx
*image not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment