How to make a Fairy-tale Bed

Oh night thou was my guide

Oh night more loving than the rising sun

- The Dark Night of the Soul

The Princess at the Curtain, by H.J. Ford.

I have found that inspiration comes to me in most beguiling form at night. So it is that many of my most beautiful imaginings are night-visions - developed in the day - but engendered in the darkness and stillness of deep night. At those times - when no sound is heard throughout the house but my own breathing; when my family sleeps, and when I look out across the harbour and see the lights shining - and listen to the elements outside - at those times my inner self starts to speak, and in the stillness I hear. 

I've learned to listen to that night-voice. It tells me true. And thus my story begins. 

It happened last night, around midnight: I had been sitting up late, writing and listening to music. After I at length turned off my light, I opened my casement window and sat for a while just smelling the sweet scent of water falling in grey curtains onto the harbour, which could dimly be guessed at from the ferry moving like a point of light across the water. I could taste the freshness of the air, and from the dark tree beside my window, the dripping from the myriad shadowy leaves made percussive music that eased my heart. 

Rain on leaves is a musical and soothing sound.

I found myself wishing that I could sit by the window all night - that I didn't have to retreat to the stillness and silence of my bed... I imagined myself making a bed by the window out of cushions, and sleeping there all night. It's the sort of thing my child-self had often thought: "I'll do that one-day when I'm older". And I thought - yes! - I will do this. Is there any earthy reason why I should not try it? To be sure, I might sleep uncomfortably; my bed might collapse in the wee-small hours of the night; I might wake with pains and stiffness - but what are those risks beside the allure of breathing the breath of the wind all night?

What child does not dream of sleeping out under the sky?

So I turned on my lamp and set about constructing myself a bed. Actually, "nest" is perhaps a more appropriate word. 

Near the window my otherwise square bedroom bulges outwards into a semi-circular nook with leadlight casements all around. That's where I sit and write, and right now it contains an easy-chair, a folded-easel covered in artificial flowers and scarves, and over a dozen fairy-books, which I have been consulting in my writing. What better material to construct a magical nest, than fairytale books?

If someone sleeps in a bed made of fairytale books, the stories whisper in their ears all night and bring enchanted dreams... 

I arranged the books past the seat of my chair, like precious bricks to give my nest structure. Then I went to my bed and stripped it of its coverings - I folded my quilt and stuffed it, with one of my pillows, between the books, then bound them all together to the chair with a blanket. I then took my second blanket to sleep under (since the night air was cool) and covered it all with my Botticelli covering. I turned off the light, made sure my writing book was beside the nest, and snuggled down, looking out at the rainy night and the darkly luminous sky. I was lulled to sleep by the music of many waters - the sea, the rain, and divers other secret tricklings and patterings. 

I slept beneath a sky both glowing and dark.

This morning I awoke without an ache, and spent a long time gazing out meditatively at the overcast, azure-shadowed harbour, until in the distance I saw the grey sky and sea draw together - and the rain began again.

A harbour dawn - the borders between the sky and sea begin to blur.

Cast your eyes on the ocean

Cast your soul to the sea

When the dark night seems endless

Please remember me

- Dante's Prayer, Loreena McKennitt

This Fairytale World of Mine

"The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. " - J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories

 

"She lived happily in her nest, standing at the edge in the sunset looking upon the beautiful world," Little Wildrose, Artist Henry Justice Ford

Once upon a time there lived a girl-child, very young and very eager. She lived in a little room papered with Flower Fairies, and hung with twinkling lights. She slept in a little bed, guarded by a menagerie of stuffed toy animals, each with their own personality. In a garden there were flowers and butterflies and sunshine, and she had two (later three) little brothers with whom to play and adventure. This child was always surrounded by love and possibility - and books. Every day her mother (or father) would read to her - children's stories or poems; little songs, Aesop's fables and fairytales.

The Nine Peahens and the Golden Apples
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Snow White and Rose Red
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Most important of all to her developing sense of self, were the fairytales. In a bookcase of dark, richly stained wood, on the top shelf (beyond the grasp of stretching little fingers) stood a row of magical tomes, the Lang Fairy Books: Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Brown, Violet, Lilac and (a truly ancient first-edition with gold embossed Art Nouveau cover) Crimson. More stories than a child could count - and so they blended in her mind together into a tapestry of story, a window to a world... Every day - or almost every day, her mother would read a tale to her. The stories in these books spoke of something true within the child's soul; something strange and infinitely marvellous - a perilous beauty that enriched every instant and added an incomparable colour to the world. The stories told of heroes, male and female, of cunning and courage, of speaking animals and shape-shifting spirits, and of the restless desire to go beyond the realm of the ordinary - to climb into the sky and bring down a singing harp; to divine the secrets of the wizards' book; to be stronger than fate; to seek the Bird of Truth and learn the shivery wonder of the words "East of the Sun, West of the Moon".

"The crown returns to the Queen of the Fishes" , The Girl-Fish
Artist Henry Justice Ford

How Ian Direach Got the Blue Falcon
Artist Henry Justice Ford

You will have guessed by now the name of that girl-child. My own fairytale began this way, snuggled between my mother's legs, resting my head against her stomach and looking with wide, wondering eyes at the pages she held before my face - the arcane script I was to understand a few years later, and the pictures which I understood immediately on a deep, instinctive level. These were in truth pictures of Faerie, full of a life, emotion, beauty and detail - and more, a solemnity that I trusted. They took themselves seriously; they contained no falsity and cliché. They were not confined to any particular time-period or culture, and so felt at once universal and uniquely faerie. They helped to mould my own imaginings. As I heard the words of each story, other, vivid images bloomed in my mind, in beauty and kind like unto the Lang illustrations by Henry Justice Ford. I would find later that music, as well as words, evoked such fantasies in my mind - and even later would be able to name that joyful gift as synaesthesia. 

"When she stood upright her ugliness had all gone", The Groac’h of the Isle of Lok,
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"Pivi dives for the shellfish", Pivi and Kabo
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"Under the golden apple tree", The Nine Peahens and the Golden Apples,
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Later I would be able to create my own stories, and to depict some of my imaginings with pencil and paint. I would discover that I had an inner world that I could quite literally explore and recount and describe the things I saw along the way... I would eventually discover my potential for heroism. But that would be later. The first notes of the "horns of Elfland" echoed in my mother's voice, and my first glimpses of Faerie were through beguiling, beautiful illustrations of H.J. Ford.

Lung Lung
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Mother Holle,
Artist Henry Justice Ford

This was the first page of my fairytale. But in my life there have been (already) many chapters and many developments of my persona from the baby girl to the young woman - many stories. Let us turn the pages...

"The Princess at the Curtain",  The Enchanted Knife
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"The kitchenmaid listens to the nightingale", The Emperor and the Nightingale
Henry Justice Ford

Once upon a time there lived a girl-child, who walked half her waking hours in Faerie; an adventurer and a dreamer, avid for knowledge and story. She read anything and everything she could find: natural history, ancient history, children's stories, recipe books and first-aid guides, and - smuggled into her bed when she was supposed to be having her afternoon nap - Anne of Green Gables.  She read poetry too - anthologies that filled her mind with half-understood images and scenes of far-off times. She thrilled to them.

"Petru is forced to turn back", The Fairy of the Dawn
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"The King sees the Snow-Maiden", The Snow Maiden and the Fire-Son
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Once upon a time there lived a girl-child who, when bullied at school, garbed herself in invisible armour and saw scales on the skin of her tormentors; a child who turned every obstacle, in her own mind, into just another a trial in a heroic quest; a child who whispered to the trees in her garden and made offerings of berries and hair to the spirits of the flowers and the trees. 

East of the Sun, West of the Moon
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Once upon a time there lived a girl-woman who, restless, began to seek new knowledge and new stories - who discovered ugliness, triteness, evil and cynicism in her quest to find the Bird of Truth, and who learned "what fear was" on her quest. A girl-woman who discovered true friendship, love (and loss), confidence (and doubt). A girl-woman who discovered further insights into Faerie through the books of Tolkien, Jordan, Hobb and Dart-Thornton; the paintings of Burne-Jones, Kinuko and John Howe; the poems of Tennyson, Keats and Yeats; and the music of Enya, Loreena McKennit and Kitaro, among a galaxy of other inspiring luminaries. A girl-woman who named herself for the hero she wanted to be - a magical, strong and beautiful "second self" - then later realised that "alter-ego" was herself. A girl-woman who stumbled and despaired; knew exhaustion and elation and uncertainty; who was understanding, and unfair; who knew great bliss and shone most gloriously.

"The North Wind seizes the wreath", The Fairy of the Dawn
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"Fairer-than-a-Fairy summons the rainbow", Fairer-than -a-Fairy,
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Once upon a time there lived a girl-woman who began to set her feet on "the Road less traveled", and who decided on a monster to pursue, and a gleaming goal to strive towards... Who pushed herself to create, and to excel - but who nonetheless found many distractions along the road. A girl-woman who understood that the heart of Faerie is Mystery, and the heroic quest a journey towards "that untraveled world whose margin fades/Forever and forever as I move". 

"Among the flowers were lovely maidens who called to him with soft voices", The Fairy of the Dawn
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"Then she reached the three cutting swords, and got on her plough-wheel and rolled over them", The Glass Mountain,
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Here I pause, where the ink is wet. 

The rest of the page is blank. This is my fairytale - so far. But it is part of the beauty of a fairytale, that it can be told again and again with slight variations and in different voices, and yet mean much the same thing... The heroes (female and male) of the Lang books are all archetypes that we contain within us. Thus while my story is uniquely, magically mine - many of you may have stories that are similar in kind, though not in form.

"The Witch-Maiden sees the youth under a tree", The Dragon of the North,
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"The Blue Fairy transforms Prince Darling", Prince Darling
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Tolkien wrote:

"In the Trees of the Sun and Moon root and stock, flower and fruit are manifested in glory". 

"The hero Makoma and the spirit of the river-fever", The Hero Makoma
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"Queen of the Snakes, give me back my husband!", The Queen of the Snakes
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Whatever our twists our paths may take - no matter how long the road, or how dark the forest, or whether we meet with dragons, demons or fair Fortune herself - this is truth. For those of us who choose to walk partway in the world of Faerie - all reality and all our journeys are given a particular dimension and added joy. 

The Magician's Wife
Artist Henry Justice Ford

"The Queen saves the prince from Death", The Story of the Prince Who would Seek Immortality
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Once upon a time there was a writer... and a reader. And a path.

"The shepherd comes to the arch of snakes", The Language of the Beasts
Artist Henry Justice Ford

And see ye not yon bonny road
That winds about yon fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae. - Thomas the Rhymer 

In the Forest
Artist Henry Justice Ford

Why everyone should see "The Slipper and the Rose"

What is a song that's never sung?
What is a heart that's never thrilled to being young?
What is a dream that can't come true?
What is my life to me, without my love for you?
- Secret Kingdom, The Slipper and the Rose

Prince Edward: Whatever happens afterwards, I will always remember this moment...

Tonight I watched (for the twentieth time), my favourite of all fairytale movies (and very close to my favourite movie ever), The Slipper and the Rose.

The movie is a musical adaptation of the classic Cinderella story. But there is nothing whatever trite or cliche about this adaptation - nothing caricatured or Disneyfied. I first watched it when I was about five years old, and have watched it several times each year since. Above all movies, it shaped my entire childhood perception of the world, and its magic still affects me just as strongly today.

Since it is sadly unknown in much of the world, I will briefly give a sketch of the storyline:

The moated manor where Cinderella lives, in the tiny kingdom of Euphrania 

After the death of Cinderella's father, his will places her under the protection of her stepmother , with only the memory of love to sustain her. 

The stepmother and stepsisters make "certain drastic economies in the household" ... 

... which involve making Cinderella the maid-of-all-work.

Meanwhile the king and queen urge the prince that "it's your duty to the state not to stay a celibate" while he argues that marriage begins with love, not duty. 

The prince's foolish cousin drops the "teensiest of social briquettes"., with hilarious consequences. 

The Fairy Godmother in her Domythic cottage, writing all the fairytales... 

She "tests" Cinderella before deciding she is worthy of help.

"I thought - a ball. A great ball! The greatest ball that has ever been known, sire! And to it we shall invite every eligible princess in Europe, and even beyond, your majesty."

Cinderella is set the task of making dresses for the ball, but fails miserably. Thankfully, someone steps in to help.

Cinderella" "Me, go to the ball?"
Godmother: "Of course! Wait, that is what you were wishing wasn't it?
Cinderella: "Not wishing... Thinking what it must be like."
Godmother: "Same thing."

Dancing mice. What's not to love?

The prismatically lovely carriage seems to be made of dreams and imaginings...

At the ball, the Prince "conceals his boredom from half a dozen twittering maidens of blue blood" (the princesses between whom he is meant to choose) while the local nobility attend to fill up space

A glittering carriage arrives late to the palace...

... and the "Princess Incognita" arrives. 

Entering the ballroom...

... Cinderella and the Prince are drawn to each-other

The waltz that Cinderella and the Prince dance at this point must be seen to be truly appreciated. It is the most beautiful dance I have ever seen, and earned The Slipper and the Rose two Oscar nominations. It tells the story of a relationship, and makes their falling in love believable.

It really is the most romantic and beautiful dance - ever.

After the dance Cinderella Prince Edward walk in the garden, and the Prince apologises to her for the "ridiculous charade" of the "bride-finding ball". He confesses that he has been "trapped by his birthright", but offers Cinderella his "private kingdom... with no castles and no vassals and no throne".

Unfortunately the chimes of midnight necessitate Cinderella's flight...

... and his pursuit is in vain. 

"Though this lovely night was only a fantasy/ And I know tonight is all there will ever be/ Dancing in his arms forever my heart will never be free... Dreaming of the night he danced with me."

"Could it be that she was only a fantasy? Could it be tonight is all there will ever be?"

Edward: It is unique, like its owner. Who ever fits this slipper, must fit the bill!
King: It really is remarkably dainty... half the size of your mother's... take it away... very disturbing...

Stepmother: "Now push  hard."
Palatine: "Oh I'm pushing, Mama!"

After a fruitless search of "three months, six days, ten hours", Prince Edward and his companion-at-arms John are both tortured by the pangs of love . Edward is educated as to the restrictive nature of "position" and social conditioning.

Frustrated and half-wondering if Cinderella had been a phantom-like "Belle Dame Sans Merci", Edward decides to throw the glass slipper away.

But it is found again by Cinderella.

Joyfully she dances in the fields with the slipper...

... where she is seen.

A passionate reunion...

... but there is talk of war, and the prince must make a marriage of alliance with a powerful kingdom with an "army to fortify the throne" of the tiny and vulnerable Euphrania.

Cinderella makes a noble sacrifice, going into secret exile. 

Edward prays on the eve of his wedding: "Forgive me dearest Cinderella. I have no heart for what I am about to do... I have loved but once. I have loved but you. And I have lost you - twice!"

In her place of exile, Cinderella "can't stop remembering" - until the Godmother shows up "to rise to the occasion and do something spectacular".

The marriage of alliance...

... but someone else has arrived.

Happy, but not yet the ending...

... and that's only a taste of the gorgeousness in store. It can't do justice to the music, the vivacity, the Romance and the magic of this peerless fairytale movie.

Essentially, the first half of the story is the one we are familiar with - except that the characters are far more real and the Prince (Edward) has as great a role in the story as Cinderella. There are a host of wonderful supporting characters (the stepmother, the prince's companion-at-arms, the royal family and the fairy godmother to name a few), which give the film depth  and allow it to explore themes of tradition, class warfare, independence, diplomatic relations and ethical dilemmas. When Cinderella is reunited with the prince at last, their happiness takes second place to the concerns of the kingdom, for a declaration of war requires the prince to make a marriage of alliance to a powerful princess... Of course it ends happily (and satisfactorily) thanks to the cleverness of the Fairy Godmother - but not before both Edward and Cinderella are tested.

The Slipper and the Rose is beautiful in every way - with incredible music, sumptuous costumes, an absolutely wonderful romance, humour and great characters. I can't praise it enough. For anyone who wants to watch it (which should be everyone after reading this!) - you can purchase it on Ebay or *watch here on Youtube*.

In fact, you have no excuse. Enter the fairytale. You will not be sorry. Go and watch it now.