Henrietta's House: Week 4

Fairytales, the Giant, Self Knowledge & Happily Ever After

My paperback copy of Henrietta’s House in my cottage garden at my own house of dreams.

End of Goudge’s Fairytale

“A fairy tale, dear sir, in relating miraculous happenings as though they were the normal events of every day, is a humble acknowledgment of the fact that this universe is a box packed full of mysteries of which we understand absolutely nothing at all…

Fairyland and Paradise, they're the same place, and always with us.”

🌿Elizabeth Goudge, Henrietta’s House

All good fairytales have a happy ending, and we definitely arrive at a full and happy one here in Henrietta’s House!

Despite the turmoil of war that surrounded Goudge’s life in 1942, she dug down to the golden days of her childhood in Wells and shared the best of friendship, food and magic with her readers then and now.

“So this is the end of the story of Henrietta's house, and even though it is not strictly speaking a fairy tale because, except for the possible exception of the disappearance of the motor car, nothing in the least out of the ordinary happened on Hugh Anthony's birthday it can be turned into one by saying that everybody lived happy ever after.”

🌿Elizabeth Goudge, Henrietta’s House

Join us today as we look at a few more things in the last chapters of Henrietta’s House: Goudge as a child, Antony Maitland’s illustrations, the importance of self knowledge, and the Victorian origins of the Giant’s story.

Here is a photo by Sue Moscow of the waterfall steps of Wells Cathedral that caught Goudge’s imagination for this scene. It would quite the trip down those in a canoe

“They suddenly found themselves shooting over the edge of a waterfall, with below the most steep slope of sliding black water that seem to fall for miles and miles into inky darkness. It was an awful moment, but they showed a great presence of mind…

‘Here we are!’ triumphed the Old Gentleman. ‘The crypt of the Cathedral!’

‘Dear me, yes! cried Grandfather. ‘Do you remember the wide stone staircase that leads down into the crypt, down and down into the darkness? It is exactly like that sliding waterfall!’”

🌿 Elizabeth Goudge, Henrietta’s House

Victorian Childhood