Intro to The Little White Horse
Award-winning children's book by Elizabeth Goudge
“Before they had time to get really frightened they were out in the moonlight again, and in a place so beautiful that it seemed hardly to be of this world.
It was all silver. Upon each side of them the trunks of tall trees rose from grass so silvered by the moonlight that it glimmered like water. The trees were not thickly planted, and beautiful glades opened between them, showing glimpses of an ebony sky set with silver stars.
Nothing moved. It was all quite still, as though enchanted under the moon. The silvery tracery of twigs and branches above the silver tree trunks was so delicate that the moonlight sifted through it like a fine film of silver dust.
But there was life among the trees, though it was life that did not move. Maria saw a silver owl sitting on a silver branch, and a silver rabbit sitting up on its haunches beside the road blinking at the lantern light, and a beautiful group of silver deer... And for a fleeting instant, at the far end of a glade, she thought she saw a little white horse with flowing mane and tail, head raised, poised, halted in mid-flight, as though it had seen her and was glad.
'Look,' she cried to Miss Heliotrope. But when Miss Heliotrope looked she could not see anything.”
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, ch 1
Goudge’s Carnegie Medal winner
Welcome to our June Goudge Readalong of The Little White Horse!
If you look at Goudge’s career in terms of her literary success, then she really became established with The Little White Horse. You can see on the cover above (of the US first editon) that she was honored in New York by the Herald Tribune for her children’s fantasy story.
What was more commendable was that she was only the ninth author to receive the Carnegie Medal award, after they took a couple of years off because there were “no books that qualified” during the war. It would be another ten years, in 1956, before the author of the Narnia series, C.S. Lewis, would receive his only Carnegie award for The Last Battle. (See the full list here.)
Setting: Compton Castle, Devon, UK
Moonacre Manor is Maria Merryweather’s new home at the beginning of The Little White Horse.
Elizabeth Goudge patterned this medieval manor after a castle that was surprisingly close to her Marldon home at Providence Cottage. Compton Castle was only a mile and a half away! An easy walk, it is likely that Elizabeth ventured here as a break from nursing her invalid mother. After her father passed away, Elizabeth was in need of a profession that could support them both during WWII, and in Devon she found imaginative material of all sorts for her works!
Compton is now run by the National Trust and still used by the de Compton/Gilbert family. There are many ways in which this Castle has influenced the story, which we will explore later this month!
“Today Compton Castle is the home of Geoffrey and Angela Gilbert and their family, but the land was originally held by the de Compton family. The marriage of Joan de Compton to Geoffrey Gilbert, in 1329 brought the two families together and the Gilberts have been adding, altering and renovating the castle ever since.”1
Some history of the castle:
“Compton Castle in the parish of Marldon in Devon, is a fortified manor house in the village of Compton (formerly "Compton Pole"), about 5 miles (8 km) west of Torquay on the southern coast of Devon, England. The estate was home to the families of Compton, de la Pole, Doddiscombe, Gilbert and Templer. The castle has been home to the Gilbert family for most of the time since it was built. Listed as a Grade 1 set of buildings, it has been a National Trust property since 1951.”2
Because of the way in which Goudge brings the magical into the real world of Devon, The Little White Horse is considered to be “low fantasy":
“Low fantasy (or intrusion fantasy) is a subgenre of fantasy fiction in which magical events intrude on an otherwise-normal world. The term thus contrasts with high fantasy stories, which take place in fictional worlds that have their own sets of rules and physical laws.”3
A Poem
Goudge often chose a verse or two to open her books, but with The Little White Horse, she wrote her own verse to introduce her fairytale story:
THE LITTLE WHITE HORSE
It was under the white moon that I saw him,
The little white horse, with neck arched high in pride.
Lovely his pride, delicate, no taint of self
Staining the unconscious innocence denied
Knowledge of good and evil, burden of days
Of shame crouched beneath the flail of memory.
No past for you, little white horse, no regret,
No future of fear in this silver forest —
Only the perfect now in the white moon-dappled ride.
A flower-like body fashioned all of light,
For the speed of light, yet momently at rest,
Balanced on the sheer knife-edge of perfection;
Perfection of grass silver upon the crest
Of the hill, before the scythe falls, snow in sun,
Of the shaken human spirit when God speaks
In His still small voice and for a breath of time
All is hushed; gone in a sigh, that perfection,
Leaving the sharp knife-edge turning slowly in the breast.
The raised hoof, the proud poised head, the flowing mane,
The supreme moment of stillness before the flight,
The moment of farewell, of wordless pleading
For remembrance of things lost to earthly sight -
Then the half-turn under the trees, a motion
Fluid as the movement of light on water...
Stay, oh stay in the forest, 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.
My kids and I first read this book together seven summers ago, and we all were delighted with it! We loved it so well that I went looking for an older edition and found this US first edition after a long search. The illustrations are so charming! I’ll share more if it along the way.
Whether you are reading our book alone or with a child, I hope reading The Little White Horse this is a great way for you to make some wonderful memories this summer.
Please note: Our live book chat for The Little White Horse with be on Zoom on Wednesday, June 26th at 3PM EST. Hope you can join us!
Love to hear what you think about the book so far! Are there any details in the story you are wondering about yet?
Also note: If you have been waiting for a time to pre-order The Joy of the Snow, this is it!
*Amazon Affiliate links are included in this newsletter. I make a few cents per recommendation, each of which I hope will be helpful to you! Note: I also include many links which are not affiliates to other sites for research and photo credit purposes.
I have the exact same illustration of the Moonacre kingdom in the front of my edition Julie. How interesting that The Gilberts have Sir Walter Raleigh in their number as he is in "The Towers in the Mist" isn't he? I like the idea that Elizabeth went off exploring and found inspiration for her work, needing that escape into the story and the fantasy to help her with her daily round of caring. The geraniums have caught my attention, as expected, and I remember that there is a mystery attached to that room and the flowers and that it is important. I have also been struck by the description of the relationship between Miss Heliotrope - oh the name - and Maria and how the love had to be forced at first. I rather like the honesty of that admission. Much to look forward to.
I love the way Wiggins is first described to the reader, near the start of the first chapter. Elizabeth Goudge isn't known as a comic author, but that passage is so funny.