Unless a grain of wheat falls...

The Bird in the Tree, Book 1 of the Eliot Chronicles for Goudge Read-Along

“It was autumn now and the corn was ripe… across the road in the march the stunted stalks stood uncut and the pale grains waited only to drop to the earth unwanted. As the wind passed over them they rustled a little desolately, and Ben’s heart suddenly ached intolerably for the unwanted, ungarnered gold, and for the great ship that had gone to its death in this place. The field was its grave and the uncut whispering corn its epitaph. He wondered what it was saying.

‘Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die…’

He had heard that somewhere, but he couldn’t remember the end…”

🍂Elizabeth Goudge, The Bird in the Tree, ch 1

This week I couldn’t help but think how I would love to spend time with Margaret digging in the violet bed, or Caroline in the wild garden. Walking to the shore with Ben, David and the dogs would be a welcome trip on a bright autumn day. So many vivid scenes of both mind and garden are portrayed as Goudge builds the background for the main conflict. We want this place of Damerosehay to add its wisdom to all of them as they stumble on the way. 🌾

The Kings Abdication

Goudge was writing her novel just a few years after the 1936 abdication of Edward VIII (whose Christian name was David) and so she was definitely writing with that modern conflict in mind. WWII was about to begin, and so the quote above is surely part of the working out of her own fears for her creative work at that time. As invasion could come at any moment, Goudge, like her contemporaries Tolkien and Lewis, worked well through her theology of art and creation in the face of such destruction. Her children’s book, The Valley of Song, was a full working out of that idea - that art has its own life given to it, and for its own sake.

Edward’s abdication of the throne

David’s struggle for happiness

In chapter 5 Goudge sets up the conflict that David has within himself - fear of war and the destruction of his work: