Posted on by TracyC

The Witch’s Spoon

The Witch’s Spoon by Mary Cunningham, illustrated by Marilyn Miller, 1975.

Tom and Lauren are spending a week with their grandmother at her beach cottage during the summer. They have visited the cottage many times before, and they love revisiting all their favorite places, the bunk beds on the cottage’s sleeping porch, like the tree where they always see baby owls (which they call the owl tree), and the place where they once found some lost coins (which they call the money spot). They know the cottage well, inside and out. This summer, though, there are a few things that are different.

The first thing that the kids notice that is different is that their Grandma has added a new item to her curio cabinet: a big silver spoon with a long handle. They ask their grandmother about the spoon, and she explains that it’s a witch’s spoon. She recently inherited it from the children’s Great-Aunt Hannah (that would be their grandmother’s sister), who used to live in Massachusetts. The spoon is a family heirloom from the time of the witchcraft trials in Salem (“when witches were thought to be as much of a problem to people as air pollution is now” – this is from the mid-1970s). Their grandmother says that there are good witches and bad witches, and good witches would use spoons like this one to stir love potions. Tom doesn’t believe in witches, but Lauren is fascinated by the spoon and the idea of love potions. She is sure that she senses magic from the spoon.

The next thing that will make the children’s visit here different from previous years is that their grandmother has decided that they’re old enough to have a June Day. June Days are a family tradition, and it’s not just because it’s June. During a June Day, the usual household rules are suspended for one day, and the children are allowed to go wherever they want and do anything they want, all on their own. Grandma says that she will prepare meals at the usual times, but for that day, it’s up to the children whether or not they show up for them, so they don’t need to interrupt their adventures. If the children aren’t there to eat their meals, Grandma will share the food with their nextdoor neighbor, Mr. Bunby. There are only a few safety rules that the children have to follow: they are expected to by careful when attempting any activity that might have an element of danger, and they have to leave their grandmother a note about the general area where they are going, like the beach or the nearby woods, so if they’re not back by dark, she’ll know where to look for them. The June Day ends when it gets dark, and the children must be home by then.

The grandmother understands that there is a certain element of risk in letting the children go off by themselves, and she reminds them that “every box has its pill.” That means that, while their children can choose what they’re going to do, they have to face the consequences of their choices, no matter what they might be, good or bad. “If you open the box and find a bitter pill, you have to swallow it.” Getting to make their own rules and decisions for a day doesn’t get them out of taking the consequences of whatever they do. If they get hurt or get into serious trouble, not only will they suffer the hurt or trouble they cause, but their parents may not let them come back next summer, so they need to keep that in mind when making their choices. Freedom still comes with responsibility, and that’s what the children need to be old enough to understand before they can have a June Day. Tom says that they understand, and that they won’t do anything too wild. Their grandmother tells them that they can have their June Day in two days, so they will have time to look forward to the treat and plan for it.

Tom and Lauren have different interests, so each of them decides to make up their own plans for a private adventure. Tom already knows what he wants to do for his June Day. There is a cave near the beach where the children usually aren’t allowed to go, but there are rumors that there is a giant cavern inside where pirates have hidden their treasure. Getting inside the cave will be difficult and involves an element of risk, but he is determined to spend his June Day hunting for pirate treasure. He doesn’t want to persuade Lauren to join him because he thinks she’ll be too scared to do it.

Meanwhile, Lauren thinks how she’s always wanted to hold a baby owl in her hands. She loves animals, and she decides that she’ll try to hold a baby owl on her June Day. She decides she won’t tell Tom about it, because he would probably think that was a silly thing to do. Lauren thinks that she even might try to make a baby owl a pet, just for the rest of the week.

There is one other thing that is different about this year, though. Their grandmother informs them that their cousin, Elizabeth, will be joining them at the cottage this year. Elizabeth’s father is the brother of Tom and Lauren’s father. Years ago, he moved to Italy and married a woman there, and they had only one daughter, Elizabeth. Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s parents died in a car accident, and Elizabeth has been living with her three aunts in Rome. She has never been the United States before and has never met either her grandmother or cousins, so the children’s grandmother has decided to invite her to visit this year.

Tom and Lauren aren’t thrilled at the idea of meeting their Italian cousin. It’s partly jealousy at sharing their grandmother with a girl they don’t really know. Elizabeth was named after their grandmother, and Lauren worries that Grandma will like her better because of that. Tom complains that she’ll probably be fat and smell like garlic because people in Italy eat a lot of spaghetti. It’s a mean thing to say, and even Lauren thinks it sounds ridiculous, but the children’s negative attitudes are also because they realize that Elizabeth’s presence will complicate their secret plans for their June Day. In order to have their secret adventures by themselves, they will also have to avoid their cousin trying to tag along.

In spite of their negativity and thoughts about playing pranks on Elizabeth so she won’t want to stay, Lauren realizes that she is also curious about this cousin and seeing what she’s like. When Elizabeth arrives the next day, she is a slim girl with dark hair, who doesn’t smell like garlic at all. Elizabeth speaks fluent English as well as Italian because she goes to an international school in Rome, so the children are able to talk to each other easily. Lauren feels jealous about the attention that their grandmother showers on Elizabeth, but Elizabeth is nice to Lauren. Elizabeth likes to knit, and she says that she would like to make a sweater for Lauren. Lauren asks her if she’ll have enough time because she’s only visiting for a week, and Elizabeth says that if it’s not finished by the time she has to leave, she will mail it to her. Lauren begins to feel a little sorry that she thought bad things about Elizabeth, but she also still feels jealous because of all the things Elizabeth knows how to do. Elizabeth can play the flute and wears pretty clothes as well as knitting and speaking multiple languages. Then, their grandmother announces that Elizabeth will be allowed to choose one item from her curio cabinet to take back to Italy with her. Tom and Lauren aren’t even allowed to open the curio cabinet without permission!

Their grandmother tells Tom and Lauren that they will each have a chance to choose something from the cabinet when they’re older. The only reason why Elizabeth is choosing now is that she lives far away and can’t come very often. Tom and Lauren each have favorite items in it that they tell Elizabeth to definitely not take before they get a chance to choose, and Lauren suggests that Elizabeth take the witch’s spoon. The witch’s spoon hasn’t been in the cabinet long enough for Tom or Lauren to have developed an attachment to it. Elizabeth is intrigued by the story that witches used it for making love potions, and their grandmother says that, in times of trouble, you can look into the bowl of the spoon and see answers. Elizabeth says that it’s an Italian tradition that a good witch gives children presents on January 6th (see The Legend of Old Benfana). She tries to see her deceased father in the spoon and is disappointed when she can’t. Their grandmother says that it might not be magical anymore or maybe people only saw in the spoon what they wanted to see.

Tom and Lauren continue making their secret plans for their June Day, each kind of wondering what the other is planning to do. When the day arrives, they each get up early and put their plans into action before anybody can ask them what they’re going to do. Of course, their plans don’t turn out the way they thought. Lauren’s attempt to hold a baby owl and maybe make one a pet don’t take into account how the mother owl would feel about that. In the cave, Tom accidentally falls and drops his flashlight, so he’s trapped and unable to find his way out. Neither one of them was specific enough in their notes for anybody to find them quickly when they get into trouble. Fortunately, Elizabeth turns out to be not only a tag-along but a helpful partner in their adventures. Through their various adventures and disasters on this special June Day, the three children come to feel like they really are cousins. At the end of the story, the grandmother makes a special tea blend, and Elizabeth stirs it with the witch’s spoon, turning it into a love potion, but for family love.

I bought my copy of this book through Amazon. I haven’t found a way to read it online.

My Reaction and Spoilers

The book doesn’t say exactly where the story takes place, but I think it’s supposed to be the California coast because that’s where the author lived. The descriptions of the pine forest near the cottage and beach fit the California coast, and the same author wrote another book called The Rescue that takes place at a cabin in California.

The story has some nice cottagecore vibes, with the children having fun and adventures in nature. There are times that they reminisce about past summers at the cottage as well as enjoying the current summer. They once kept a lost, wild baby ferret as a pet temporarily one summer before releasing it back into the woods, and they always have to look for baby owls in the owl tree when they arrive at the cottage. They spend time at the beach, swimming, wading, sunning themselves, and looking for seashells. Lauren has a favorite type of seashell, called angel’s toenails. When Tom explores the cave, he likes seeing the stalactites, and he sees bats and a type of blind fish in the stream of the cave.

Few children these days have the same level of freedom that these children have at their grandmother’s seaside cottage, although for somewhat obvious reasons. Their grandmother speaks to them honestly and sincerely about the nature of risk-taking and accepting the consequences of their actions, but adults will realize that there are obvious problems with each of their plans for June Day. Even as a kid, I would not have tried to pick up a baby owl or keep one as a pet. Wild animals do not want to be made into pets, and they don’t want their babies to be picked up and held by humans. Owls are cute, but they are also birds prey with sharp beaks and talons and will fight back if they feel like someone is intruding on their personal space. Even my child self would have thought of that long before Lauren tries her June Day experiment. Of course, that’s mostly because my elders impressed on me that nobody should mess with wild animals. The reason why we know that certain things are bad ideas is that people actually tried them and found out from personal experience. Maybe some people have to try things themselves before they understand or believe why they’re bad ideas. I have to admit that I once tried to pick up a dead cactus pad when I was about four years old because I had the idea that dead things couldn’t hurt me, so I figured out that it wouldn’t hurt to touch dead cactus. That’s the Arizona version of this type of experimenting with interacting with the natural world, and I was very, very wrong. One benefit of this kind of hands-on experimenting is that the lessons you learn stay with you forever, but as the grandmother of this story says, you have to accept the results of your experiments, whether it’s a clawed head or a handful of cactus spines.

Tom is the one who takes the greatest risk in this story. When he first considers using the June Day to explore the cave, he knows that they’re not usually allowed to go there. The question that immediately came to my mind was why, and the obvious answer is that the adults know that the cave is too dangerous. Tom considers the difficulties of getting into the cave but not the dangers he can encounter inside. Just because the rules have been suspended for the day doesn’t mean that the dangers have also been suspended for the day, which was what their grandmother was trying to get the children to understand. It’s not unlike learning that cactus spines are just as sharp when the cactus is dead as when it was alive. Fortunately, Lauren and Elizabeth manage to rescue Tom without anyone getting hurt.

The adventures that Tom and Lauren end up sharing with Elizabeth help them bond as cousins. They also learn that, while Lauren has some unique skills and lives a very different kind of life in Rome that is exciting in its own way, she isn’t perfect and neither is her life. Elizabeth is an orphan who still misses her parents. The skills that she has are ones that she’s learned from her aunts, who each have their own standards for what Elizabeth should learn and do. Elizabeth’s aunts love her and care for her, but she isn’t always allowed to do what she wants. This summer represents an unusual amount of freedom for her, too.

I think Tom and Lauren might have taken Elizabeth’s sudden arrival better if their grandmother had prepared them for it instead of springing it on them without warning or discussion of how it would affect their summer plans. The grandmother might have also prevented some hard feelings by talking to all of the children about the gift for Elizabeth from the curio cabinet. I understand why Tom and Lauren wanted to prevent Elizabeth from suddenly taking things that they were attached to. If she had, it would have caused some hard feelings among the cousin. If I were the grandmother in this situation, I think I would have sat all three children down and told them that I wanted to give each of them a special gift from the cabinet. Tom and Lauren would have to leave their gifts in the cabinet for the present, partly because the heirloom Tom values most is a pearl-handled gun, and I think he’s too young to have that unsupervised. However, it would be understood that each of the children would own a special heirloom, and they could discuss their choices among themselves so there wouldn’t be hard feelings or the impression that one child was given more choice than the others.

There aren’t really occult themes in the story. The witch’s spoon only does one thing that appears like magic at one point, and there is a logical explanation for that. The love potion tea really just caps off the children’s day of adventure, when they bond over helping each other. The children know that the spoon probably really isn’t magic. The real magic in their imaginations and the time they spend together as family.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Bed-Knob and Broomstick

BedKnobBroomstickBed-Knob and Broomstick by Mary Norton, 1943, 1947.

This book is actually two books in one.  The title Bed-Knob and Broomstick is the one used for editions that include both the first book, The Magic Bed-Knob, and the sequel, Bonfires and Broomsticks.  Together, these two books were the basis for the Disney movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks, although the plot of the movie is considerably different from the two books. Because the movie is based on both of the books at once and because I read the combined edition, I’ll explain the plots of both of the books in one post.

There are two major differences between the movie and books that change many other things about the plot. The first one is that there is no mention of World War II in the books, even though the books were written during that time.  Miss Price was not studying magic to help the war effort, and the children were only in the countryside for vacation, not because they were evacuated there. Also, in the books, Emelius Jones (Emelius Brown in the movie) was a man they met when they traveled through time, not a man living in London during their own time.  He was not involved in Miss Price learning magic, although the two of them do end up together in the end.

The Magic Bed-Knob

At the beginning of the first book, the three Wilson children – Carey (who is described as being “about your age”), Charles (“a little younger”), and Paul (six years old) – are spending the summer with their Aunt Beatrice in Bedfordshire. There is never any mention of the children’s father in the books. Probably, their father is dead, although he might have left the family and went to live elsewhere or may be fighting overseas, although there is no mention of that in the book, making me think that it is probably not the case. The children apparently live with only their mother in London, and because she works, she always needs to find somewhere for them to stay during the summer, when they’re out of school. (This is a major plot point in both of the books.  In the Disney movie, the three children are orphans who have no memory of their birth parents, and their guardian was killed in a bombing shortly before they were evacuated to the countryside.  You only get their full backstory if you see the anniversary edition of the movie that includes the deleted scenes.)  While the children stay with Aunt Beatrice, they enjoy playing in the countryside, and one day, they happen to meet Miss Price, who they find with an injured ankle.

Miss Price is a respectable spinster from the village who gives piano lessons and is often seen riding around on her bicycle.  When they find her hurt, Carey says that they should get a doctor for her, but Miss Price insists that she doesn’t want one. Instead, she just asks the children to help her get home. As she starts to lean on Carey and Charles, Paul picks up a broom nearby. The older children thought it was just an old garden broom, but Paul calmly says that it belongs to Miss Price because it’s what she rides around on. The others are shocked, but Paul simply says that that he’s seen her improve in her flying, so Miss Price knows that he’s seen her riding her broom more than once. Miss Price is worried that everyone in the village will know now that she’s a witch, but Paul hadn’t even told his brother and sister what he’d seen.

The children help Miss Price get home, and they allow their aunt to think that Miss Price simply fell off of her bicycle. When the children are able to speak to Miss Price privately, they ask her directly if she’s a witch, and she admits that she’s studying to be one. She says that she’s had some talent for magic since she was young, but she never really had the time to develop it. The children are convinced that, while Miss Price might be a witch, she’s not a wicked one, and she says that’s true, that she started too late in life to be that way and that wickedness doesn’t come naturally to her. However, she’s still worried that the children might tell people about her magic.

Carey is the one who suggests that Miss Price give them a magical object as part of their pledge of secrecy (unlike in the movie, where it was Charlie’s idea), with the idea that, if they ever told anyone that she’s a witch, the magic would stop. Charles suggests that Miss Price could give them a magic ring that would summon a slave to do their bidding, but she says that she couldn’t manage that and that she has a better idea. Miss Price asks the children if they have anything on them they can twist, like a ring or a bracelet. The only thing they have is a bed-knob that Paul twisted off the end of his bed (basically, because he discovered that he could).

Miss Price says that the bed-knob will do nicely, and she casts a spell on it that will allow the children to travel to the destination of their choice when they put it back on the bed and give it a twist. If they turn it in one direction, they can travel in the present time, but turning it the other way can send them to the past. Also, because Paul was the one who had the bed-knob, he’s the only one who can make it work. Miss Price isn’t troubled by Paul’s young age because she thinks that it’s best to learn magic young, although she warns the children to be careful.

Because it’s Paul’s bed-knob, Carey and Charles give him first choice of where to go, but they think the places he wants to go sound mundane. He wants to either see a museum exhibit that the others saw without him once or to go home and see their mother in London. Carey and Charles try to persuade him to go someplace more exciting, but Paul insists that he wants to go home.

The bed whisks the children home to London, but when they get there, their mother isn’t home. Apparently, their mother has gone away for the weekend herself, and the children find themselves alone on their bed, in front of their house, on a foggy night. A policeman bumps into them, and when he demands to know who they are and where the bed came from, he doesn’t think it’s funny when they say, “Bedfordshire.” He takes them to the police station to spend the rest of the night. Fortunately, they find a way to get back to the bed and use the spell to return to their aunt’s house before they’re missed in the morning. It’s not quite the adventure that the children had been hoping for when they started out, but it’s just the beginning of their amazing summer!

However, magic turns out to be more dangerous than they thought. Their next adventure takes them to an island with cannibals (yeah, one of those scenes, sigh – I think that the island of talking animals in the movie was more fun), and they narrowly escape after Miss Price has a duel of magic with a witch doctor. Their magical adventures create problems that the children can’t explain to their aunt without giving away Miss Price’s secret. Eventually, their messes and wild stories cause their aunt to send them home to their mother. Miss Price considers that magic might cause more problems than it solves and tells the children that she’s thinking of giving it up for awhile. However, Paul keeps the bed-knob in the hopes that their adventures aren’t done yet.

BedKnobBroomstickChildren

Bonfires and Broomsticks

In Bonfires and Broomsticks, two years have passed since the children’s first adventures, and Aunt Beatrice has died. Carey and Charles, worried that Paul would talk too much about their magical adventures, tried to convince Paul that it was all just a dream, although they weren’t very successful.

Then, the children see an advertisement in the newspaper that Miss Price is offering to board a couple of schoolchildren in her house for the summer for a fee. The children’s mother works, and she always has to find somewhere for the children to spend the summer, when they’re not in school. They still have the bed-knob, so they tell their mother that they want to visit Miss Price, hoping they can have more adventures with her. At first, their mother doesn’t understand why they would want to visit Miss Price so badly, but since she seems like a nice, respectable woman and an old friend of Aunt Beatrice’s, she agrees.

Miss Price is happy to have the children stay for the summer, but they are disappointed when they learn that she was really serious about giving up magic. The children discover that Miss Price bought the old bed that they had used for their previous adventures at the estate sale after their aunt’s death. She’s been sleeping on it in her own room. They want to try the bed-knob on the bed, but Miss Price takes it from them. She tries to make their summer vacation a normal vacation with normal activities, like picnics and croquet.

But, even Miss Price can’t resist the opportunity to try the bed-knob one last time. One morning, Carey and Charles discover that Paul and Miss Price have traveled somewhere on the bed without them. When the two of them confront Paul about it, he says that they only went to a nearby town, just to see if the spell on the knob still worked. Carey and Charles understand, but Carey thinks that if they got to use the bed once more, she and Charles should have one more turn. She especially wants to try going into the past, which was something they hadn’t had a chance to try last time. Miss Price is reluctant, but finally agrees after Carey pressures her about it.

The children travel to London of 1666 (ending up there accidentally, when they were aiming for the Elizabethan era), where a man named Emelius Jones has been living as a necromancer. When he was young, he studied magic under a mentor who, as he was dying, finally told him that everything he learned was fakery. It was all an act that he used to get money from gullible people, although it paid very well. The old man leaves Emelius his business, but Emelius is always nervous, worrying both because someone might discover that it’s all a fake and because others might believe that it’s real and that he should be hung as a witch. The only reason why he stays with it is because he has no other business to follow.

The children meet Emelius after ending up lost and stopping at his house for directions. The children can see how nervous and unhappy Emelius is, and they ask him about himself, discovering that his home town is actually close to where they’re staying with Miss Price. They reveal to him that they are from the future and invite him to come home with them for a visit.

Miss Price isn’t happy to see that they’ve brought someone back from the past with them, but she ends up liking Emelius. Before sending him home, they learn that Emelius’s aunt, who lived near to where Miss Price now lives, died the same day that Emelius left London in the past, which is coincidentally shortly before the great fire that destroyed a good part of the city. They know that Emelius’s London lodgings will likely be destroyed in the fire as well, but at least he can move into the house that he will inherit from his aunt.

However, after they send him back to his own time, the children and Miss Price learn that Emelius never made it to his aunt’s house because he was executed for practicing witchcraft. Unable to leave poor Emelius to such a terrible fate, they come up with a plan to rescue him.

The combined book edition is available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

Changing Emelius’s past also changes Miss Price’s future. Neither of them has ever married, and both of them have been lonely, and they come to the conclusion that the two of them were meant to be together. In deciding that they will live their lives together on Emelius’s aunt’s farm in the past, they put an end to the magical traveling bed. Only Paul can make the magic bed-knob work, and once he sends them into the past (not going with them), they can never return. But, Carey has one final vision of the two of them, being happy together, so she knows that they will be alright.

Overall, I preferred the Disney movie to the original books.  I think the war-based plot was better than the children’s random travels to cannibal-filled islands (I never liked those tropes in children’s stories anyway) and other places.  At one point in the books, Carey did speculate about the use of magic in war, but she rejected the idea because the notion of someone with the ability to conjure a dragon that could breathe mustard gas or who could turn whole armies into mice was just too horrible.  The spell that Miss Price used against the Nazis in the movie was part of their plan to rescue Emelius in the second book, but I think the movie’s ending was much more exciting.