by John Granger
In each generation a Moon Princess returns to Moonacre to unite the two sides of the family; her Moon Merryweathers with the Sun Merryweathers. And in each generation she succeeds, but only temporarily. She then goes away like the original Moon Princess.
Maria is this generation’s Moon Princess, and the Old Parson believes she can unite the opposites and resolve the contraries of centuries. Maria takes up her part as Moon Princess with gusto. On her first day at the manor she had discovered a painting over the fireplace mantel that “showed a little pure-white horse and a brave-looking tawny animal rather like Wrolf [Sir Benjamin’s lion in residence] cantering along a forest glade together.” She asks Sir Benjamin the meaning of the words carved in the mantel, “The brave soul and the pure spirit shall with a merry and a loving heart inherit the kingdom together.” He tells her it is the family motto and “perhaps, a device for linking together those four qualities that go to making up perfection—courage, purity, love, and joy.”
Maria, consequently, sets about uniting the divided lion and unicorn by linking these four qualities and undoing the sins of Sir Wrolf. She agrees to marry Robin, the poor boy who is the son of Loveday Minette, the Moon Princess of the previous generation who had quarreled with Sir Benjamin before her marriage to him.
The biggest challenge of the book, of course, is reconciling the descendants of Black William, the evil poachers and thieves in the Pine Woods led by the evil Monsieur Cocq de Noir, to the Merryweathers. Maria makes two trips into the forest to confront Monsieur Cocq de Noir and convince him to give up his evil ways. The first ends disastrously with the castle lord trying to capture Maria and Robin and throw them in his dungeon. Only the return of the first Moon Princess’s pearls, which he believes are his by right and proof that Sir Wrolf did not kill Black William ages ago, will make him change his evil ways. Maria finds the string of pearls hidden in the Moonacre Manor well and discovers Black William’s secret cave and ship that prove that Wrolf did not murder William. Eventually everyone agrees to reconcile.
All of the separated and quarreling couples are then united. Loveday Minette and Sir Benjamin, Miss Heliotrope and the Old Parson, Maria and Robin, all pictures of the lion and the unicorn, all marry and live happily ever after. Now that we have a basic understanding of The Little White Horse, we can see the many ways in which it corresponds with the Harry Potter tales.
Echoed Story Points in The Little White Horse and Harry Potter
The shades of The Little White Horse in Harry Potter range from the trivial hat-tip in items like living chess pieces to the scaffolding of the stories and the symbolism of the principal character in each. Ms. Rowling wasn’t kidding or even being especially generous when she said The Little White Horse has a “direct influence on the Harry Potter books.”
Obvious echoes include the evil lurking in the Pine Woods behind Moonacre Manor that Sir Benjamin tells Maria she is not allowed to enter and the Forbidden Forest bordering Hogwarts. The evil men in Horse’s forest are referred to as “they” by the good guys for most of the story just as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named remained a nameless taboo through the Potter epic. More important, the great chasm and conflict in the world is between the descendants of Black William and Sir Wrolf Merryweather in Horse, which sees its equivalent in the Wizarding world divide between the Houses of Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin, two of Hogwarts’s founders.
To bridge this divide, both worlds require alchemical magic. Moonacre Manor has its quarreling couple of Sun and Moon Merryweathers (Sir Benjamin and later Robin as the sun, Loveday Minette and then Maria as the moon), the brave soul and pure spirit unable to join themselves into a union that will help them “inherit the kingdom together.” Every page of Horse, it seems, includes at least one and often-times more than one mention of this essential polarity of gold and silver, sun and moon, flushed and pale, or hot and dry versus cold and moist.
Harry’s world is similarly represented with Ron and Hermione as a sulfuric and mercurial quarreling couple in a world with a central division and antagonism. Both the Wizarding world and Silverydew valley require a savior from the “outer world,” and Maria Merryweather and Harry Potter could be fraternal twins in this respect. Both are orphans who become aware at a young age that they belong in a world hidden within the mundane existence in which they have grown up. Maria travels by carriage through the tunnel to Silverydew valley and Moonacre Manor; Harry passes through the barrier at King’s Cross Station for the Hogwarts Express train to Hogwarts castle and Hogsmeade. Both are secret passages to a more wonderful, magical place where the orphan-saviors have a great destiny.
Maria soon learns that the people of the village think she is the prophesied deliverer, the Moon Princess of her generation: “Be you the one, my dear?” they whisper to her after her first trip to the Silverydew church (Horse, chapter three, part two). Harry, “The Boy Who Lived,” of course, is known almost universally as the “Chosen One.” And this is only the beginning of their list of likenesses: • Maria is a natural horseback rider, her birthright it seems as a Merryweather. Harry is a born Seeker, broom flyer, and Quidditch player, supposedly gifts he has inherited from his father, James.
• Both Maria at Moonacre and the students at Hogwarts are served by invisible servants who are attentive to their every need. Maria’s helpers are eventually revealed to be Loveday Minette and Marmaduke Scarlet and the Hogwarts’s keepers and cooks turn out to be the house-elves.
• Both worlds have lions that take care of the hero or heroine. At Hogwarts Harry lives in Gryffindor House, whose symbol is a red lion. Maria, by looking into the eyes of Wrolf, the tawny manor lion, becomes his “possession” and the subject of his special protection. The red lion in alchemical symbolism is a token of the “elixir of life” and is used in heraldic devices as a symbol of Christ, whose blood means eternal life to believers. Wrolf the lion appears at Moonacre Manor on Christmas morning once each generation before the Moon Princess arrives at the manor.
• Each book has its unicorn that takes on the allegorical role of Christ. Harry discovers a slain unicorn in the Forbidden Forest and a serpentine creature drinking its blood for physical salvation. Maria’s unicorn saves her life from the evil men of the forest (much as the Stag Patronus saves Harry in Prisoner of Azkaban) and again by illuminating the dark heart of Cocq de Noir on her walk with him into the forest.
• Maria meets Loveday Minette, the previous generation’s Moon Princess, at the Old Parson’s house and becomes her close friend. Harry’s friend Luna Lovegood resembles Loveday in appearance and in both the sound and meaning of her name (“Luna” means “moon” in Latin).
• Both books have nonspeaking magical animals besides a red lion, most especially a cat of notable intelligence. Sirius calls Crookshanks “the most intelligent of his kind I ever met” (Prisoner of Azkaban, chapter nineteen), and Maria admires the brilliant cat Zachariah as “no ordinary cat,” an estimation qualifying as risible understatement (Horse, chapter ten, part two).
• Both Maria and Harry live in worlds where the generations echo previous generations in characters and in their relationships. Harry’s father had two close friends and a hanger-on with a Slytherin rival; Harry does, too. Maria and Robin are generational reflections of Sir Benjamin and Loveday and all the Sun and Moon Merryweathers back to Sir Wrolf and the Moon Princess, all in conflict with Black William’s descendants in the Dark Forest.
• Harry is tutored by Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of his age, who recognizes and fosters Harry’s ability to defeat Lord Voldemort. Maria is given private instruction about her destiny by the Old Parson, the “true king of this small kingdom” as Sir Benjamin puts it. The Old Parson is the spiritual director of all of Silverydew and he reveals to Maria the prophesied role she is to play in uniting the Merryweathers and ending the curse of Sir Wrolf.
• On her first trip into the forest, Maria finds the answer to the mystery of what happened to Black William by following a rabbit, in Alic
e fashion, “down a rabbit hole” at the base of a pine tree into a cavern wonderland (Horse, chapter ten, part four). Harry’s first adventure in Sorcerer’s Stone ends with him traveling “through the trapdoor” “miles under the school” and discovering the answers to that year’s mysteries (Sorcerer’s Stone, chapter sixteen).
• Harry’s penultimate, solo, and sacrificial confrontation with Voldemort comes in the Forbidden Forest in a chapter titled, “The Forest Again.” Maria makes her second trip into the forest by herself and bets her life and freedom to master Cocq de Noir.
If I had to choose the main similarity between Harry and Maria, though, it would be that they are both the spirit aspect in the story triptych of mind, body, and spirit. I’ve already discussed Harry as the Alyosha/Kirk/Frodo of his adventures and the spiritual leader of Hermione, who is the mind, and of Ron, who is the body or the passions (see chapters seven and eight). Maria plays a similar role in Horse.
Maria, as described in the Merryweather family motto and emblem, is “pure spirit,” the elusive unicorn; Sir Benjamin Merryweather is the lion, a “brave soul,” subject to Maria’s direction in almost everything; and Monsieur Cocq de Noir is the darkness of the unconscious passions. She masters her Merryweather anger, pride, and curiosity, putting off her Voldemort Horcrux, if you will, transcending her persona and ego to be the savior of her small Silverydew world.
Goudge reflects Maria’s unique spiritual capacity in her eyes and the ability she has to see things others cannot. Most notably, of course, her ability to see the little white horse, the unicorn of the Moon Maiden. But she also connects with every principal character and sees their fundamental or potential goodness by looking in their eyes; and they, in turn, recognize who she is by looking into her eyes. Ms. Rowling echoes this linking of eyes and spiritual vision throughout her books.
Severus Snape and Lily’s Green Eyes
The overwhelming symbolism of Deathly Hallows is not solar and lunar, silver and gold allusions as it is in Little White Horse but one of sight and, weirdly, eyeballs. There is Mad-Eye Moody’s disembodied eye that Harry rescues and buries, the “triangular eye” of the Hallows symbol, and the demonic eyes of Tom Riddle, Jr., in the locket Horcrux. There are two other images in Deathly Hallows that I want to focus on here because of their literary relevance and their transcendental significance.
The first of these Deathly Hallows eye symbols is the green eyes of Harry’s mother, Lily (and Harry himself), and their importance to Severus Snape, especially at his death. As mentioned earlier, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s books A Little Princess and The Secret Garden feature characters whose eyes are green, “just like their mother’s,” and whose vision or way of seeing things is magical, even what saves them. But these green eyes are not Burnett’s invention. The emphasis on green eyes may well be a reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Green eyes, belonging here to Dante’s love, Beatrice, appear at perhaps the most critical moment of Dante’s journey when he has come to the gates of Paradise after being guided through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil. The nymphs there draw him through the River Lethe to wash away his memories and he is granted a vision through the green eyes of his beloved Beatrice, who appears in a chariot drawn by a giant red and gold Griffin (the source of Hogwarts’s “golden Griffin,” or in French “Griffin d’or”).
The Griffin is half eagle (king of heaven) and half lion (king of earth) and is, consequently, a traditional symbol of Christ, the King of Heaven and Earth. Dante has a vision of Christ in Beatrice’s eyes, a vision he experiences as sacramental, after which he enters Paradise. He travels from sphere to sphere there by looking each time again into his beloved’s green eyes for transcendence.
As a result of his devotion to Lily, Snape’s experience with Harry’s eyes—eyes inherited from his mother—carries the same level of spiritual importance. Severus Snape, you recall, had a long-standing love for Lily Evans (later Potter). Once friends, Severus’s fascination with the Dark Arts and his companionship with potential Death Eaters led to a break in their relationship. He continued to love her, and, perversely, even hoped that he could win her affections after the Dark Lord killed James Potter and Lily’s son, Harry. But Snape pledged his life to Dumbledore to protect her from Voldemort and later makes a pledge to protect Harry once Dumbledore tells him that the boy has his mother’s eyes (Deathly Hallows, chapter thirty-three). The shape and color of Harry’s eyes trigger remorse or grief in Severus, “what Dumbledore would call love,” the agony that makes him a great Occlumens and double agent, and the love that moves him to sacrifice his public life to protect Lily’s son, the prophesied vanquisher of Lord Voldemort. We see what value these eyes have to Snape in the many times he locks eyes with Harry and most especially in his final request at his death that Harry “Look . . . at . . . me . . . .” (Deathly Hallows, chapter thirty-two).
Cleansed of his memories, having sacrificed his all in love and fidelity, Snape’s final vision is of Lily’s green eyes; and we are led to believe that through those eyes, like Dante, he transcends his failings and enters Paradise.3
Dumbledore’s Eye in the Mirror: The Seeing Eye and I
Harry’s green eyes and their similarity to his mother’s are mentioned in each book, often more than once, as setups for this giant payoff in the Shrieking Shack at Snape’s demise. As important as Harry’s green eyes is the single eye of Dumbledore that Harry sees twice in Deathly Hallows in the shard of the mirror given him by his godfather. This eye acts as both a story frame and a key to what Rowling says is the meaning of the entire series of books.4
The first time Harry sees Dumbledore in the mirror is after he reads the interview with Rita Skeeter in the Daily Prophet featuring nasty bits of misinformation about Dumbledore and Harry. He is outraged and sees “a flash of brightest blue” on the mirror shard he is holding. The second time he sees the “brightest blue” of Dumbledore’s gaze, he is trying to escape the cellar of Malfoy Manor and save Hermione from Bellatrix’s torture. He asks Dumbledore for help and Dobby appears to help them escape. Though Dobby is killed in the process, this vision leads to Harry’s renewed faith in Dumbledore. In both instances, Harry’s glimpse of the eye is connected with his faith or loyalty to Dumbledore. But this “eye” in the mirror holds even greater meaning in terms of Harry’s identity and his victory over the Dark Lord.
Of Course It’s All in Your Head, Harry: Harry Potter and Logos
As discussed in chapter eight, Christians believe that reality is the creation of God’s Word or Logos. Jesus of Nazareth was the historical incarnation of this Logos as perfect humanity. Christians believe it is through him and the sacraments of his Church that human beings consciously commune with the fabric and substance of reality, the Logos.
The prologue of the gospel according to John describes this Logos this way:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not . . .
That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (John 1:1-5, 9, KJV)
This last verse cuts right to the heart of Harry’s story and our experience of it. Jesus explains to the Pharisees that as Logos and God, “I am the light of the world: he that fol loweth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” The Logos principle that creates all things is light, life, and, most important for this discussion, the “true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Every person has a Logos within them that is their light. Jesus calls this light our “eye ” in the Sermon on the Mount verses immediately after the verse on Ariana Dumbledore’s tombstone:The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23, KJV)
When Harry Potter looks into his godfather’s mirror, consequently, and sees an “eye” where his “I” (his own image) should be, we shouldn’t be surprised. As a story symbol for the Logos quality in us all, Harry is the seeing eye. As we increasingly identify with Harry as the story continues, and as we are sucked into his perspective, we begin to read and experience the story through the luminous eye of the heart in each of us. Our spiritual faculty, in other words, is awakened, engaged, and to some degree illumined or cleansed by Harry’s inner victory and cathartic defeat of the Dark Lord.
This Logos, which “lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” is our mind and conscience as well as our spiritual faculty. The Logos recognizes itself in each created thing. In other words, it is both the knowing subject and the known object—our minds are the place where they meet. To know the fabric of reality and the substance of all existence, to commune with what is real beyond the surface, in the Christian view, then, means fostering the light, life, and love within us that is this Logos. Believe it or not, that is largely the message of Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories.
Think about Harry’s conversation with Dumbledore at King’s Cross, especially their final exchange (Deathly Hallows, chapter thirty-five). The author has admitted quite openly that this exchange is perhaps the critical part of the book for understanding her work:
Q: There’s this dialogue between Harry and Professor Dumbledore: “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
A: And Dumbledore says: “Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth would that mean that it is not real?” That dialogue is the key; I’ve waited seventeen years to use those lines. Yes, that’s right. All this time I’ve worked to be able to write those two phrases; writing Harry entering the forest and Harry having that dialog [sic].5