Nobby
“Oh, to glory be!”
Nobby’s signature oath in The Witch Family puts me in mind of Samantha’s “My stars!” in the old Bewitched television series (see Oct. 4). Exclamations like this present a small but thorny problem in the popular witch oeuvres. We can’t really have “Heavens!” for instance, since that’s where the Lord lives. And so far we’ve mostly managed to sweep the whole un-Christian aspect of witchcraft under the rug.
I for one am happy to leave it there.
Though Nobby is her actual name, the character is mostly referred to as “Old Witch” in Eleanor Estes’s lovely 1960 children’s novel (illustrated by Edward Ardizzone). It’s one of those books that I stumbled on at just the right moment in childhood to be utterly carried away.
The story in a nutshell: Amy and Clarissa, two little girls who love to draw together, spin a tale through their pictures about mean old wicked Old Witch, whom Amy has “banquished” to a lonely glass hill to learn to be good. If she complies, Old Witch will be allowed to participate in the hurly-burlies on Halloween, when a witch of her reputation is most definitely wanted. Being nice girls, the two take pity on Old Witch and limn a Little Witch and then a Weeny Witch to keep her company, thus forming the witch family of the title.
The two stories unfold in parallel: the girls drawing together on Garden Lane in Washington, D.C., and the witches amplifying up on the glass hill whatever has been sketched down below. Estes toggles between the two narratives so adroitly that it all “reads” as one. And in fact, when I first read the book, I missed the trick entirely: the drawings were just drawings, a coincidence. While it’s nice, rereading the book now, to be able to appreciate the author’s craft—she exactly captures the give-and-take of kids making believe—I can’t help lamenting the loss of that childish naivete that once made the story so magical.
Nobby’s signature oath in The Witch Family puts me in mind of Samantha’s “My stars!” in the old Bewitched television series (see Oct. 4). Exclamations like this present a small but thorny problem in the popular witch oeuvres. We can’t really have “Heavens!” for instance, since that’s where the Lord lives. And so far we’ve mostly managed to sweep the whole un-Christian aspect of witchcraft under the rug.
I for one am happy to leave it there.
Though Nobby is her actual name, the character is mostly referred to as “Old Witch” in Eleanor Estes’s lovely 1960 children’s novel (illustrated by Edward Ardizzone). It’s one of those books that I stumbled on at just the right moment in childhood to be utterly carried away.
The story in a nutshell: Amy and Clarissa, two little girls who love to draw together, spin a tale through their pictures about mean old wicked Old Witch, whom Amy has “banquished” to a lonely glass hill to learn to be good. If she complies, Old Witch will be allowed to participate in the hurly-burlies on Halloween, when a witch of her reputation is most definitely wanted. Being nice girls, the two take pity on Old Witch and limn a Little Witch and then a Weeny Witch to keep her company, thus forming the witch family of the title.
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| Heh-heh! Dancing the “backanally.” |
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