He did not know what fear was, and that not because he did not know danger; for he had had a severe laceration from the razor-like tusk of a boar — whose spine, however, he had severed with one blow of his hunting knife, before Fargu could reach him with defense. When he would spur his horse into the midst of a herd of bulls, carrying only his bow and his short sword, or shoot an arrow into a herd, and go after it as if to reclaim it for a runaway shaft, arriving in time to follow it with a spear thrust before the wounded animal knew which way to charge, Fargu thought with terror how it would be when he came to know the temptation of the huddle-spot leopards, and the knife-clawed lynxes, with which the forest was haunted. For the boy had been so steeped in the sun, from childhood so saturated with his influence, that he looked upon every danger from a sovereign height of courage.
-George MacDonald, “The Day Boy and the Night Girl”
Many fairy tale enthusiasts praise Scottish writer of children’s stories George MacDonald’s “The Princess and the Goblin.” A fine tale with an inventive plot and engaging characters, it’s a bit mystifying to some of us. Personally, I prefer the much more heavily allegorical “The Day Boy and the Night Girl: The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris.” The work, now part of the public domain, is available in full here.
It’s an strange story with archetypal resonance. A witch, Watho, plagued by a wolf in her mind, contrives to acquire two babies from two different mothers: Aurora, who is saturated with life and and light, and Vesper, who is blind and surrounded by darkness and sweet sorrow. The resulting children—Photogen, the Day Boy, and Nycteris, the Night Girl—are raised under eerie experimental conditions.
Photogen is allowed only and ever to sleep at night and bathe in the full light of the sun during the day, Watho avoiding even shadows as if these would hurt him. Nycteris is imprisoned in a strange room with only the light of a dim orb lamp to pierce the constant darkness of her confinement.
Their development and eventual meeting are deeply moving, even as bizarre and contrived as the story might seem. MacDonald’s detailed account of Nycteris’s inner world is fascinating and realistic, again despite the bizarre make-believe qualities of the story.
Photogen, an exaggeratedly masculine embodiment of life and light, does not have much of an inner world, driven instead to outward action and activity. If we take the light to be goodness, he is so saturated in all that is bright and good that he has no conception of darkness and depravity, which is not the same as knowing no danger or difficulty. That description of the “sovereign height of courage” captures the uncompromising vision of youth.
In a recent piece posted to Bright Wings Children’s Books, I wrote about “Mirette on the Highwire” by Emily Arnold McCully and reading literature from the perspective of innocence. Arnold McCully’s story brings a broken man into the vision of an innocent child, an experience that allows him to regain hope.
My focus in that piece was how good stories do not defile the innocent perspective and buoy the spirits of those tempted with cynicism. Far from being fragile, the innocent child is the only who is truly resilient. Having known innocence and the courage that comes with it, we have a refuge to return to amid the sad compromises and challenges of living in a complex world.
Some have accused MacDonald of a kind of Manichaeism, presenting light and darkness as equal forces. This is foolish. What Nycteris learns in her dim imprisonment is light, not darkness. The nature of light is more noticeable when there is little, and Nycteris enters deeply into contemplation of its beauty. She is, though, a remarkable child in the boredom of solitude. We should not deprive our children of the bright light in the hopes that they will appreciate their flashlight more, but raise them in the full light of day and prepare them for the time when the light will be harder to find.
St. Josemaria Escriva wrote, “The task for a Christian is to drown evil in an abundance of good. It is not a question of negative campaigns, or of being anti anything. On the contrary, we should live positively, full of optimism, with youthfulness, joy and peace.” Fretting about whether we are reading enough bad news or sharing enough harshness with our children is misplaced. There will be strife and difficulty; what there will not always be is an abundance of good.
When it comes to our family reading culture, this does not mean that we confine ourselves to upbeat stories without difficulty. That would be to raise a Photogen, secure in the “sovereign height of courage” until the shadows set in. Amid the bright and happy diversions of a healthy childhood, our stories can begin to suggest the challenges of living, navigating the path to maintaining peace and courage even when there is great difficulty.
Reading “Treasure Island,” happy children will shout, “For you, the name of rum is death!” while hearing tell of mutilated and alcoholic mutineers with great glee. The Ingalls family’s near starvation in “The Long Winter” makes for a great story because of its framing, and children can tolerate it well. “The Great Brain” faces continual conflict, both physical and emotional, but he brings great humor to it. Throughout these sometimes gritty stories we share with our children, the good always wins. But not without difficulty.
What our children see in such stories, time and again, with each bedtime read and morning story, is a person overcoming obstacles. It’s not all up to us, and we can sense that we have unwittingly arrived on the scene of a cosmic battle. But we have a part to play in focusing on the light—hope and possibility—when darkness seems to set in.
These musings are far from complete. The point is, of course, that “The Day Boy and the Night Girl” is a marvelous little story that will give you loads to think about.
If anyone could do with a fine hour of reading aloud, I would suggest the reading by Laurie Ann Walden. Part of the Librivox project compiling audiobooks in the public domain, this free recording is well done. Walden’s reading offers an appropriately serious tone, slow though not lethargic. She brings to life the imaginative universe of this fairy story.
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