His Box of Dark Materials (Part 2)
The Box of Delights, or When the Wolves Were Running (1935) is a children’s fantasy novel by John Masefield (UK Poet Laureate 1930-1967). It is a sequel to The Midnight Folk (1927) which first introduces the young protagonist, Kay Harker, and features a coven, talking animals, and the formidable governess, Sylvia Daisy Pouncer, and the wizard Abner Brown – who reappear in the sequel, up to more nefarious deeds. The Box of Delights is set over a particularly snowy Christmas, with the English countryside transformed into a landscape of magical immanence. It was made into a very successful and much-loved BBC TV series, broadcast over Christmas 1984, featuring Patrick Troughton (the 2nd Doctor Who) as a centuries old cunning man, Cole Hawlings, Patricia Quinn as Sylvia Daisy Pouncer, Robert Stephens as Abner Brown, and Devin Stanfield as Kay Harker. The production, directed by Renny Rye and adapted by Alan Seymour, won several BAFTAs and RTS awards and featured special FX that were cutting-edge for their time (and, costing one million pounds, made it the most expensive children’s series produced on British television to date). The opening credits are deeply eerie – behind-the-sofa stuff, enhanced by the haunting, magical theme tune combining ‘The First Nowell’ with the third movement of the ‘Carol Symphony’.
The similarities of elements to His Dark Materials is remarkable. A young protagonist is embroiled in a supernatural mystery, which plunges them into an estranged, uncanny version of England; they are gifted a much sought after magical device, the titular Box of Delights, which affords the bearer magical powers (to shrink and to ‘go swift’); there is a sinister ‘Theological College’, where dark deeds are afoot; animals play a prominent part – a white horse that flies, wolves, stags – with characters turning into them (Herne the Hunter) or existing as unsettling hybrids (Pirate Rats); there is a flying car (foreshadowing the Intention Craft); adults are peculiar and distant, being either allies or enemies, with agency focused on the children; Sylvia Daisy Pouncer is an elegant, but ruthless femme fatale; and there is a rather spirited young girl, the tomboyish Jemima (a proto-Lyra figure). There is a steampunkish Brazen Head, and the summoning of demons. There is a brace of rather sinister vicars, and a backdrop of religiosity. The wintry landscape evokes the ambience of the Northern Lights. And when choristers are kidnapped by the malevolent monks they are ‘scrobbled’, rather like the Gobblers of Northern Lights – Mrs Coulter’s General Oblation Board, stealing children to gain access to the secret of dust.
It is as though Pullman took The Box of Delights as his source text, and rewrote it with the sensibilities of the late 20th Century – not to devalue his towering achievement. His Dark Materials is a worthy addition to a distinctly English strain of Fantasy, alongside Alice in Wonderland; Lud-in-the-Mist, The Lord of the Rings; The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Gormenghast. Pullman clearly drew upon many other influences too – not least John Milton’s Paradise Lost, but The Box of Delights preceded it by decades (1935; 1984), and is worth hunting down for any die-hard fans of His Dark Materials, or British winter-based Fantasy in general (of which there is a small, but distinct body of work). Its Special FX may not satisfy modern CGI-saturated audiences, although many work charmingly well within the context of a Children’s Fantasy, but there is true enchantment to be found here. The Box of Delights captures the magic of Christmas, as does our next Yuletide classic.
In the final part of this blog, I’ll discuss the other wintry classic that forms a stepping stone to His Dark Materials
