The Midnight Folk Quotes

“He had some old lumps of sugar put away under the carpet. He took out one of these and carefully opened the bottle. The mixture had a warm, rich smell, like the smell of green bracken on a very hot day. 'I must be very careful of this,' he thought. He dropped three drops onto a lump, popped it into his mouth, and restoppered the vial. A glow went through him, as though he were sucking the loveliest peppermint ever made. He hid the vial in a mouse hole in the skirting board behind the valance, and then stood up. He felt a pepperminty feeling go tingling along his toes, and lo, he looked at his toes and could not see them, nor his legs, nor his pajamas. And though he looked at himself in the glass, he was not there; he was invisible. 'I say, what fun,' he said.”
― John Masefield, The Midnight Folk

“Within a minute he had squirmed down feet foremost into this cellar, to explore. The phantom cat had long since gone by another hole between the stones, through which he could see into the garden. He could find no other opening. Roots of ivy thrust into the ground among the masonry; tendrils of ivy with bright, pale leaves had trailed in through the holes. There were slug tracks on the floor and walls. A dead centipede was phosphorescent in a corner.

'What a lovely place,' Kay thought. 'I shall be able to come here always and have it for my cave. I’ll bring bread and ham here. I’ll keep a catapult here. Perhaps I’ll run away some evening and sleep here. I wish I could get one of those lanterns with colored lights; that would be just the thing for here.”
― John Masefield, The Midnight Folk

“Outside the stable, on the walls which seemed to be directly over his lair, he noticed the toadflax. It had little, mouthed flowers of palest purple touched with gold, which reminded him of snapdragons, violets, and sweet peas. It had vivid green leaves and thrusters of purple. Noticing it for the first time on this exciting day in that place, he remembered it always, as something even more strangely beautiful than most flowers.”
― John Masefield, The Midnight Folk