Ursula Uilyams - The Further Adventures Of Gobbolino And The Little Wooden Horse

ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL HOWARD

FOREWORD BY PHILIPPA PEARCE

KingFisher

Publishers' Note:

The Publishers have used the first edition of The Further Adventures of Gobbolino and the Little Wooden Horse, published in Great Britain in 1984 by Puffin, for this publication. It is reproduced here complete and unabridged.

An imprint of Kingfisher Publications Pic

New Penderel House, 283288 High Holborn, London WC1V 7HZ

www.kingfisherpub.com

a Houghton Mifflin Company imprint

215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003

www.houghtonmifllinbooks.com

First published by Puffin in 1984

Phis edition published by Kingfisher 2002

(UK) 10 987654321

(US) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Text copyright Ursula Moray Williams 1984

Foreword copyright Philippa Pearce 2002

Author note copyright Kingfisher Publications Plc 2002

Cover and illustrations copyright Paul Howard 2002

The moral right of the foreword writer and artist has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-lUBLICATION DATA has been applied for.

ISBN 0 7534 0714 0 (UK)

ISBN 0 7534 5495 5 (US)

Printed in India

11 R/0S02/THOM/FH(MAR)/11SINDWF (W)

For Alexandra

Alas! I was born too early. In my own childhood I never knew Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse or Gobbolino the Witchs Cat. But both those heroes each in his separate book were there for my daughter when she was little. We loved them dearly and followed their adventures with breathless attention.

Oddly Gobbolinos great ambition since kittenhood was not to be a witchs cat (and, truly he was no good at the black arts, anyway). He wanted only to be like other cats: an ordinary kitchen cat by a warm, friendly hearth, with a saucer of milk. But how difficult to achieve! Once, as a ships cat at the very height of a storm whipped up by a sea witch, he refused just to save his own skin. Instead, he dared to counter-spell the witch ("Fiddlesticks to you, maam!") and so saved the ship and all its crew. But then the crew, in fear, turned against him and rejected him. He was homeless again. What little witchcraft he knew let him down.

Meanwhile, the little wooden horse was driven by a more straightforward ambition. Heroically, but without heroics, he resolved to earn enough money to save his dear creator and master, old Uncle Peder, from illness and penury. Like Gobbolino, and after as many hair-raising adventures, the little wooden horse achieved his particular ambition. Then he retired, so to speak. From Uncle Peders cosy fireside he remarked, with typical modesty: "I am a quiet little horse, and for ever after I shall be rather a dull one."

How little does he foresee his future!

Like so many eager readers, my daughter and I would have liked sequels, one for each of our heroes. The years passed; none came. Then at last in 1984 but at least in very good time for my grandchildren came The Further Adventures of Gobbolino and the Little Wooden Horse. Here were those two familiar characters, those two old friends of ours from their two separate storybooks coming together in one brand-new story, in one book. A rarity in literature, I believe; and, in this instance, a treasure.

Reading this third book I do fuller justice to Gobbolinos qualities. He is still comfort-loving that is cat nature. At the same time he is tender-hearted. He can respond he finds that he must respond to a difficult call on higher loyalty. One evening, after his milk in the farmhouse kitchen that is now his home, the little cat strolls out for a breath of fresh air before bed. A leaf has been dropped by a passing owl: "it stood out in the moonlight like a finger that beckoned". The leaf and the desperate message inscribed on it summon Gobbolino to the aid of his sister, Sootica, a thoroughgoing witchs cat, who still lives and works works mischief, of course with her mistress in the faraway Hurricane Mountains.

With hardly a hesitation, Gobbolino leaves kitchen, milk and all other cat comforts. He will make for those sinister mountains, although the way there, he knows, will be long, dangerous and lonely.

Lonely? Then where does the little wooden horse come into this story?

Later on the very same morning that Gobbolino sets out, the little wooden horse trundles off into the forest to pick blackberries for Uncle Peders wife, who will bottle them, and jam them, and bake them into pies. He is peacefully at work in a bramble-grown glade when... Who comes this way? A cat who is a stranger to him, a dark tabby with one white paw and rather surprising and surprised blue eyes.

And Gobbolino for the very first time sees a little wooden horse with green wheels, red saddle and blue stripes. "They greeted one another very civilly."

This all-important first meeting is low-key, like such classic first meetings as that of Holmes and Watson, or of Robin Hood and Little John. Yet note that, although the idea of the rescue mission is Gobbolino's, the little wooden horse is no mere sidekick. These two friends are equals, or rather, complementaries. A nearer approximation might be the first encounter of Ratty and Mole on the riverbank.

The enterprise to which our two heroes dedicate themselves leads to frightening adventures, and so the two of them how like us! are often frightened. But they never, ever give up. They are determined; they are resourceful. Above all, they both believe they know that they are doing the right thing, the good thing. The little wooden horse, for instance, is quite unused to the ways of witchcraft, but he always keeps a cool head, a clear vision. When he reproves the wayward and slippery Sootica, I seem again to hear the assured tones of my long-ago Headmistress at School Assembly.

I can reveal that the perilous undertaking of the two friends succeeds, against all odds and in an unexpected way. Then they go home. And thats the end of their adventures; but not, of course, of them. Just imagine: "They had promised to meet one another at the very earliest opportunity. It might even be tomorrow!.."

Great Shelford, 2002

One evening in late summer, Gobbolino the kitchen cat was basking on the steps of his happy home, and thinking how lucky he was to have arrived in such agreeable surroundings after all the adventures that had befallen him as a witchs kitten.

"And I hardly deserve it," thought little Gobbolino, "for I was born and bred and brought up in the cavern of a witch. My little sister Sootica was happy enough learning to make wicked spells, and inventing naughty tricks to play on people. I wonder what has become of her now?"

He could hardly remember his mother, Grimalkin, but his sister had once been dear to his heart, and he could not help thinking of her now and again. True, she had teased and scoffed at him and called him all kinds of unkind names, but in the end she had saved his life when the witch wanted to get rid of him, and he hoped she had not suffered for it on his account.

While he lay drowsing in the sun the farm children were busy at their tasks on the farm. The girls were helping their mother in the dairy making butter, skimming the cream and scalding the shining pans. The boys were working in the fields with their father, and presently everyone would come home to tea in the farmhouse, where nobody would pass him by without a kindly word or a chuck under the chin. It was a happy life for a kitchen cat, and Gobbolino expected it to last for ever.