Elizabeth Goudge: ‘The Well of the Star’

Much has been made of the influence of Elizabeth Goudge’s Little White Horse on Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter books — and with good reason. As I detail in the last chapter of Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures, beyond Ms. Rowling’s pointing to that fantasy as a favorite of her childhood and saying it was a “direct influence” on her work “perhaps more than any other,” Horse’s structure, symbols, and anagogical freight would tell us the same. In brief, the model for what Harry represents, the polarities of the magical world, and the alchemical artistry of Ms. Rowling’s work can be found in Ms. Goudge’s classic.

Beth, dear friend of that blog and writer at BookwormJournal, found another Goudge story, a Christmas tale titled ‘The Well of the Star,’ that additionally seems a potential influence, particularly with respect to mirrors

and sacred sight (Coleridge’s natural theology, i.e., the hermetic concept of reflection and recognition as the heart of knowledge and Communion). Beth’s helpful comments and citations are here and I recommend them. Little White Horse readers will remember first the well in Merryweather Manor’s walled courtyard where the heroine of that story finds the hidden string of pearls, essentially “those of great price,” that resolve the contraries of the magical valley and next Loveday’s silver mirror, in which Maria sees her golden aura. Goudge is a wonder; as Ms. Rowling said about Horse, it “is a very well-constructed and intelligent book and the more you read it, the cleverer it appears.” “intelligent,” I’m afraid, doesn’t do it justice.

More tomorrow on perhaps the original Logos mirror in English fiction, the Shepherd’s Palace mirror in Pilgrim’s Progress! Thanks to Beth for finding and sharing that neglected Goudge classic.