THE SOGMARSH NURSERY BOOKS

A note on the use of these books — printed at the front of every edition, by order of the parish, whether anybody reads it or not.

From the nurse, to whoever comes after.

These are the tales we tell the small ones at bedtime. They are set down here because I am tired of being asked to remember them at short notice, and because I will not always be here to be asked.

You will notice they are not the tales they tell in drier countries. In drier countries the wolf is wicked and the fairy is sweet and the moral is that virtue is rewarded. We have tried that here. It does not survive contact with the weather.

Each one has a bit the children shout. Let them shout it. That is not the interruption. That is the tale. A story a child cannot join in with is a story a child is only being told at, and we have quite enough of that from the castle.

You will be asked why our tales end badly, or sideways, or in a damp bedsit with an argument about the sink. Here is your answer, and you may give it to any dry-country visitor who raises an eyebrow.

We do not tell our children that virtue is rewarded. We would be lying, and they would find out, and they would find out from the weather. What we tell them instead is this: the house will leak, the gift will have a clause in it, the wolf will very often be right, and the person who does the worst job in your life will never once be thanked unless you do it.

And then we tell them the other half, which the dry countries have somehow contrived to lose: that none of that is the end of anything. The wolf found the boy. The girl left the broth out. The dish and the spoon are still arguing, twenty years on, in the same small room, together.

A child who is told only that things go well will be broken by the first winter. A child who is told only that things go badly will not bother to try. We tell them both, in the dark, over the drip — and in the morning they get up and go out into a sinking realm and are, on the whole, remarkably decent about it.

They are not cheerful because we lied to them. They are cheerful because we did not, and they decided to be cheerful anyway. That is the only magic in Sogmarsh, and it is entirely home-made.