The Box of Delights: Or When the Wolves Were Running (Kay Harker)

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Strange things begin to happen the minute young Kay Harker boards the train to go home for Christmas and finds himself under observation by two very shifty-looking characters. Arriving at his destination, the boy is immediately accosted by a bright-eyed old man with a mysterious message: “The wolves are running.” Soon danger is everywhere, as a gang of criminals headed by the notorious wizard Abner Brown and his witch wife Sylvia Daisy Pouncer gets to work. What does Abner Brown want? The magic box that the old man has entrusted to Kay, which allows him to travel freely not only in space but in time, too. The gang will stop at nothing to carry out their plan, even kidnapping Kay’s friend, the tough little Maria Jones, and threatening to cancel Christmas celebrations altogether. But with the help of his allies, including an intrepid mouse, a squadron of Roman soldiers, the legendary Herne the Hunter, and the inventor of the Box of Delights himself, Kay just may be able rescue his friend, foil Abner Brown’s plot, and save Christmas, too." In the busy market-place there were open-air booths selling all manner of matters for Christmas; chiefly woollen mufflers, nailed boots, cloth caps, hedger’s gloves and the twenty-eight-pound cheeses, known as Tatchester Double Stones." After a seemingly chance encounter on a train, orphaned schoolboy Kay Harker finds himself the guardian of a small wooden box with powers beyond his wildest dreams. If you cannot open a .mobi file on your mobile device, please use .epub with an appropriate eReader. Hely-Hutchinson: The BBC man who created the ultimate Christmas music". About the BBC. 13 December 2016.

Can there be a more Christmassy book, this side of old Ebenezer's adventures with his trio of spirits, than The Box of Delights by John Masefield?

In 1894, Masefield boarded the Gilcruix, destined for Chile. He recorded his experiences while sailing through the extreme weather. Upon reaching Chile, Masefield suffered from sunstroke and was hospitalized. He eventually returned home to England as a passenger aboard a steam ship.

When Masefield was 23, he met his future wife, Constance Crommelin, who was 35. Educated in classics and English Literature, and a mathematics teacher, Constance was a perfect match for Masefield despite the difference in age. The couple had two children (Judith, born in 1904, and Lewis, in 1910). Masefield has a way with a well-turned, memorable sentence: "And now, Master Harker, now that the Wolves are Running, perhaps you could do something to stop their Bite?"

Contents

I had high expectations for this book, and while I did enjoy it, I was a little disappointed. The plot has many gaping holes in it, the characters act in ways that don't really make sense, and I never did figure out WHY exactly the villains wanted to steal the Box of Delights. In fact, the whole book is shot through with a folklorish, mythological flavour, and even the "real" world that Kay inhabits is peopled by a cast of often eerie, mysterious, enigmatic and sometimes downright scary figures. Masefield then, at the drop of a hat, switches between his poetic descriptions and episodes that are downright fairytale-ish or Narnia-esque, with talking animals and mice armed with sewing-needle rapiers. Kay Harker is returning from boarding school when he finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box. It allows the owner to shrink in size, to fly swiftly, to go into the past and to experience the magical wonders contained within the box. Poet John Masefield's 1935 British Empire-era fantasy finds twelve-year-old Kay Harker home from his boarding school just in time to help a magical old Punch and Judy showman. At least, that seems to be what happens. The plot's pretty convoluted. But the images Masefield conjures up are gorgeous. Young Kay Harker, returning from school to his family home Seekings and his festive visitors in the shape of a gang of cousins, is given the Box of the title to care for and protect by a mysterious travelling Punch and Judy man, Cole Hawlings. As is the case in these types of books, the Box is a treasure of such magnitude that by rights it should be entrusted to a private army rather than a small boy, and it isn't long before a gang of crooks with a rather magical bent, led by the dark Abner Brown, are on its trail and menacing Kay and his cousins.

John Masefield adapted an opera libretto from his book, also incorporating elements of The Midnight Folk, which was eventually set to music in the late 1980s by the British composer Robert Steadman. Asked why, Errington added: “He was a very bad businessman and when people came to him and asked to do movie adaptations of his plays and novels, he simply said no or held out for ridiculously high contracts. Stylistically it's dated - with Enid Blyton-y dialogue. The magic seems barely thought out and apart from a few good moments at the start is pretty mundane. The writing of the action ending is really bad and you barely get any sense of real geography or concrete quality to it. The deus ex machina has nothing to do with the main story or plot and the boy hero is basically a witness to events that do not require any action on his part. Also, The way the police and grown ups behave in response to the children going missing is totally unbelievable and though you might get away with it once - afterall grownups in kids books are always a little clueless - The fact everyone reacts this way as multiple characters are kidnapped in suspicious circumstances starts to stretch my credulity to the limit. Tis the night before Christmas and the author is having an adventure too, with language and history and legends and dreamscapes and so much more, and all of this done with a certain nonchalance because it's not like he hasn't done this sort of thing before! The owner of the box is an old Punch and Judy man called Cole Hawlins, whom Kay meets on a railway station. They have an instant rapport, and this leads Cole to confide that he is being chased by a man called Abner Brown and his gang. For safety, Cole entrusts the box to Kay, who then goes on to have many adventures."

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The Box of Delights is a children's fantasy novel by John Masefield. It is a sequel to The Midnight Folk, and was first published in 1935. It is also known as When The Wolves Were Running. So far, so fairly traditional children's fantasy. But its Christmas setting in a snowbound corner of England (with particular resonances for this very festive season - all the grown-ups conspire to be snowed in elsewhere, leaving the children pretty much alone to enjoy their travails) and the dreamy, poetic language of author John Masefield come together to make it something of a seasonal classic that certainly bears repeat readings year after year. Masefield was born in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. After his father's death he was looked after by an uncle. Young Masefield wanted to be a merchant marine officer. At 13 he boarded the training ship Conway moored in the river Mersey. After two and a half years on the school ship he was apprenticed aboard a sailing ship that was bound for Chile by way of Cape Horn. In Chile he became ill and had to return to England by steamer. He left the sea and spent several years living in the United States, working chiefly in a carpet factory. At one time, in 1895, he worked for a few months as a sort of third assistant bar-keeper and dish-washer in Luke O'Connor's saloon, the Columbia Hotel, in New York City. He later wrote about that period of his life in an autobiographical work, 'In the Mill', published in 1941. A good mouse tells Kay of the evil Rat's plan to poison the cats at Seekings, and it's all very interesting and exciting, and devious plans laid by the evil gang of Rats. And then it NEVER happens. The cats are never mentioned again, like they never existed. What is happening here? What is wrong with this plot?

There is SO much in this book that I'm surprised editors didn't catch and go, 'hang on a minute...', etc. He told the Guardian: “It is absolutely the case that the first words spoken on the stage of the newly rebuilt Shakespeare Memorial theatre were by Masefield rather than Shakespeare as he was poet laureate. He also had an association with Stratford. He had written a book on Shakespeare in 1911 and was forever going to see productions.” What a difference a few decades (and the full text) make! I’m so glad I’ve returned to this amazing story. I see it as a bridge between George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis, bringing in elements of almost every story before and after it. It is a continuous story, but it’s also a series of episodes that sometimes veer into the bizarre. For example, most of the town is “scrobbled” by a gang, and no one, including the police, seems to care very much, even about small children being whisked away for days at a time. Kay seems to have total freedom to do anything he likes, which sometimes involves adventures that could be extremely perilous. For me, though, all of this works together in a dreamy story that invites all kinds of symbolic interpretation but will never reveal whether any particular interpretation is intended. I wouldn’t want it to make any more logical sense than it does—though I see that this mysterious, mystical aspect of it was surely too much for my elementary-school understanding. I only wish I’d rediscovered it in time to read it to my kids. We would have had a grand time laughing and puzzling through it together. Then there's Kay. People offer Kay money, mysterious and fabulous gifts, opportunities to time travel and experience magical events, and speak of him and to him as though he is the King of England. No reason is given for this. He does not appear to be nobility, particularly smart, or particularly good looking. He lives in a manor house, has an endless supply of funds, and his only guardian is "the beautiful Caroline Louisa." Where are his parents? Who is Caroline Louisa? At first I thought she was his sister, but she's more like a nanny, I guess. He's apparently so wonderful that all he needs in the way of guardianship is a beautiful young woman to cater to his every whim. Eleven-year-old me would have been enchanted with all the period detail & would have giddily given it four stars. Old-old me says, eh, it's a three.Riding the train home for the Christmas holidays, prep school boy Kay Harker meets Punch and Judy man Cole Hawlings. Gnomically warning him that “the wolves are running”, Hawlings entrusts Kay with the eponymous Box of Delights. Kay must guard the Box from the gangster wizard Abner Brown and his gang (who are all disguised as vicars). Fortunately the Box allows him to “go small’ and “go swift” as well as travel in time, enabling Kay to enlist the help of figures from history and folklore, fairies, and a host of talking fauna.