The Power of Myth

My Grandmother used to tell me stories of how much she loved being a poor and carefree child on Drummond Island during her growing up years.  She would recount running through meadows and woods, chasing cows to bring them back home.  Her voice would crack in a high pitched soprano as she channelled that inner child shouting a list of names of the cows -- all of whom had profoundly Finnish names which only enhanced the other-worldly quality of the entire story.

We knew, of course, that her childhood house had burned to the ground one night and after her mother's death, the twins had been given away and they moved from house to house as their overworked step mother gave up on caring for a whole second family full of children.  That her version of those years was so magically happy was part of the spell she wound.

As an adult I discovered in one of the thousands of letters she sent and archived, the story of Mr. Hilden's Dream Castle (click the link for the whole effect), and I'm recounting it in part here:

In my childhood I knew several colorful characters who lived a hermit-like life. Victor Hilden was not exactly what you would call a hermit. Like Edgar Guest he lived in a house by the side of the road. People speculated about his past, but he kept it all a deep secret. Not only was he a friend to man, but he especially loved all children. He bore a remarkable resemblance to that other friend of children, St. Nicholas: a shock of snow white hair, a handlebar mustache, pink cheeks and a jolly laugh.

Mr. Hilden lived in a shack with no floor and only one room. During the winter the chickens lived inside with him and his horse, John, had an adjoining stable. You can well imagine what a fascinating place this was for the children who visited him! He would take them on a tour of a castle he was building in the woods, his future home – a castle with turrets and balconies and tricky scaffolding that was fun for climbing.

On cold winter days we would sometimes stop at Mr. Hilden’s to warm our hands since we still had almost a half mile to walk home. There was a shortage of chairs and so we sat on his bunk built into the wall. Knowing we were hungry, he would offer us some of his pancakes. They were not like crepe suzettes, but thick and heavy and rather unappetizing. With the chickens and the the earthen floor, the housekeeping was not very sanitary but little children graciously overlook such trifles.

Mr. Hilden never did get to finish his dream castle. During his last illness, my brother stayed with him and was rewarded by becoming the sole owner of John, the way-back, farm horse. We children tried riding him, but John was lazy. He would deliberately walk under a tree to try to brush us off his back with the branches. 

While the story has that haunted feeling, it also feels like a fairy tale or  a legend.  I grew up surrounded with these kinds of Big Stories Full of Potential and Deep Meaning and I couldn't be more grateful. 

The power of myth is one of my #50thingsofvalue.