One of the reasons why critical interest and study of fantastic literature has been lacking, despite the great quantity of such literature, is that it has been considered a genre best suited for children. It’s broad use of the imagination to create people, places and things which have no possible place in the “real world” is equivalent to the child playing make-believe, and therefore is seen as deserving as much critical examination as given to such children: none. Certainly, the foundations of modern fantasy help demonstrate the relationship between the two, because John Ruskin’s story, The King of the Golden River, was a children’s story and it helped initiate a trend by which fantasy would come into the world as its own genre.[1]
Back in 1841, the then twenty-two year old Ruskin wrote The King of the Golden River after being challenged to write a “fairy tale” by his distant cousin, thirteen year old Euphemia (“Effie”) Gray.[2] Serving as it does as the foundation for modern fantasy, it would provide themes and ideals which would be carried on by others, especially by others who, unlike Ruskin, would hone in their talent and become master storytellers by profession. The fairy story would, after Ruskin, always would be related to fantasy, and most such stories could be seen as fantasy for children. And it was clear that such tales attracted children because they called out to their keen sense of creativity, something which was essential to who they are and the way they look at the world.[3] By use of the fairy story, an author could, through the themes within, encourage the moral development of children while entertaining them. And in his own story we find themes which would become central to Ruskin such as the tyranny of greed,[4] his belief that the moral value of riches depends upon the way they are used,[5] and that true wealth is found not in money but in the beautiful things of life.[6] Even his interest in landscapes can be seen by how he opens up his story as if he were painting such a landscape with words.[7]
Of course, for most part, it was the entertainment value of the story which would encourage people to develop upon what he started. And, truth be told, it is a rather simple story involving three brothers: Schwartz, Hans and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans are Gluck’s older brothers, and they treat him like they treat everyone and everything else: poorly.[8] Gluck is their complete opposite, kind and generous, willing to help others even if he knows that if he does so, he would suffer. He follows proper etiquette. As the youngest of the three, he obeys his elder brothers, even though he does so with as much creative fidelity as he could muster.[9] What makes the story what it is, that is a work of fantasy, is the inclusion of two magical characters: one is the personification of the South-West Wind, and the other is the title character, the King of the Golden River. The first entered the story as a short old man seeking a place to dry off and to be fed. After being welcomed inside their home by Gluck, the South-West Wind was mistreated by his elder brothers; angered, he removed his good graces from their land, Treasure Valley, turning the place entirely barren. The brothers become poor, and melt anything they own which was made out of gold using that to make gold they could use as money. One of Gluck’s favorite trinkets is a golden mug given to them by their uncle; it is the last item to be melted. Unknown by all, it was actually the King of the Golden River, trapped in the form of the mug. Gluck was left alone to melt it, while his brothers were out drinking at the local ale-house. Once the mug had been melted, the king was released and revealed his true identity to Gluck. But he knew the character of Gluck and Gluck’s brothers; he wanted to do something for Gluck, and so told him the way to have his heart’s desire fulfilled: “Whoever shall climb to the top of that mountain from which you see the Golden River issue, and shall cast into the stream at its source three drops of holy water, for him and for him only the river shall turn to gold. But no one failing in his first can succeed in a second attempt, and if anyone shall cast unholy water into the river, it will overwhelm him and he will become a black stone.”[10] When his brothers returned home, Gluck told them what had happened. They wanted the promised riches for themselves, and so each went on their own to try to obtain it. Both stole holy water from a nearby church, and took it to the mountain; in each of their travels, they passed by and neglected a dehydrated dog, a thirsty baby, and an old man needing a drink of their water to stay alive. When Schwartz or Hans released their drops of water into the stream, they were turned into a stone. Gluck eventually made his way to the mountain top, having been given some holy water by a priest; when he passed by the same dog, baby, and old man that his brothers neglected, he gave to each the water they needed, which was all he had. When he thought it would be impossible to continue on to the top of the mountain and get his reward, the King of the Golden River appeared and told him he had done what was required by showing charity, unlike his brothers, who had been turned to stone. The king picked up a lily which had three drops of dew on it, and told Gluck to go ahead and complete his mission with it. Before doing so, Gluck asked the king why his brothers were turned to stones, because they had kept their holy water. The king told him that, “the water which has been refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses.” [11] Finally, Gluck completes his mission; at first he is disappointed, because it did not seem as if the river had become gold. But when he got back home, he understood what the reward actually was: the river had entered Treasure Valley and restored it to its original purity. “And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new streams, and creeping plants grew and climbed among the moistening soil. Young flowers opened suddenly along the riversides, as stars leap out when twilight is deepening, and thickets of myrtle and tendrils of vine cast lengthening shadows over the valley as they grew. And thus the Treasure Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance which had been lost by cruelty was regained by love.”[12]
Being written so early in his life, one could wonder how representative The King of the Golden River is of Ruskin. While he would not make the writing of fantastic literature a core activity of his, the issues within do indicate much of what one would find from Ruskin in his later, non-fictional works. Perhaps, if one wanted one word to summarize what the story was about, it would be justice; and that justice is one of a few words one could pick to summarize Ruskin’s overall desire for the world. “For no human actions ever were intended by the Maker of men to be guided by balances of expediency, but by balances of justice. He has therefore rendered all endeavours to determine expediency futile for evermore. No man ever knew, or can know, what will be the ultimate result to himself, or to others, of any given line of conduct. But every man may know, and most of us do know, what is a just and unjust act. And all of us may know also, that the consequences of justice will be ultimately the best possible, both to others and ourselves, though we can neither say what is best, or how it is likely to come to pass.”[13] Gluck’s just ways can be demonstrated by his sense of hospitality. This is an important aspect of Ruskin’s sense of justice: one is to treat the world, and the people within it, with respect, understanding that the preservation of a just society is accomplished through a balanced use of the goods of the earth. Gluck is rewarded for his hospitality while his brothers are cursed because of their lack of it; those who are unable to share with others will find what they once had will lost. As Ruskin would later say, “all true economy is ‘Law of the house.’ Strive to make that law strict, simple, generous: waste nothing, and grudge nothing. Care in nowise to make more of money, but care to make much of it; remembering always the great, palpable, inevitable fact — the rule and root of all economy — that what one person has, another cannot have; and that every atom of substance, of whatever kind, used or consumed, is so much human life spent; which, if it issue in the saving present life, or gaining more, is well spent, but if not, is either so much life prevented, or so much slain.”[14] And within this story, one can even find glimpses of Ruskin’s developing interest in the relationship of architecture with the landscapes in which they are found. Human activity must include nature, and not exclude it; to ignore nature, or worse, to mistreat it, is to call upon oneself nature’s judgment, a devastating wrath which is more powerful than any barriers humanity might try to put up against it.[15] “For many a year I have now been telling you, and in the final words of this first course of lectures in which I have been permitted again to resume work among you, let me tell you once more, and if possible, more vehemently, that neither sound art, policy, nor religion, can exist in England until, neglecting, if it must be, your own pleasure gardens and pleasure chambers, you resolve that the streets which are the habitation of the poor, and the fields which are the playgrounds of the children, shall be again restored to the rule of the spirits, whosoever they are in earth, and heaven, that ordain and reward, with constant and conscious felicity, all that is decent and orderly, beautiful and pure.”[16] And this work, this restoration of the “rule of the spirits” upon the earth, is precisely what Gluck accomplishes at the end of The King of the Golden River, making Gluck rich through nature’s bounties.
Footnotes
[1] Once it was published, and the public read it, its success was guaranteed. While friends of his would develop upon what he initiated, but find a way to include adults, elements of the fact that the genre started out as one for children would remain within the genre itself. Phantastes are works of imagination, capable of opening up (or keeping open) byways of the psyche which are often closed off as one grew up (artists, to be sure, can tap into it, and Ruskin himself would encourage them to do so). Despite what critics might assume, this is to their benefit, not to their detriment, for they are capable of reawakening those child-like qualities which the spirit needs to experience paradise. “No one will enter the Kingdom of God, which has come close to us in Jesus, unless he makes a turnabout and returns to the mentality of his beginning. ‘Amen I say unto you: Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter into it’ (Mk 10:15),” Hans Urs von Balthasar. Unless You Become Like This Child. Trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), 9.
[2] When she came of age, Ruskin would marry Effie Gray, a marriage which lasted for six years and ended with an annulment because the marriage had not been consummated.
[3]In a lecture on the art of “fairy land,” Ruskin says, “For it is quite an inexorable law of this poor human nature of ours, that in the development of its healthy infancy, it is put by Heaven under the absolute necessity of using its imagination as well as its lungs and its legs; — that it is force to develop its power of invention, as a bird its feathers of flight; that no toy you can bestow will supersede the pleasure it has in fancying something that isn’t there; and the most instructive histories you can compile for it of the wonders of the world will never conquer the interest of the tale which a clever child can tell itself, concerning the shipwreck of a rose-leaf in the shallows of a rivulet,” John Ruskin. The Art of England, pgs. 255- 369 in Mornings in Florence; Time and Time; The Ark of England; Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds (Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1900):304.
[4]Ruskin was quite concerned with, and critical of, the economic situation in England. Greed leads one to accumulate more wealth than is needed through questionable means – and at the expense of others. “But mercantile economy, the economy of ‘merces’ or of ‘pay,’ signifies the accumulation, in the hands of individuals, of legal or moral claim upon, or power over, the labour of others; every such claim implying precisely as much poverty or debt on one side, as it implies riches or right on the other,” John Ruskin. Unto the Last pgs. 159 -228 in Unto the Last and Other Writings (London: Penguin Books, 1997):181. “This ‘robbing the poor because he is poor,’ is especially the mercantile form of theft, consisting in talking advantage of a man’s necessities in order to obtain his labour or property at a reduced price. The ordinary highwayman’s opposite form of robbery — of the rich, because he is rich — does not appear to occur so often to the old merchant’s mind; probably because, being less profitable and more dangerous than the robbery of the poor, it is rarely practised by persons of discretion,” ibid., 191. Unto the Last is the collection of four essays written for Cornhill Magazine in the summer of 1860; Ruskin would stand by what he wrote in them, and would declare their collection to be one of his best and most important works. While its initial reception was meager, to say the least, it would become one of his most influential writings, with only his Modern Painters rivaling it in importance.
[5] “It is impossible to conclude, of any given mass of acquired wealth, merely by the fact of its existence, whether it signifies good or evil to the nation in the midst of which it exists. Its real value depends on the moral sign attached to it, just as sternly as that of a mathematical quantity depends on the algebraical sign attached to it. Any given accumulation of commercial wealth may be indicative, on the one hand, of faithful industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities: or, on the other, it may be indicative of mortal luxury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicane. Some treasures are heavy with human tears, as an ill-stored harvest with untimely rain; and some gold is brighter in sunshine than it is in substance,” John Ruskin, Unto the Last, 187.
[6] “THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others,” ibid., 222.
[7] “In a secluded and mountainous part of Stiria there was, in old time, a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was surrounded, by steep and rocky mountain peaks, which were always covered with snow, and from which a number of torrents descended in constant cataracts. One of these fell westward, over the face of a crag so high, that, when the sun had set to everything else, and all below was darkness, his beams still shone full upon this waterfall, so that it looked like a shower of gold. It was, therefore, called by the people of the neighborhood, the Golden River. It was strange that none of these streams fell into the valley itself. They all descended on the other side of the mountains, and wound away through broad plains and by populous cities. But the clouds were drawn so constantly to the snowy hills, and rested so softly in the circular hollow, that in time of drought and heat, when all the country round was burnt up, there was still rain in the little valley; and its crops were so heavy, and its hay so high, and its apples so red, and its grapes so blue, and its wine so rich, and its honey so sweet, that it was a marvel to every one who beheld it, and was commonly called the Treasure Valley,” John Ruskin. The King of the Golden River, pgs. 45 – 71 in Unto the Last and Other Writings (London: Penguin Books, 1997):49.
[8] “They killed everything that did not pay for its eating. They shot the blackbirds because they pecked the fruit, and killed the hedgehogs lest they should suck the cows; they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs in the kitchen, and smothered the cicadas which used to sing all summer in the lime trees. They worked their servants without any wages till they would not work any more, and then quarreled with them and turned them out of doors without paying them,” ibid., 49-50.
[9] For example, he reasons out to himself that he can give some meat to the small, old man who is later revealed to be the South-West Wind because he was promised a slice of it for himself by his brothers. While he knew his brothers would forbid him from giving food to the man, he knew he could give his own share to him, which is what he did.
[10] John Ruskin, The King of the Golden River, 60-1.
[11] ibid., 69-70.
[12] ibid., 70.
[13] John Ruskin, Unto the Last, 169.
[14] ibid., 227.
[15] The South-West Wind not only destroyed Treasure Valley, but in his anger, demolished the house in which the three brothers lived.
[16] John Ruskin. The Art of England, 321.
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