The Weekly Machen
The following article is the eighth in a series by Arthur Machen for The Daily Express.
Sacred Turnip
World-Wide Legends of the Forbidden Fruit
by
Arthur Machen
October 7, 1918
How pleasant a thing in difference of opinion, especially in the matter of education! Mr. H. G. Wells thinks—see “Joan and Peter”—that we shall all become wise when we are instructed about the “insides of animals.” I would much rather look for zoological wisdom in the story of “How Rabbit Lost His Tail.” This is to be found in an entertaining and beautifully illustrated Christmas book, “Canadian Wonder Tales,” by Cyrus Macmillan (Lane, 15s. net).
But it was the tale of “Starboy and the Sun Dance” which interested me most. In this story, an Indian girl is married to the Morning Star, and taken up by her husband to the skies. There she will be happy for ever, so long as she does not dig up the sacred turnip. Of course, she dug up the sacred turnip, and forfeited her part in heaven.
Why do I say “of course”? Because the Prohibition and Disobedience formula is world-wide and age-old. As soon as Morning Star tells his wife that she must not meddle with the sacred turnip, we know that is exactly what she will do. That is the legend of the Lost Garden of Eden, it is the legend of Bran Vendigeid in the Welsh Mabinogion. How are we to account for the universality of the formula?
It is easy to say that, human nature being constant and invariable, if you tell Jack he mustn’t do this, he will be immediately impelled to go and do it; and that this little peculiarity struck the consciousness of all the primitive races of mankind. But that will hardly do; while the prohibition usually seems either trifling or unreasonable or both trifling and unreasonable, tremendous consequence follow on disobedience.
In the Hebrew story man eats the forbidden fruit and loses Paradise; in the Welsh story the heroes open the door that looks on Cornwall and are bereft of the magic joys that the Venerable Head has given them. In the Canadian legend the wife of the Morning Star was expelled from heaven because she had pulled up the sacred turnip.
Now, in ordinary life, it is no doubt a matter of constant observation that we are always disobeying prohibitions which appear trivial; but it is not a matter of constant observation that the most terrific consequences follow on disobedience. What, then, is the solution?
My solution is, first, that fairy tales are all true; and, second, that there is no truth save in fairy tales.
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This is delightful – thank you!
Joan and Peter was published in September 1918 according to its Wikipedia article. There are various scans of the first and later editions of Cyrus Macmillan’s book in the Internet Archive and an illustrated fadedpage transcription of the 1920 Second Edition. The Foreword by William Peterson, Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, dated “October, 1917”, begins “This is the book of a soldier-student. Captain Macmillan interrupted his teaching work in Montreal to go overseas with one of our McGill Batteries, and from ‘Somewhere in France’ he has asked me to stand sponsor for his volume.” Peterson was then Principal of McGill College, where Macmillan had been on the English faculty full time since 1911. Macmillan’s Wikipedia article includes “He was posted to England in September 1916 for artillery training. Captain MacMillan fought at Vimy Ridge and Hill 70—two of the most famous battles fought on French soil. He served in Canadian Siege Batteries No. 6 and 7, rising to the rank of Major” and further “His letters home to his wife, Margaret Eaton Brower (they had been married in Montreal in August 1916, just a month before he left for his overseas posting), and family offer a sanitized but beautifully written account of his war experiences” – though it does not tell where and how one might get a look at those letters! Peterson’s article mentions his eldest son, Major William Gordon Peterson’s memoir of his Great War experiences, Silhouettes of Mars (1920) – a copy of which I find scanned in the Internet Archive, the Preface dated “9th October, 1919”. I wonder if Machen was familiar with any of Sir William’s numerous editions of Latin classics (as scanned in the Archive)?
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Great research! Peterson’s memoir sounds intriguing.
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I’ve enjoyed a varied lot of Great War – and at least one Balkan War – memoirs as LibriVox audiobooks, but checking just now find no listing for Silhouettes of Mars or William Gordon Peterson – nor, for that matter, with quick YouTube and general searches, alas!
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