Uncollected Pip the Pixie Stories in the Cave

[Anita Bensoussane]

I like this imaginative story involving snails, but I'm taken aback by Pip saying that his parcel contains "yards and yards of pink cotton!" A pixie like Pip is small enough to swing on a buttercup, and the pink material is for curtains for a dolls' house, so why would there be yards of it? There's enough to unroll along the garden path and up a bank. Ah well, I suppose a pixie path and bank would be small, so perhaps a pixie yard is a lot shorter than a human yard!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4211

[Courtenay]

Maybe Enid just didn't stop to think that "inches and inches" of pink cotton would be more appropriate — or maybe she thought that sounded too strange? I guessed at once where the "silvery pattern" was going to come from, although it seems a rather slimy way of getting it — and the snail trails would surely come off if the dolls ever want to wash their curtains!

[Anita Bensoussane]

The snails would have to do their work again every time the curtains were washed! Although it's never mentioned, I suppose the toys in the nursery belong to children who must be rather surprised when they see the changes made to their toys without their knowledge!

Thoughts like that occurred to me as a child when reading some of the stories in The Adventures of Pip (Dean & Son). Ivy berries used as buttons would be likely to get squashed and cause stains, or if they survived a little longer they'd shrivel. As for acorn cups used as saucepans, they might well set on fire! Oh, and the sparrows' painted black bibs would fade and certainly wouldn't be passed on through the generations!

None of that mattered as the tales served their purpose as nature stories. They taught me that ivy was an evergreen plant whose berries were black and round and grew in clusters, and that acorns grew on oak trees and their cups and stalks were shaped like delicate saucepans (I may have known that already, but the Pip story renewed my interest and made me examine them more closely), and that male sparrows could be identified by their black patches (a lesson I've never forgotten).

[Courtenay]

Yes, good points — I did think of that about the acorn cups too as a young reader! As for the sparrows' black bibs (and indeed the blackbirds' gold beaks), I was old enough as a first-time reader to know that wasn't really how those birds' attributes came about, and the paint wouldn't be passed on to the next generation in either case. But there are more than enough mythical stories — in Australian Aboriginal traditions and in other cultures around the world, and even in some classics like Kipling's Just So Stories — that give an imaginative explanation of how certain creatures came to be the way they are, and I absolutely loved those kinds of legends as a child, even though I think I always knew they weren't the "real" explanations! So I was quite delighted to find that Enid Blyton had a pixie character who was responsible for some of those things too. (We have British sparrows and blackbirds in Australia as introduced species, so I've always been very familiar with both.)

This still just underscores, for me anyway, how "unnatural" it feels to have toys participating in the Pip stories, which were originally set entirely in the natural world (though peopled with fairy folk!), not the human world. I remain baffled as to why Enid chose to make that change!! Most of the plots of the stories we've seen recently would have worked just as well with pixies or other fairy folk characters — like I said last week, a male brownie or gnome would have been a much more likely character to need a shaving brush than a golliwog, and for this week, it could easily have been Aunt Twinkle or some other friend or relative of Pip's who wanted a silvery pattern on her new curtains. Did Enid somehow think that having toys in the stories would give them more variety and make them more original? I can't say that it worked...

[Anita Bensoussane]

I don't know why Enid Blyton made the change but I prefer the Pip stories without the toys too, Courtenay.

Yes, folk tales and classic tales about how creatures came to have particular features are fun. It's nice that Pip is part of that tradition.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Contrary to what some critics have claimed, there are many kind gollies in Enid Blyton's stories and one of them comes to Pip and Jinky to ask for help for the teddy bear, who is in trouble. Luckily, the pixies know a friendly woodpecker who can provide what's needed.

Enid Blyton doesn't describe the woodpecker except for saying that he has a "strong, hard beak", so it's a pity there's no illustration. Raymond Sheppard's attractive artwork for the two Pip books (I had the one-volume Dean edition) helped me identify things from the Pip stories when I came across them in real life.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4212

[Courtenay]

Now there's a "Pip and the toys" story that actually makes sense, since I can't think of any kinds of fairy folk, or any characters other than a toy, who would want to be stuffed with sawdust!!

That's a very satisfying little story and as you say, Anita, the golliwog is presented as a kind and friendly character. He usually is in Enid's stories about toys! But one aspect of the plot does make me wonder... was it actually common back in the 1940s for teddy bears and other toys to be stuffed with sawdust?? I would have thought that would be a rather messy and lumpy kind of stuffing!

[Anita Bensoussane]

I enjoyed the story too.

Even in the 1970s, my childhood teddy was stuffed with sawdust. Sawdust is very fine and he had thick fur so he didn't feel too lumpy, but the sawdust did leak out at times and my mum had to stitch him up quickly.

[Anita Bensoussane]

We get to know two of the dolls this time, Lindy and Tilly. The fact that bats have "a little pocket" for storing insects that they've caught is something that I first read about in an Enid Blyton story.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4214

[Anita Bensoussane]

In 'Have You Seen a White Golliwog?' the golly has been left out in the rain and is now white, as the rain has "washed all the black from his face." Jinky says, "White! A white-faced golly! Gracious, he must look dreadful!" The golly has hidden in the toy cupboard but eventually comes out "looking very queer with his white face." Luckily, Pip and Jinky have found some poppies and brought back something to make him black again, "and he really looked wonderful when Pip had finished with him."

Some critics have accused Enid Blyton of being anti-black because one of her stories called 'The Little Black Doll' (there are two tales with the same title) features a black doll who loses his colour and remains white. I wonder if those critics will accuse her of being anti-white (not to mention body dysmorphic!) on the strength of this story!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4216

[Anita Bensoussane]

'The Sad Tale of a Tailless Teddy' is rather sad, as it's the last uncollected Pip story. It reminds me of the more involved 'Tale of a Tail' (previously published as 'Michael's Tail'), which I had in a Bedtime Annual as a child. Enid Blyton has covered many aspects of nature in her Pip stories, and this final one features a lizard.

I've thoroughly enjoyed looking at these imaginative tales week by week - many thanks to David Chambers and Tony for making them available.

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4217

[Courtenay]

'The Sad Tale of a Tailless Teddy' is rather sad, as it's the last uncollected Pip story.

Ah, but look who made his glorious debut (as I assume it was) the very next week in 1949...

NEXT WEEK: The first instalment of Enid Blyton's new serial, with Noddy — the funny little man of Toy Town

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, it was Noddy's debut - even though that story became the second book, Hurrah for Little Noddy!

It's a "Gah!" from me, rather than a "Hurrah!"