The Stone Cage, a fantasy by Nicholas Stuart Gray

Title: The Stone Cage
Author and Illustrator: Nicholas Stuart Gray
Publication: Dennis Dobson, hardcover, 1963
Genre: Juvenile Fantasy

Description: Old Mother Gothel, an evil witch lives in a remote cottage with Marshall, her enchanted raven, and Tomlyn, an embittered cat who tells the story. The bird and cat have an uneasy relationship, tattling on each other to win the witch’s temporary favor, as both dislike and fear her. One day, out of boredom, Tomlyn encourages a young woodcutter to come into the witch’s garden as he seeks some rampion for his ailing wife. The witch returns, threatening to turn him into a tree, but relents if he promises to bring her the "newest thing" in his home. When the woodcutter returns with his wife, both desperate, they bring their newborn daughter. Pleading with the witch is futile so they hand over the baby, and the mother begs Marshall and Tomlyn to care for her child, who has been named Rapunzel.

The witch conjures up a tower where Rapunzel grows up, knowing only the witch – and the cat and raven who sneak up to visit her in the stone cage at the top of the tower if the coast is clear. When Marshall becomes worried that the witch wants to destroy Rapunzel by teaching her witchcraft, he persuades Tomlyn to use the witch’s magic book to cast a spell that makes Rapunzel incapable of memorizing anything. The witch becomes increasingly frustrated but says she will wait until Rapunzel is 16 to teach her. On the eve of that fateful birthday, fearing for her safety, Marshall persuades Tomlyn to make a dangerous trip to seek help from a sorcerer. The sorcerer sends them a prince, who thinks he is dreaming:

“What’s wrong with me speaking? What do you think I am?”

“Well – to be quite honest, I thought you were a cat. A very fine and intelligent cat,” he added, trying to curry favor. “But for all that – a mere cat.”

“No cat is mere,” I said, wearily. “And I am less mere than most.”

Tomlyn and Marshall coax the prince to the cottage and dodge the witch until it is safe for Prince Robert to call, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” and climbs up to the tower. It’s all love at first sight until Rapunzel, unskilled at prevarication, reveals Robert’s existence while he has gone to fetch rope for her escape. As the furious witch takes her revenge, only Tomlyn can save them all, using the skill he’s gleaned from sneaked looks at the witch’s spell-book and years of secret attempt to do magic.

My Impression: Nicholas Stuart Gray (1922-81) was an actor, stage director, playwright, and author. In addition to writing plays for children, he wrote several novels. The Apple Stone, Grimbold’s Other World, Over the Hills to Fabylon and Mainly in Moonlight were all in the children’s library in Newton Corner (you only regret the books you conscientiously returned) and I reread them several times. This retelling of Rapunzel has been the hardest to locate, and it is a dark fantasy, laced with sardonic humor as articulated by the cat narrator. Gray has added complex characters to the traditional fairy tale: Tomlyn, Marshall, and Mother Gothel have a troubled and abusive relationship. Tomlyn was lured in as a kitten when he was lost in the forest; he didn’t see the cottage until suddenly he came upon an inviting bowl of milk. He once belonged to a family that loved him but something went terribly wrong:

“Never believe anyone who says they love you! You’ll just be thrown aside in the end! Kicked out to starve – lost and alone and afraid! Blamed for stealing the fish –”

“Did you?” whispered the girl.

“No! It was the dog!”

I chocked, and pulled myself together, and laughed.

“I’m not talking about anything that happened,” I said. “Just using – a sort of story – as a warning-“

“My poor Tomlyn, I wish they hadn’t hurt you so,” said she.

Tomlyn refuses to respond to Marshall’s overtures of friendship because he will not allow himself to be hurt again but Rapunzel’s simple affection disarms him – most of the time.

Although Tomlyn and Marshall do not have the power to escape from the witch, their growing love of Rapunzel and the request of her parents to guard her, makes them suspend their sometimes humorous squabbling to come up with a plan to save her. That Tomlyn overcomes his fear of leaving the witch’s garden to seek help from a sorcerer he distrusts shows how much he trusts Marshall’s judgment, despite the disparagement. Rapunzel is sweet but the spell they put on her makes her seem clueless; nevertheless, she restores humanity in these three wretched creatures. Only when Rapunzel reveals her desire to escape do we see that the witch was lonely too beneath her venom:

“I hoped always that you would come to love me a little,” she said, in a quiet voice. “After the care I gave you – the hopes I’d centered on you –why, to all intents and purposes, I’ve been a mother to you, my darling. I’ve been a mother to all of you, you –!” she stopped, and gulped, and went on, “I had the right to expect affection, and trust, and consideration. But I see it was too much to hope for. Not one of you has given me any thought at all!”

I said we’d thought about her a lot. And she gave me a look that told me she guessed just what sort of thoughts they’d been.

NSG with friend

The way the witch kicks and torments her two familiars is unpleasant but this retelling is based on the Brothers Grimm which is often quite grim, although there is a surprising twist at the end. I was reminded while reading that Gray (a private person about whom there have been revelations recently he probably would have preferred kept quiet) had a special affinity for cats (Geoffrey Trease - a favorite in our family - described him as “a charming friend and excellent company, but with some of that feline reserve exhibited by his own Puss in Boots, a part he played with immense empathy, a stage cat to remember.”). Tomlyn is the most complicated cat imaginable, Grimbold has the power to move between worlds, Mainly in Moonlight includes cat stories, and he wrote a play about Puss in Boots. This was well worth hunting down but will not take the place my favorite, Grimbold’s Other World. Come to think of it, I wasn’t completely pleased with the ending of that book either!

Source: Interlibrary Loan from Chico State. Gray's books are very scarce and thus expensive online, except for the two that were also published in paperback.  Authors Garth Nix and Neil Gaiman both cite NSG as a favorite author from childhood.  Click here for my other NSG reviews.

Off the Blog: Area college hockey fans were hoping for an all-Boston finals in the Frozen Four tonight but BU lost to Denver in OT so I am rooting for Boston College (which my nephew will attend in the fall) vs. Denver (Beany Malone’s college!).