Travelling to fantasy lands
NANDINI NAYAR
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Fantasylands, despite the flying and the magic, are not so different from our own world. Evil lurks everywhere and the good must fight it before peace can reign.
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All of us dream of other worlds where magical things happen. Where flying is the common mode of transport, where trees bearing chocolates greet us at every turn and where our every wish, command and desire is fulfilled. Several successful children's authors have chosen to create such fantasylands where every rule can be bent and anything is possible.
But where do these fantasy lands exist? Enid Blyton's Noddy adventures are set in Toyland, to which there are no directions! In her stories about the Magic Faraway Tree, the tree is right in the middle of a wood. Hidden among ordinary trees, this tree has a gateway to various magic lands. According to Dianna Wynne Jones there are several worlds — and they are all side-by-side. J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts lies parallel to the real world. But Rowling does not mention any discernable barriers between the worlds. Which is why when Harry and Ron fly a car it is sighted by the Muggles. J.M. Barrie in his Peter Pan is more careful about the location of Never-Never land. Although the directions that Peter gives — "right and straight till morning" — are vague, at least they are directions.
How does one enter these lands? In Blyton's fairytales there is no question of going to these lands. These lands and all the magical creatures live in our world. Blyton's children talk casually of fairies, elves and goblins. In stories like Run About's Holiday, elves actually live in the garden. Magic even "happens" in nurseries and playrooms. In The Magic Faraway Tree, we enter Magicland through a hole in a cloud. In Rowling Platform 9-3/4 at London's Paddington Station is a gateway to another world. In C.S. Lewis's Narnia tales, there are various methods of entering this land. In The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe the entry is through a wardrobe. In Eva Ibbotson's The Secret of Platform 13, Platform 13 of London's King's Cross has a gump — the gateway into the world of magic. In Philip Pullman a window can be cut into the fabric separating the worlds.
The creatures inhabiting fantasylands are strange too — four-legged beasts, fauns, pixies, fairies, trolls and fairies. All the animals talk in Narnia. Harry Potter's world has a wide variety of such creatures: fire-breathing dragons, three-headed dogs, beautiful Unicorns, and trees that can `whomp' you. Pullman's parallel worlds have witches, armoured bears and the strange Mulefas. But one of the main attractions of visiting fantasylands is the food one can eat there! The children in Blyton's magic books eat all types of delicious food in such lands. Potter is amazed by the delicious food he eats in Hogwarts, especially the interesting chocolates and snacks that he is introduced to.
Fantasylands cannot really be too far away from our own world. And once you are in that world you realise that the fantasy world, despite the magic in its air, is curiously like our own. There are good and bad people here too. In the Harry Potter series the unkind Dursleys, Malfoy, Snape, Will, the bearer of the subtle knife in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and Blyton's fairyland is also peopled with evil gnomes, wicked witches and sly pixies.
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