Spot illustration from "The Story of Merrymind"

Spot illustration from "The Story of Merrymind"

This highlight of Merrymind’s broken fiddle is a curious thing to include at the chapter’s conclusion. After Merrymind meets the night-spinners and plays music which frees an entire community from slavish work, Browne writes that “man, woman, and child took to fiddling.” With such a happy ending, why is the fiddle depicted with strings snapped, and not mended? Perhaps it is to foreshadow the book’s final chapter, in which Browne pulls the reader out of Snowflower’s joyous end and into the real world: “Chairs tell no tales. Wells work no wonders; and there are no such doings on hills and forests, for the fairies dance no more. . . . Yet there are people who believe . . . the prince will make all things right again, and bring back the fairy times to the world.”

Katharine Pyle

"The Story of Merrymind" in Granny's Wonderful Chair and its Tales of Fairy Times by Frances Browne

E.P. Dutton & Co.

1916