From Plato to Pullman—the circle of invisibility and parallel worlds: Fortunatus, Mercury, and the Wishing-Hat, Part II

The Dark Power of Speech: The Hat, Sorcery, and Denial

There is one more point to make concerning the Grimms's tales. Although the Hat can represent knowledge, there are moments, in these stories and in Fortunatus, when it, or another magical means of transportation, operates without the understanding of the wearer. In "Die Kristallkugel" ("The Crystal Ball") (Rolleke 1980, no. 197, vol. 2, 415-18), the hero, having agreed to settle a dispute between two giants on the possession of a wishing-hat, forgets his promise, thinking only of the Princess he desires: "Einmal seufzte er aus Herzensgrund und rief: 'Ach, ware ich doch auf dem Schloss der goldenen Sonne'" ("Then he sighed from the bottom of his heart and cried: 'Ah, could I but be in the Castle of the Golden Sun'") (ibid., 417). A similar occurrence can be found in "The King of the Golden Mountain," when the King, with thought only for his wife and child, "sprach so vor sich hin: 'Ach ware ich doch aufdem goldenen Berg'" ("spoke to himself thus: 'Ah, could I but be on the golden mountain'") (ibid., 50), to be immediately transported by the wishing-boots he is wearing. In Fortunatus, Agrippina utters a similar exclamation in the wilderness--"Ach nun wolte got das ich wider in meiner schlaffkamer waer" ("Ah, I would to God I were back in my bedroom") (Roloff 1981, 150)--and is returned home, Andolosia having thoughtlessly placed the Wishing-Hat on her head before fetching apples from a tree. Yet, the manner of her conveyance remains a mystery to the Princess.

At such moments, the Hat seems to transcend the conscious mind and to directly obey the dictates of the heart; in so doing, it suggests the dangerous power of speech, the uncontrollability and, perhaps, irrevocability of words. Language, by nature ambiguous and suggesting more than the speaker intended to say, makes the utterance of a wish a perilous procedure, if absolute precision and clarity are not observed. Yet it is precisely through its subjunctives ("ware") that language gives expression to imagination; one may suspect that the human mind needs this release valve from reality, that the faculty of imagining, of wishing, is what is most important, and that the realisation of a wish is reduction rather than fulfilment. On a more positive note, the above instances are remarkable for their timing: they present a happy conjunction of desire and opportunity, and we see Fortune favouring the fool or, to use a gentler expression, the unwitting.