Michael Morpurgo - The White Horse of Zennor

Also by Michael Morpurgo

Arthur: High King of Britain

Escape from Shangri-La

Friend or Foe

From Hereabout Hill

The Ghost of Grania O’Malley

Kensuke’s Kingdom

King of the Cloud Forests

Little Foxes

Long Way Home

Mr Nobody’s Eyes

My Friend Walter

The Nine Lives of Montezuma

The Sandman and the Turtles

The Sleeping Sword

Twist of Gold

Waiting for Anya

War Horse

The War of Jenkins’ Ear

Why the Whales Came

For younger readers

Animal Tales

Conker

Mairi’s Mermaid

The Marble Crusher

On Angel Wings

The Best Christmas Present in the World

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ONE OF THE LAST PLACES YOU COME TO before Cornwall disappears into the Atlantic Ocean is the tiny churchtown of Zennor. Since the beginning of time, strange and mysterious things have happened here. There are stories from the past of mermaids and spriggans and knockers and witches. The stories in this book however do not come from the past. They have all happened in my lifetime.

The ‘Eagle’s Nest’ of the title is the great outcrop of rock that dominates the fields and farmsteads below. From here you can see the coastline all the way from St Ives to Pendeen Lighthouse. You can see the churchtown of Zennor itself below the high moor, and you can feel that here anything is possible, perhaps even probable.

Before you begin ‘The Giant’s Necklace’ I would ask you to read the stories in the order in which you find them. You will understand why when you have finished the book.

M. M. Zennor 1982

The Giant’s Necklace

The White Horse of Zennor

‘Gone to Sea’

Milk for the Cat

Mad Miss Marney

So, a mining story to start with. For many years I used to go every summer to Zennor. I read Cornish legends, researched the often tragic history of tin mining in Penrith, wandered the wild moors above Zennor Churchtown. I wrote a book of five short stories called The White Horse of Zennor. This is the first .

The necklace stretched from one end of the kitchen table to the other, around the sugar bowl at the far end and back again, stopping only a few inches short of the toaster. The discovery on the beach of a length of abandoned fishing line draped with seaweed had first suggested the idea to Cherry; and every day of the holiday since then had been spent in one single-minded pursuit, the creation of a necklace of glistening pink cowrie shells. She had sworn to herself and to everyone else that the necklace would not be complete until it reached the toaster; and when Cherry vowed she would do something, she invariably did it.

Cherry was the youngest in a family of older brothers, four of them, who had teased her relentlessly since the day she was born, eleven years before. She referred to them as ‘the four mistakes’, for it was a family joke that each son had been an attempt to produce a daughter. To their huge delight Cherry reacted passionately to any slight or insult whether intended or not. Their particular targets were her size, which was diminutive compared with theirs, and her dark flashing eyes that could wither with one scornful look, her ‘zapping’ look, they called it. Although the teasing was interminable it was rarely hurtful, nor was it intended to be, for her brothers adored her; and she knew it.

Cherry was poring over her necklace, still in her dressing gown. Breakfast had just been cleared away and she was alone with her mother. She fingered the shells lightly, turning them gently until the entire necklace lay flat with the rounded pink of the shells all uppermost. Then she bent down and breathed on each of them in turn, polishing them carefully with a napkin.

‘There’s still the sea in them,’ she said to no one in particular. ‘You can still smell it, and I washed them and washed them, you know.’

‘You’ve only got today, Cherry,’ said her mother coming over to the table and putting an arm round her. ‘Just today, that’s all. We’re off back home tomorrow morning first thing. Why don’t you call it a day, dear? You’ve been at it every day – you must be tired of it by now. There’s no need to go on, you know. We all think it’s a fine necklace and quite long enough. It’s long enough surely?’

Cherry shook her head slowly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Only that little bit left to do and then it’ll be finished.’

‘But they’ll take hours to collect, dear,’ her mother said weakly, recognising and at the same time respecting her daughter’s persistence.

‘Only a few hours,’ said Cherry, bending over, her brows furrowing critically as she inspected a flaw in one of her shells, ‘that’s all it’ll take. D’you know, there are five thousand, three hundred and twenty-five shells in my necklace already? I counted them, so I know.’

‘Isn’t that enough, Cherry?’ her mother said desperately.

‘No,’ said Cherry. ‘I said I’d reach the toaster, and I’m going to reach the toaster.’

Her mother turned away to continue the drying-up.