Introduction
There are some stories which begin with storms.
And there are some stories which begin with honey.
This one begins with a nearly empty pot, a blue-covered book, and the sort of morning in the Hundred Acre Wood when the wind sounds as though it may know secrets.
When Christopher Robin reads aloud about a mysterious place called Elfland — a country hidden just beyond where sensible things stop — Pooh immediately recognizes that this is exactly the sort of thing which ought to be Expotitioned.
Before long, Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Roo, and Kanga are wandering farther into the Wood than they have ever gone before… toward silver forests, impossible lanterns, invisible music, dangerous Grey Doubters, and a little red door leading somewhere very old and very magical.
Inspired by the themes of today’s morning prayer — comfort, invisible things, joy in the midst of uncertainty, and the strange truth that some of the realest things cannot always be seen — this original Chesterton Radio tale blends the warmth of Winnie-the-Pooh with the wonder of fairy stories and the playful paradoxes of G.K. Chesterton.
So put another log on the fire, pour a little tea, and mind the Heffalumps.
The bells of Elfland are beginning to ring.
There are some mornings in the Hundred Acre Wood which begin with important things, such as floods, heffalumps, or missing tails.
And there are some mornings which begin with honey.
This was the second kind.
Winnie-the-Pooh sat outside his house beneath the sandy bank with a Very Thoughtful expression upon his face and a small honey pot resting mournfully between his paws. The expression had arrived because the honey had gone. Now when honey is still inside the pot, a Bear of Very Little Brain does not have to think very much. Honey explains things to you while you are eating it. It is only after the last lick, when one peers hopefully into the bottom and discovers nothing except a golden memory, that Thoughts begin arriving all at once like Rabbits invited accidentally to tea.
Pooh peered into the pot again.
“There is a curious thing about honey,” he said aloud to nobody in particular. “When one has eaten it, there does not seem to be any left afterwards.”
He turned the pot upside down over his tongue just in case a thoughtful little bit had remained behind out of politeness.
Nothing happened.
“It is almost,” said Pooh gravely, “as if somebody had taken it away.”
At that moment Piglet appeared around the corner of the house carrying a very small scarf and looking as though he had recently been worried by several different possibilities.
“Hallo, Pooh,” squeaked Piglet.
“Honey has gone away,” said Pooh.
Piglet peered sympathetically into the pot.
“Yes,” he admitted after careful inspection. “It has rather.”
Pooh sighed the sigh of a philosopher confronting reality.
“I do not mind honey going away,” he continued, “if it comes back afterwards. But it hardly ever does.”
Piglet sat beside him. Piglet was one of those friends who made unpleasant things seem smaller simply by being nearby and worrying about them together.
“It may be visiting relations,” said Piglet hopefully.
Pooh brightened.
“That is a comforting thought, Piglet.”
Just then Christopher Robin came down the path carrying a blue-covered book tucked beneath one arm. There was a breeze in the Wood that morning, and it moved softly through the trees with the sort of whispering sound which makes one feel there may be adventures hiding nearby behind ordinary things.
“Hallo, everybody,” said Christopher Robin.
“Hallo, Christopher Robin,” said Pooh and Piglet.
Christopher Robin sat in the grass.
“I’ve been reading,” he announced.
This impressed Piglet immediately.
Pooh was impressed too, though in a slightly cautious way, because reading sometimes led to Thinking, and Thinking occasionally delayed luncheon.
“What about?” asked Piglet.
“Elfland.”
Pooh looked interested.
“Is it near lunch?”
Christopher Robin laughed.
“No, Pooh. It’s a place.”
“Ah,” said Pooh politely, though he privately considered lunch a place as well.
Christopher Robin opened the blue book.
“It says here that Elfland is difficult to find because it is always just beyond where people expect things to stop.”
Piglet gave a pleasant little shiver.
“That sounds rather wonderful.”
“Yes,” said Pooh thoughtfully. “Though one hopes there is something to eat there.”
“There might be,” said Christopher Robin.
Pooh stood up at once.
“In that case,” he declared, “this is exactly the sort of thing which ought to be explored.”
“Expotitioned,” corrected Piglet importantly.
“Yes,” said Pooh. “Expotitioned.”
Now an Expotition, as everybody knows, is a thing you have when there is somewhere you have not gone before and somebody says perhaps you ought to. And if there is also a map, a lunch, and at least one person who feels nervous about the entire business, then it becomes a Proper Expotition.
This one became proper almost immediately.
Rabbit appeared carrying a carrot and looking suspicious.
“What’s all this?” asked Rabbit.
“We’re going to Elfland,” said Piglet.
Rabbit nearly dropped the carrot.
“You can’t just go wandering into Elfland! It’s highly irregular.”
“That,” said Pooh with dignity, “is why it is an Expotition.”
Rabbit twitched his nose anxiously.
“Has anyone made a list?”
“No,” said Christopher Robin.
Rabbit looked deeply disappointed.
“Then I shall have to make one.”
And so they set off.
The morning was bright with that sort of sunshine which seems less to shine upon the world than to agree with it. The Wood smelled of pine needles and warm bark and damp earth. Somewhere a woodpecker hammered at a tree with the air of a person trying to remember something important.
Pooh walked beside Piglet.
“Do you think elves eat honey, Piglet?”
“I expect they eat fairy things.”
“What are fairy things?”
Piglet considered.
“I don’t know exactly. But they are probably very small.”
Pooh nodded gravely.
“In that case,” he said, “one would need rather a lot of them.”
After they had gone a little way, Owl flew down importantly.
“I have remembered something,” said Owl.
“What?” asked Roo.
“Elves are invisible.”
Everybody stopped.
“Invisible?” squeaked Piglet.
“Entirely,” said Owl.
“How do you know they are there then?” asked Rabbit.
“One does not,” said Owl proudly. “That is what makes them invisible.”
This seemed very difficult.
Pooh thought about it so hard that he walked into a bush.
“There are many things,” said Pooh from inside the bush, “which one does not see until one bumps into them.”
Christopher Robin laughed.
“That’s almost philosophical, Pooh.”
Pooh emerged slowly.
“It is easier,” he explained, “to think when one’s head is surrounded by leaves.”
They crossed the stream by the bridge where Pooh had once played Poohsticks, and entered the deeper part of the forest where the trees stood older and closer together.
The air changed there.
Not colder exactly.
But fuller.
As though the Wood were listening.
Even Tigger bounced more softly.
“Hallo,” whispered Roo.
Nobody had spoken.
Yet it had seemed, just for a moment, as though somebody had answered the wind.
Piglet moved closer to Pooh.
“Pooh,” he whispered, “do you think this is Elfland already?”
Pooh looked around carefully.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But if it is, it is a very nice sort of somewhere.”
Then they came to the place where the path stopped.
Now paths are funny things.
Most people think a path stops because there is nowhere left to go.
But sometimes a path stops because it expects you to continue differently.
Before them stood a ring of white mushrooms growing beneath a great ash tree.
And in the center of the ring sat a tiny red door.
Not attached to anything.
Just a door.
Roo gasped.
Piglet squeaked.
Rabbit said, “This is exactly the sort of thing I object to.”
Pooh approached the door.
It had a brass knocker no bigger than a thimble.
Pooh knocked.
Nothing happened.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
Then Tigger bounced onto the mushrooms.
The whole ring glowed silver.
The wind rushed upward.
And suddenly the forest was full of bells.
Not loud bells.
Little bells.
Laughing bells.
The sort of bells which might happen if sunlight learned music.
The red door swung open.
Beyond it was not a tiny room.
Beyond it was an enormous twilight country full of impossible hills and distant golden towers and rivers that looked as though moonlight had melted into water.
Piglet sat down abruptly.
“Oh dear.”
Christopher Robin smiled.
“I think,” he said quietly, “we’ve found it.”
Pooh peered through the doorway.
“It seems much bigger on the inside.”
“That,” said Owl, “is one of the recognized characteristics of enchantment.”
But nobody was listening because Roo had already leapt through.
The others hurried after him.
And suddenly they were standing in Elfland.
Now it is difficult to describe Elfland because it did not look quite like anything.
The trees were silver underneath their leaves.
The clouds moved as slowly as thoughts.
The grass shone faintly blue where shadows touched it.
And everywhere there was the feeling that something wonderful had just happened or was just about to.
Pooh took a deep breath.
“It smells,” he announced, “like stories.”
And this was true.
Far away music drifted through the air.
Not music somebody was playing.
Music which seemed to belong to the place itself.
They followed a winding path down toward a valley where lanterns hung in the trees like fallen stars.
Small figures moved there.
Elves.
Real elves.
Some wore green. Some silver. Some blue. One appeared to be dressed entirely in autumn.
And they were all terribly busy doing mysterious things.
“What are they doing?” whispered Piglet.
An elf beside him answered cheerfully.
“Keeping the world from becoming ordinary.”
Piglet jumped nearly three feet.
“Oh!”
The elf bowed.
He had bright eyes and hair like frost on grass.
“Welcome,” he said. “We have been expecting you.”
Rabbit looked alarmed.
“You have?”
“Certainly. Expotitions always arrive eventually.”
Pooh stepped forward politely.
“I am Pooh.”
“We know.”
“And this is Piglet.”
“We know.”
“And this,” said Pooh proudly, “is an Emergency Honey Pot.”
The elf looked impressed.
“A wise precaution.”
Immediately Pooh felt much more at home.
The elf introduced himself as Lark.
He explained that Elfland existed beside the world rather than inside it.
“Most people stop seeing it when they become too busy explaining everything,” said Lark.
“That sounds sensible,” said Rabbit.
“No,” said Owl. “It sounds metaphysical.”
Nobody knew what this meant, but it sounded too large to argue with.
Lark led them into a great hall built beneath the roots of an enormous tree.
Inside, long tables stretched away beneath glowing lanterns.
There were blackberry tarts, acorn cakes, wild honey, raspberry fizz, mushroom pies, sugared violets, and things nobody could identify but which looked extremely hopeful.
Pooh nearly wept with gratitude.
“This,” said Pooh reverently, “is the most comforting thing I have ever seen.”
The elves laughed.
“Comfort,” said Lark, “is one of the oldest magics.”
While they ate, music filled the hall.
Tigger danced with three elves and a chair.
Roo vanished under the table and emerged wearing a crown.
Rabbit attempted to organize the desserts alphabetically.
And Eeyore sat quietly beside the fire.
An elf approached him.
“Why so gloomy?”
“I’m an Eeyore,” said Eeyore.
“Ah,” said the elf wisely.
And sat beside him without trying to improve matters.
This pleased Eeyore enormously.
After supper Lark led them outside.
Night had come to Elfland, though it was not a dark night.
The stars seemed nearer there.
As though heaven had leaned down to overhear something.
Lark pointed toward a distant hill where a pale tower stood shining.
“That,” he said, “is the House of Lost Things.”
Piglet gulped.
“What sort of lost things?”
“Oh, all sorts. Lost songs. Lost socks. Lost hopes. Lost umbrellas. Lost courage. Lost afternoons.”
Pooh looked thoughtful.
“Does honey ever go there?”
“Frequently.”
Pooh sighed.
“I had suspected as much.”
“But,” said Lark, “the funny thing about lost things is that they are often not gone at all.”
Christopher Robin smiled quietly.
“That sounds true.”
Lark nodded.
“In the world outside Elfland, people think only visible things are real. But many of the realest things become invisible first.”
Pooh thought very hard.
“Like songs after singing?”
“Yes.”
“And hugs after hugging?”
“Yes.”
“And honey after eating?”
The elf hesitated.
“Possibly not honey.”
Pooh accepted this.
Then something extraordinary happened.
The bells began ringing again.
Not laughing bells this time.
Warning bells.
Elves hurried through the lantern-lit paths.
Lark’s face changed.
“The Grey Doubters,” he said.
“Who are they?” whispered Piglet.
“Creatures who feed on dreariness. They creep into places and whisper that everything marvelous is foolish and everything joyful is childish and everything invisible is imaginary.”
“That sounds horrid,” said Roo.
“It is,” said Lark.
A cold wind swept across the valley.
From the edge of the woods came grey shadowy figures with long pale faces and empty eyes.
Where they walked, colors dimmed.
Lanterns faded.
Flowers closed.
One of them pointed at Pooh.
“That bear,” it hissed, “is ridiculous.”
Pooh looked down at himself.
“I am rather round,” he admitted.
Another pointed at Piglet.
“That creature is too small to matter.”
Piglet trembled.
A third pointed at Tigger.
“That animal is absurd.”
“That,” said Tigger indignantly, “is what makes Tiggers wonderful!”
But the shadows kept coming.
The elves retreated.
Even the stars seemed farther away.
Then Christopher Robin stepped forward.
“You don’t belong here.”
“We belong everywhere,” whispered the Grey Doubters. “For we teach creatures not to believe in joy.”
Pooh suddenly walked beside Christopher Robin.
“I do,” said Pooh.
The shadows paused.
“I believe in honey,” said Pooh.
One shadow laughed.
“And I believe in friends,” Pooh continued.
Another shadow flickered.
“And songs,” said Pooh.
“And Expotitions,” squeaked Piglet.
“And bouncing!” shouted Tigger.
“And small helpful things,” said Roo.
“And thistles,” muttered Eeyore reluctantly.
The shadows wavered.
Rabbit stood very straight.
“And proper lunches.”
Owl puffed himself up.
“And scholarship.”
Kanga smiled.
“And home.”
Then Christopher Robin said quietly:
“And love.”
At once the bells rang out across Elfland.
The lanterns blazed gold.
The shadows recoiled.
For there is one thing Grey Doubters cannot endure.
Not arguments.
Not cleverness.
Not even courage.
But joy.
Simple ridiculous grateful joyful things.
The valley filled with laughter.
Pooh laughed because Piglet’s ears were trembling. Piglet laughed because Pooh’s tummy rumbled. Tigger laughed because he was upside down. Roo laughed because everyone else was.
And the shadows dissolved like fog in sunlight.
The bells became merry again.
Lark bowed deeply.
“You have helped save Elfland.”
Pooh blinked.
“We have?”
“Yes.”
“But we only did ordinary things.”
“Exactly,” said Lark.
Then the elf gave Pooh a tiny golden jar.
“For emergencies.”
Pooh opened it.
Inside was honey.
Not ordinary honey.
This honey smelled of summer mornings and warm kitchens and songs remembered from long ago.
Pooh’s eyes widened.
“This,” he whispered, “is Very Important Honey.”
“It is the sort of honey,” said Lark, “which never quite runs out.”
Pooh became emotional.
Soon it was time to leave.
The red door stood waiting beneath the silver trees.
Piglet looked back sadly.
“Will we ever come again?”
Lark smiled.
“Oh yes. Though perhaps not by the same road.”
“Where is Elfland really?” asked Roo.
The elf considered.
“Wherever people still know that invisible things can be true.”
Then they stepped through the little red door.
And suddenly they were back in the Hundred Acre Wood.
Morning sunlight streamed through the trees.
Birds sang.
The stream sparkled.
Everything looked perfectly ordinary.
Which is often the first sign that something extraordinary has happened.
Rabbit immediately checked whether everyone was present.
Eeyore checked whether everyone had gone.
Pooh checked the honey.
The golden jar was still there.
He opened it carefully.
Still full.
Pooh sat down in amazement.
“There is a remarkable thing about this honey,” he said.
“What?” asked Piglet.
“It stays.”
Christopher Robin smiled.
Then they all walked home together through the Wood while the sunshine filtered down through the branches like blessings.
And somewhere, just beyond where sensible things stop, the bells of Elfland rang softly in the distance.
Though perhaps it was only the wind.
Or perhaps they are the same thing.
THE END
Outro
And so the Expotition returned safely home to the Hundred Acre Wood, though not entirely unchanged.
For once one has wandered into Elfland — even accidentally — ordinary things are never quite ordinary again.
A breeze through the trees sounds more musical.
A lantern glows a little warmer.
A friendship feels larger than before.
And a small bear sitting quietly with his honey pot may suddenly appear to know something about the world which cleverer creatures have forgotten.
Perhaps that is the secret the elves were guarding all along.
Not merely magic.
But gratitude.
The sort of gladness which sees invisible things clearly.
The sort of joy which frightens away Grey Doubters.
The sort of comfort which stays behind even after the music fades into the trees.
And somewhere tonight — beyond the last pine tree, beyond the stream, beyond where practical maps begin looking uncertain — the bells of Elfland are still ringing softly.
Though perhaps only those with Very Little Brain and Very Large Hearts can still hear them.
Goodnight from the Hundred Acre Wood.
And goodnight from Chesterton Radio.Postscript
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And somewhere beyond the edge of the Wood, where sensible things stop and wonder begins, another Expotition is already waiting.