‘Credendo Vides’

Books should be officially declared an invasive species. They have been accumulating in our present home for forty years now, adding to those which had gathered over the previous forty. They tend to group themselves into sub-species; basically by subject or author, but without the pernickety precision of Dewey or the Library of Congress – they have their own priorities. For example, many years ago I inherited some little leather-bound volumes from my grandmother, and Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas and Arthur Conan Doyle still share a shelf as old friends. On the bookcase beside my bed is another self-selected settlement: an eclectic collection of books I pick up when I am tired and want to read a chapter or so before falling asleep, including Elizabeth Goudge, Rudyard Kipling and Vladimir Nabokov. I wonder what they talk about among themselves?

On one of the shelves in our sitting-room is a colony of what some people might disparagingly describe as children’s books. They coexist in companionable harmony: Mr Toad and Alice recount their adventures to each other; Tom the Chimney Sweep and the Little Mermaid discuss the problems of living above and below the waves; Eeyore has found a kindred spirit in Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, and so on. A few years ago, however, they had to move over and make room for James C. Christensen’s wonderful fantasy, Voyage of the Basset (1996), but I’m sure the newcomers quickly felt at home – Peter Pan and Wendy would certainly have introduced themselves: they know only too well the difficulty some people have believing in faeries. Professor Algernon Aisling lectures on mythology and ancient legends at a university in London. He has two daughters, Miranda who is 16 and trying to be sensible, and Cassandra who is very nearly 10, and they are all just getting over the sudden death of their mother. But this is 1850, the height of the Age of Reason, and Professor Aisling’s position and even his department are in jeopardy: ‘Anything that can’t be weighed or measured or dissected is just nonsense,’ snort his colleagues. In vain he protests: ‘Imagination is where science begins – not with charts and tools and measurements. First the idea, then the experiment.’ The three go for a walk by the Thames one evening and come across a wonderful little ship preparing to set sail: the crew, though, seems rather odd, consisting as it does of half a dozen bearded dwarfs and some cheerful little people wearing red jackets, tall hats and spats, the helpful but accident-prone gremlins. Captain Malachi approaches the family and announces, ‘Your ship, Professor Aisling, is ready and at your bidding.’ They are naturally rather bewildered and uncertain, but they go aboard, and a beautiful silk pennant is unfurled. It reads Credendo vides – ‘By believing, one sees.’ The ship itself, the Basset, is full of surprises: it is much larger below decks than seems possible, with expansive staterooms, galleys and a wonderful library, and when they set sail their course is determined by the Wunterlabe, a device ‘to find the way out of the sensible world, and navigate within the landscape of imagination’. Christensen shows us a new perspective on the fabulous creatures the Professor and his daughters encounter on their magical voyage. The Manticore is still faithfully guarding access to the realms of faeries and magic, but he is rather tired of sitting alone in a dark cave, and his fur looks a bit moth-eaten. He does allow them through, however, and they meet Oberon and Titania who encourage them to continue with their voyage of discovery and promise them introductions and help. Titania sympathizes with the motherless girls and gives them each a special gift. The first beings the trio come across when they set sail again are the Mermaids who are giggly and gorgeous, and really do sing beautifully – not to lure travellers on to the rocks, however, but to summon their friend the somewhat simple Sea-serpent. He can pull badly navigated ships out of danger, although he sometimes arrives too late. The Sphynx is still beautiful but very sad, because her riddle has been solved and with that has gone her purpose in life, but she and the Manticore soon seem to get on particularly well together – they are after all both half lion. The Minotaur looks threatening but depressed – he is not very bright and had not realized that the way into his labyrinth could also be used as the way out. Once released, he suffers from agoraphobia, so they find him a wardrobe to sit in. The greedy and quarrelsome Harpies are, however, excellent cooks, although there are often pin feathers in the soup. Medusa plays a major role in the story, but she is not just the fearsome monster legend has painted her. All of these – except the Mermaids – join the Professor, his daughters and other mythical creatures on the Basset and play an important part in their further adventures. The Professor begins to lose sight of his real purpose and imagines the consternation of his critics and the plaudits he would receive if he could bring home some proof of his discoveries. He even starts devising cages and aquaria to transport his ‘specimens’ until something really dreadful happens. In desperation the family seek advice from the rather peculiar members of the College of Magical Knowledge, a seat of learning unlike any other. The Learned Custodian of the Answers is not much help – he simply relies on what is written in a book – but the Keeper of the Questions is more perceptive. He probes the Professor’s motives, making him wonder if he has lost his own vision. Then he asks him why he has confined his research to Greek and Roman mythology. This of course opens up a much wider field, where the family meet other fabulous creatures including some friendly ogres and a beautiful unicorn: perhaps they might be able to help with their terrible predicament. Lastly they encounter the ancient fearsome dragon who had sworn never to return to earth and the arrogant humans who had forgotten him in their self-sufficiency, but he tells the Professor, ‘As I slept, I became aware of the actions of a mortal who believed, and I awoke once more.’ After a final battle with trolls he tells the others to spare them: ‘Unpleasant they may be, and fierce and untrustworthy as well, but they belong here. They, too, are part of the legends.’ Christensen’s illustrations are breathtaking: there is not a single page without either a brilliantly coloured oil painting or a meticulously detailed pen-and-ink drawing – including his whimsical ‘doodlefolk’ – or both. The paintings often contain a multitude of characters, large and small; the drawings and their captions help explain the myths – for instance, the story of the Sphynx – reminding the reader that this is a book for children as well as grown-ups. There are hidden faces among the trees, and tiny coral faeries swim almost unseen among the rocks and seaweed of the Mermaids’ realm. Perhaps the last things anyone looks at carefully in a book like this are the captions to the paintings. Some are obviously for children who love riddles and tongue-twisters: ‘Sewing seemed safe, simple and sensible to Miranda.’ She of course is the older sister, but the younger Cassandra ‘Saw swimming with a sea serpent as simply splendid.’ They are not only for children, however. Under a beautiful two-page image of the Basset setting sail in the twilight are these lines:

Leaving London for the lands of legend, the small ship slipped silently out to sea.

John Masefield, dozing in his longtime home on the shelf above, must have smiled at that. James C. Christensen was born in California in 1942 and studied at the University College of Los Angeles and Brigham Young University, where he later became an art instructor. As a senior member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints he is best known for his religious art and his fantasy paintings, a combination which at first glance may appear strange. All of them are meticulously detailed, full of symbolism, inspired by myths, fables and legends, subtle and often slyly humorous, incorporating verbal and visual puns. The Voyage of the Basset perhaps should be seen as a parable – ‘an earthly story with a heavenly meaning’, as the word was explained to me as a child. It can be appreciated at many different levels, but the underlying message is the importance of belief. Christensen wrote two other books. A Journey of the Imagination (1994) is a collection of his paintings including his comments and explanations. In many of his more surrealistic works somewhere there is a fish, which he explains in this way: in addition to being colourful and graceful, ‘the fish is a symbol of magic . . . and becomes a symbol for a passage to higher understanding’. I must presume he was aware that the outline of the fish was a secret recognition sign among the early Christians. In a lighter vein, Rhymes and Reasons (1997) is an annotated collection of Mother Goose rhymes – seventy-three of them appear in his illustrations which unfold to make a three-foot-wide triptych, a picture of a village and its storied inhabitants: the game is to see how many of them you and your family can identify. I wonder if he ever came across William Baring-Gould’s wonderful collection (see SF no.79). Christensen and his wife and five children lived in the house he designed himself, filled with secret passages and sculptures inspired by his paintings. He died in 2017.

Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 86 © Alastair Glegg 2025