Interview with Rebecca Harrison about The White Horse
For fans of the Brontës and Daphne du Maurier, as well as folk horror and folktales, I present to you – The White Horse (available now!) by Rebecca Harrison. This book has everything you’re craving…an English governess, a creepy old manor house, disturbing folk ceremonies, the beauty and horror of nature, and a trip back in time. You will love this book! Rebecca writes with verve and passion, and it was a pleasure to get lost in in it. It hooked me, and I had to keep reading to find out what happened, which genuinely shocked me.
Rebecca fortunately agreed to answer some of my questions about her book and life and process, and she was very fun to talk to. Read on to learn her thoughts on Jim Henson, Kate Bush, LM Montgomery, Herne the Hunter, Black Shuck, owls, and crisps, as well as her marvelous book The White Horse!
If you could have a little party of fellow storytellers (living or dead!) over for tea, who would you invite? What would you serve them?
It’s a point of pride that anyone who visits me gains weight. Not for nothing, did my dad nickname me The Fattenator. I inherited this compulsion from my grandma, for there’s no more expert feeder than a Jewish grandmother. If ever there was a temporary lull in gorging, she’d press a jar of almond pralines into your greedy mitts. So, my guests will return to their own time (or mythic dimension) a little chubbier, especially if we’re eating the food of my childhood. Am I allowed storytellers that never were? Cos if so, my first guest has to be Jim Henson’s Storyteller with his talking dog. This is my favourite program ever and I always read my folktales in his voice (in my head obvs), so he's a must. As for real folk, I’d opt for LM Montgomery (my very favourite author), The Three Brontës (obviously), CS Lewis (he can point me towards a working wardrobe), Charles Dickens (I want to hear him read Dombey and Son), Hans Christian Anderson (or maybe not seeing as he was Dicken’s stalker), Daphne Du Maurier, and Peter S Beagle (the unicorn could be his plus one).
Could you talk a little about where you’re from?
I’m from a little town an hour or so from London. I couldn’t find anything notable about it, except that it’s apparently a UFO hotspot. So, I guess it’s in someone’s guidebook. I used to live on the edge of fields, and Charlotte’s homesickness for her old fields [in The White Horse] is really mine. The sun rose and set in those hedgerows. The stars were carried on that wind. Of course, they were destroyed. The developers would build on the clouds if they could hoist up their diggers. All us locals tried to save the fields. I even wrote to Prince William cos he used to go to school in the town. (Princess Diana was a regular at the corner shop.) I had hoped he’d summon an army and storm the diggers, but alas he replied he couldn’t intervene. Where’s King Arthur when you need him? I’m certain there’s a heaven for places, and like Charlotte says – one day we will walk in the poppy fields again. They are still waiting for me to come home.
Your book The White Horse revisits elements from old favorites like Jane Eyre and Rebecca and plays around with them in fun and surprising ways. What other stories inspired you in writing this book? What have all these stories meant to you?
Rebecca is one of my absolute favourites, but I’m more of a Wuthering Heights girl than Jane Eyre. It definitely got the best tunes. Did Jane Eyre get any tunes? Someone ought to sort that out. *nods* I love Rebecca so much that writing my own book inspired by it was like seeing Manderley from a train window, obviously a steam train whistling into the blue dusk.
On that note, I’m due a reread of Rebecca. I’ve got a gorgeous Folio Society edition cos you can never have enough beautiful books, and the Folio ones are so sturdy I reckon lining my home with them will reinforce the walls enough to withstand any apocalypse. I’m prepping for the end times in my own way.
Other books that influenced The White Horse are the Emily of New Moon trilogy by LM Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables. Emily is pretty much the Minor key version of Anne. These are my very favourite books. I have as many editions of them as I can gather. My heroine, Charlotte, is a young artist like Emily, though a composer instead of a writer. And like Emily, she has a mystical connection with nature. Charlotte hears music in nature, in bluebell twilights, bumbling clouds, and wren prints in snow. I’m rereading Emily at the moment and it’s super emotional cos it’s my first time visiting her since having my own book published. Emily shared this dream and called it ‘climbing the Alpine Path’.
Music plays a large role in The White Horse. Are you a musician? If so, how has this affected your writing?
I play the cello! I’m something of a cello evangelist. I just love the cello so much I want everyone to befriend it. It’s only a wonder I’m not marching around in a sandwich board harassing folks on the high street. Even before I knew what the cello was, I loved the word cos it sounded like a secret. I’m not sure how it’s influenced me other than by making Charlotte a musician. And perhaps she’d have been better off with a cello cos the endpin can double as a weapon. But that would’ve been an historically inaccurate impaling. :D
I found The White Horse to be truly frightening, in part because it draws on the harrowing world of folktales. Are there any English folktales you grew up with that scare you?
One folktale that haunted my childhood was Herne the Hunter who lives in Windsor Great Park where the oaks are older than always. He’s been a regular in literature down the ages, from Shakespeare to Susan Cooper. Herne shakes his chains and turns the cows’ milk to blood. He leads the wild hunt across the skies. So you can gather, he’s a fearsome fellow. We used to drive back through The Great Park after visiting my grandparents, and I would shut my eyes for fear I’d see Herne: his antlers, his fierce silhouette. But when I peeped, there was no ghoul at my window, only the way home.
Another folktale that hounded me (involuntary pun) was Black Shuck, a demonic dog. If you glimpsed him, one of your loved ones would die. I didn’t realise he wasn’t local, so an encounter seemed inevitable, and I tormented myself imagining my friends and family perishing. I may have been an overly dramatic child. I wrote a will before each holiday lest the ferry do a Titanic. Which of my friends inherited which of my toys was of the utmost importance.
Are there any other genres you write?
I’ve been writing folk tales, such as this one Anwen’s Song, Efa’s Shoes, and the Halls in the Hills – Luna Station Quarterly
And space fantasy stories, such as these:
Obit—Rebecca Harrison – Crow & Cross Keys (crowcrosskeys.com)
Rag and Bone and Paw and Star – Space Fantasy Magazine
I’m currently finishing a children’s fantasy set in Victorian England. It’s slightly inspired by Mary Poppins, or really the Bird Woman, cos if I hear two bars of “Feed the Birds,” I’m busting a tear. I wanted to go back to when she was a child and give her a family, so she would never end up there when she was old. My version of her is a street urchin who doesn’t even have a blanket, as she says - the only covering I had were the winds over St Paul’s, and if the great door was open to the night, the hymns.
I’m also plotting a YA fantasy trilogy.
Could you talk a little about the setting of this book, the landscape in the background?
The White Horse of Uffington is an ancient chalk figure carved into a hill fort. It is always older than they know, and perhaps isn’t a horse at all, but a prehistoric predator. Uffington is where St George slayed the dragon, Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings, and Kate Bush went Cloudbusting. Historically, it was in the county of Berkshire but some numpties changed the boundaries in the 1970s, and now it’s in the possession of Oxfordshire. That is a disgrace! Just cos this happened before I was born, doesn’t mean I can’t wield a grudge. And if I do write the somewhat sequel to The White Horse, which is set two hundred years later, I’ll put things right. *swears oath*
In another interview, you mentioned ranking your favorite owls. Can you share your findings?
There’s a tie for first place between Ural and Tawny. Ural owls are sort of the winter version of the tawny owls or perhaps just later autumn. They’d camouflage into prickling frosts and cruel mists, but the tawny glides in antique autumn sun. Third place would have to be snowy owls, but after that I’m undecided. Obviously I need an apprenticeship with Minerva and her flocks to help me make up my mind. Owls are outside my expertise – which is crisps, or as you call them, chips. Crisps, I can rank, no problem. Crisps and cheese are our greatest triumphs, but crisps have the edge cos they were created through spite. Forget Mozart and Beethoven, I would fill a spaceship with crisps and point it towards distant worlds so that other beings could witness our genius and be awed. On that note, the cupboard is calling. 😉
Thanks for the fascinating reflections, Rebecca. We’ll all look out for treats in the mail and the tawny in the sky, and maybe you can post a recording of your cello music. Find Rebecca on Twitter https://twitter.com/RebeccaBeans for more of her thoughts!