Anne from the Fairytale Land of Green Gables

Weronika Madryas www.weronikamadryasbooks.com   Summary of „Anne from the Fairytale Land of Green Gables”   “I hadn't any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home.”  (“Anne of Green Gables”, Lucy Maud Montgomery)               As a teenage girl, I was engrossed in the stories by Lucy Maud Montgomery, especially those concerning the adventures of Anne Shirley. When my parents later built a house in the country near Wrocław, I couldn’t call it anything other than Green Gables. It wasn’t purely out of sentiment, but also as a result of its location. The house really did stand on a hill, “away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods”  (“Anne of Green Gables”, Lucy Maud Montgomery). The hills were overgrown with apple and cherry trees, whilst to the right was a small copse. It’s not hard to explain how to get there to those who want to visit Green Gables for the first time, because it’s the first house you can see from the bottom. The proximity of Mount Ślęża means on warm days Wrocławians come out to test their fitness with a mountain hike, or to have bonfires in the meadows along the trail. The smell of Polish sausage roasting floats in the air, pleasantly filling the nostrils not only of the  walkers, but of their four-legged companions, too. The season begins in spring and lasts till the last warm days of autumn. In summer, the area smells of blossom, hums with the sounds of bees and resounds to the laughter of holidaymakers. Together with the start of the school year, the summer camps leave, the wooden huts by the lake empty and there are fewer people in the nearby riding school. Autumn draws those armed with penknives and baskets, seeking mushrooms, whose enthusiasm dictates they ignore the Saturday disinclination to rise early and the frequently discouraging autumnal weather. Slowly the fields are covered with a dun blanket of cold and frost, and the deep green of the trees loses its intensity. Lovers of cycling trips, who swarm along the roads and paths in summer, are seen less frequently. The village sleeps between the late autumn and the first gusts of winter. Everything withers, but a sense of expectation can be felt beneath the surface stillness – waiting for the first winter white. Together with the snow returns the hubbub, babble and laughter. Skins and sleds are prepared, and gradually, new residents appear in the village, with carrots for noses and a blackening, coaly gaze. I like the village at any time. I don’t mind the summer or winter tumult, or the autumn melancholy. I find a charm in every season, which I await during the others - starting from spring, heralded by birdsong and the tight buds of apple blossom, to the summer meadows, golden with St John’s wort and the coloured leaves of autumn, through to winter, sculpting the roofs with an intricate lace of icicles. I've got to know all the neighbours and the appropriate ways of behaving among the locals. The closest neighbour is a painter, who mainly does landscapes and still lifes. Her modest, wooden house is called Eden. In early morning or late afternoon, you can see her sitting in the small upstairs room, right by the open doors onto the balcony, focussed on her work. She is accompanied by Punia – a brown dog. She comes to the village in early spring and stays until the last, warm days of autumn. You can sense her strong personality and independence. There are days when she avoids people, ensconced in the quiet of her home and garden, on others, she welcomes a constant stream of visitors. In summer, her children and grandchildren come to stay.             Rifling further through the old, dog-eared, long-forgotten copy of “Anne of Green Gables,” I read: “below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it”. And though none of the nearby houses resembles a villa, the description fits the location. Past the painter’s house and the copse, I arrive at a fork in the road. One path leads to a clearing with a beautiful view of the valley and the lake, the other leads right to a bathing area. Regardless of the destination, in both cases you pass little homes sunk in greenery.             Just behind the painter, in a large wooden house, lives an engineer, who despite advancing years is full of initiative and ideas. However often I meet him, he tells me about the war, his long years spent in Iraq and his plans to renovate his house. I’ve grown accustomed to his self-sufficiency, so I shouldn’t be surprised when I see him repairing his roof, or felling an enormous tree.             Sometimes I visit the neighbours on the other side of the hill. A narrow stream runs through their large garden, still whispering the same melody. The entrance to the garden, and the entire fence, is overgrown with a rose, which I took a cutting from last autumn. Right in the middle of the daisy-covered lawn grows an very old lime, cast a shade over the whole garden.             Time spent at Green Gables calms me, makes humdrum problems fade and lose importance. In the summer evenings, when night replaces the sweltering day, the entire garden is filled with the scent of the mint my mother planted. In such moments, I sit on the veranda and listen. The silence of Green Gables is so intense it’s almost audible, stimulating the imagination and amplifying isolated sounds. And thanks to these short moments of wonder at dusk, or the dawn chorus, I yearn so impatiently for that view of Mount Ślęża through the window.   “Of course I hated to leave Green Gables. No matter how often and long I'm away from it, the minute a vacation comes I'm part of it again as if I had never been away, and my heart is torn over leaving it.”  (“Anne of Windy Poplars”, Lucy Maud Montgomery)                 In the more than eleven years that have passed since that essay appeared in the student magazine Uniwersytet Wrocławski, my Green Gables have become one of the most charming places in the vicinity. The once dilapidated farm at the foot of the house on the hilltop has turned into a cosy, roadside inn, with tasty, home-cooked food, especially the trout in herbs, forest berries jam, made to granny’s recipe, and the plump home-baked rolls.             The new owner has also set up the Green Gables foundation. So, nearby the elongated, metal sign with the name Green Gables Street, appeared a wooden sign saying The Green Gables Restaurant Welcomes You.             Changes have also taken place at Green Gables number 6. Now, a little girl called Anne is there from time to time. She has the little room upstairs - the same one in which her mother, as a little girl, once slept and dreamed…             When Anne visits her grandparents, she brings the same joy that the Anne from the stories brought to the serious and ostensibly stern Marilla with a heart of gold (well-hidden beneath a sheen of cold) and the reticent, generous and sensitive Matthew. And though the Polish Anne of Green Gables has eyes as blue as the skies and golden hair, the little Cornflower Girl is just as cheery and mischievous as red-headed Anne Shirley.             Her mother is the author of children’s stories. One of her books is called Anne’s Tale. The one you’re holding in your hands, called Anna from the Fairytale Land of Green Gables is the newest product of the imagination of the mother of Anne of Green Gables, far, far away from the land of Lucy Maud Montgomery. The idea of writing the book arose when Ania was a little girl and loved visiting Green Gables. Both she, and granny and grandad seemed excellent equivalents to the characters in the stories by Lucy Maud Montgomery: Anne Shirley, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. Anne from the Fairytale Land of Green Gables is a series of five stories, whose main charcter is the eponymous Anne, also known as the Cornflower Girl. The action takes place in the grandparents' house, set among apple orchards in Green Gables. Each story is a separate tale of the little girl. Anne possesses a special gift, thanks to which she can slip between the real world and the land of magical creatures the inhabit Green Gables. In this way she meets Nela the flutterby, Felix the trudger, Chataway and the Forest Chanter. Anne and the flutterby visit the mysterious home of the storyteller, Chataway, to listen him recounting fairytales. In the fifth and last tale, titled Among Green Gables Anne takes a trip on an enchanted balloon to Prince Edward Island, to the times of Anne Shirley. The girls then use the same time machine to travel to Poland and the Fairytale Land of Green Gables. Anne Shirley discovers the modern world in amazement, and discovers a Green Gables remote both in distance and time. This meeting has a symbolic dimension, the fifth tale showing how discovering a kindred spirit is extraordinary and goes beyond any barriers, including time and distance.  But what is geographical distance to kindred spirits? It’s nothing important, merely a path that needs to be walked to be able to meet, exchange glances and share a warm heart, a handshake and a heartfelt smile.   “Anne said no more until they turned into their own lane. A little gypsy wind came down it to meet them, laden with the spicy perfume of young dew-wet ferns. Far up in the shadows a cheerful light gleamed out through the trees from the kitchen at Green Gables. Anne suddenly came close to Marilla and slipped her hand into the older woman's hard palm. "It's lovely to be going home and know it's home," she said. "I love Green Gables already, and I never loved any place before. No place ever seemed like home. Oh, Marilla, I'm so happy. I could pray right now and not find it a bit hard.". (“Anne of Green Gables”, Lucy Maud Montgomery)