Cliff House,
near the North Pole
December 23rd 1932
My dear children,
There is a lot to tell you. First of all a Merry Christmas! But there have
been lots of adventures you will want to hear about. It all began with the
funny noises underground which started in the summer and got worse
and worse. I was afraid an earthquake might happen. The North Polar
Bear says he suspected what was wrong from the beginning. I only wish
he had said something to me; and anyway it can’t be quite true, as he
was fast asleep when it began, and did not wake up till about Michael’s
birthday.
However, he went off for a walk one day, at the end of November I
think, and never came back! About a fortnight ago I began to be really
worried, for after all the dear old thing is really a lot of help, in spite of
accidents, and very amusing.
One Friday evening (December 9th) there was a bumping at the front
door, and a snuffling. I thought he had come back, and lost his key (as
often before); but when I opened the door there was another very old
bear there, a very fat and funny-shaped one. Actually it was the eldest of
the few remaining cave-bears, old Mr Cave Bear himself (I had not seen
him for centuries).
“Do you want your North Polar Bear?” he said. “If you do you had better
come and get him!” It turned out he was lost in the caves (belonging to
Mr Cave Bear, or so he says) not far from the ruins of my old house. He
says he found a hole in the side of a hill and went inside because it was
snowing. He slipped down a long slope, and lots of rock fell after him,
and he found he could not climb up or get out again.
But almost at once he smelt goblin! and became interested, and started
to explore. Not very wise; for of course goblins can’t hurt him, but their
caves are very dangerous.
Naturally he soon got quite lost, and the goblins shut off all their lights,
and made queer noises and false echoes.
Goblins are to us very much what rats are to you, only worse because
they are very clever; and only better because there are, in these parts,
very few. We thought there were none left. Long ago we had great
trouble with them—that was about 1453 I believe—but we got the help
of the Gnomes, who are their greatest enemies, and cleared them out.
Anyway, there was poor old Polar Bear lost in the dark all among them,
and all alone until he met Mr Cave Bear (who lives there). Cave Bear can
see pretty well in the dark, and he offered to take Polar Bear to his
private back-door.
So they set off together, but the goblins were very excited and angry
(Polar Bear had boxed one or two flat that came and poked him in the
dark, and had said some very nasty things to them all); and they enticed
him away by imitating Cave Bear’s voice, which of course they know
very well. So Polar Bear got into a frightful dark part, all full of different
passages, and he lost Cave Bear, and Cave Bear lost him.
“Light is what we need.” said Cave Bear to me. So I got some of my
special sparkling torches - which I sometimes use in my deepest cellars—
and we set off that night.
The caves are wonderful. I knew they were there, but not how many or
how big they were. Of course the goblins went off into the deepest holes
and corners, and we soon found Polar Bear. He was getting quite long
and thin with hunger, as he had been in the caves about a fortnight. He
said, “I should soon have been able to squeeze through a goblin-crack.”
Polar Bear himself was astonished when I brought light; for the most
remarkable thing is that the walls of these caves are all covered with
pictures, cut into the rock or painted on in red and brown and black.
Some of them are very good (mostly of animals), and some are queer
and some bad; and there are many strange marks, signs and scribbles,
some of which have a nasty look, and I am sure have something to do
with black magic.
Cave Bear says these caves belong to him, and have belonged to him or
his family since the days of his great-great-great-great-great-great-greatgreat-
great (multiplied by ten) grandfather; and the bears first had the
idea of decorating the walls, and used to scratch pictures on them on soft
parts—it was useful for sharpening the claws.
Then Men came along—imagine it! Cave Bear says there were lots about
at one time, long ago, when the North Pole was somewhere else. (That
was long before my time, and I have never heard old Grandfather Yule
mention it even, so I don’t know if he is talking nonsense or not).
Many of the pictures were done by these cave-men—the best ones,
especially the big ones (almost life-size) of animals, some of which have
since disappeared: there are dragons and quite a lot of mammoths. Men
also put some of the black marks and pictures there; but the goblins have
scribbled all over the place. They can’t draw well and anyway they like
nasty queer shapes best. North Polar Bear got quite excited when he saw
all these things. He said: “These cave-people could draw better than you,
Daddy Noel; and wouldn’t your young friends just like to see some really
good pictures (especially some properly drawn bears) for a change!”
Rather rude, I thought, if only a joke; as I take a lot of trouble over my
Christmas pictures: some of them take quite a minute to do; and though
I only send them to special friends, I have a good many in different
places. So just to show him (and to please you) I have copied a whole
page from the wall of the chief central cave, and I send you a copy.
It is not, perhaps, quite as well drawn as the originals (which are very,
very much larger)—except the goblin parts, which are easy. They are the
only parts the Polar Bear can do at all. He says he likes them best, but
that is only because he can copy them.
The goblin pictures must be very old, because the goblin fighters are
sitting on drasils: a very queer sort of dwarf ‘dachshund’ horse creature
they used to use, but they have died out long ago. I believe the Red
Gnomes finished them off, somewhere about Edward the Fourth’s time.
The animal drawings are magnificent. The hairy rhinoceros looks
wicked. There is also a nasty look in the mammoth’s eyes. Also the ox,
stag, bear, and cave-bear (portrait of Mr Cave Bear’s seventy-first
ancestor, he says), and some other kind of polarish but not quite polar
bear. North Polar Bear would like to believe it is a portrait of one of his
ancestors! Just under the bears is the best a goblin can do at drawing
reindeer!!!
You have been so good in writing to me (and such beautiful letters too),
that I have tried to draw you some specially nice pictures this year. At
the top of my ‘Christmas card’ is a picture, imaginary, but more or less
as it really is, of me arriving over Oxford. Your house is just about where
the three little black points stick up out of the shadows at the right. I am
coming from the north, and note, NOT with 12 pair of deer, as you will
see in some books. I usually use 7 pair (14 is such a nice number), and at
Christmas, especially if I am hurried, I add my 2 special white ones in
front.
Next comes a picture of me and Cave Bear and North Polar Bear
exploring the Caves—I will tell you more about that in a minute. The
last picture hasn’t happened yet. It soon will. On St Stephen’s Day, when
all the rush is over, I am going to have a rowdy party: the Cave Bear’s
grandchildren (they are exactly like live teddy-bears), Snowbabies, some
children of the Red Gnomes, and of course Polar Cubs, including Paksu
and Valkotukka, will be there.
I’m wearing a pair of new green trousers. They were a present from my
green brother, but I only wear them at home. Goblins anyway dislike
green, so I found them useful.
You see, when I rescued Polar Bear, we hadn’t finished the adventures.
At the beginning of last week we went into the cellars to get up the stuff
for England. I said to Polar Bear, “Somebody has been disarranging
things here!”
“Paksu and Valkotukka, I expect,” he said. But it wasn’t. Next day things
were much worse, especially among the railway things, lots of which
seemed to be missing. I ought to have guessed, and Polar Bear anyway,
ought to have mentioned his guess to me.
Last Saturday we went down and found nearly everything had
disappeared out of the main cellar! Imagine my state of mind! Nothing
hardly to send to anybody, and too little time to get or make enough
new stuff.
North Polar Bear said, “I smell goblin strong.” Of course, it was obvious:
—they love mechanical toys (though they quickly smash them, and want
more and more and more); and practically all the Hornby things had
gone! Eventually we found a large hole (but not big enough for us),
leading to a tunnel, behind some packing-cases in the West Cellar.
As you will expect we rushed off to find Cave Bear, and we went back to
the caves. We soon understood the queer noises. It was plain the goblins
long ago had burrowed a tunnel from the caves to my old home (which
was not so far from the end of their hills), and had stolen a good many
things.
We found some things more than a hundred years old, even a few
parcels still addressed to your great-grand-people! But they had been
very clever, and not too greedy, and I had not found out.
Ever since I moved they must have been busy burrowing all the way to
my Cliff, boring, banging and blasting (as quietly as they could). At last
they had reached my new cellars, and the sight of the Hornby things was
too much for them: they took all they could.
I daresay they were also still angry with the Polar Bear. Also they
thought we couldn’t get at them. But I sent my patent green luminous
smoke down the tunnel, and Polar Bear blew and blew it with our
enormous kitchen bellows. They simply shrieked and rushed out the
other (cave) end.
But there were Red Gnomes there. I had specially sent for them—a few
of the real old families are still in Norway. They captured hundreds of
goblins, and chased many more out into the snow (which they hate). We
made them show us where they had hidden things, or bring them all
back again, and by Monday we had got practically everything back. The
Gnomes are still dealing with the goblins, and promise there won’t be
one left by New Year—but I am not so sure: they will crop up again in a
century or so, I expect.
We have had a rush; but dear old Cave Bear and his sons and the
Gnome-ladies helped; so that we are now very well forward and all
packed. I hope there is not the faintest smell of goblin about any of your
things. They have all been well aired. There are still a few railway things
missing, but I hope you will have what you want. I am not able to carry
quite as much toy-cargo as usual this year, as I am taking a good deal of
food and clothes (useful stuff): there are far too many people in your
land, and others, who are hungry and cold this winter.
I am glad that with you the weather is warmish. It is not warm here. We
have had tremendous icy winds and terrific snow-storms, and my old
house is quite buried. But I am feeling very well, better than ever, and
though my hand wobbles with a pen, partly because I don’t like writing
as much as drawing (which I learned first), I don’t think it is so wobbly
this year.
The Polar Bear got your father’s scribble to-day, and was very puzzled by
it. I told him it looked like old lecture-notes, and he laughed. He says he
thinks Oxford is quite a mad place if people lecture such stuff: “but I
don’t suppose anybody listens to it.” The drawings pleased him better.
He said: “At any rate those boys’ father tried to draw bears—though they
aren’t good. Of course it is all nonsense, but I will answer it.” So he
made up an alphabet from the marks in the caves. He says it is much
nicer than the ordinary letters, or than Runes, or Polar letters, and suits
his paw better. He writes them with the tail of his penholder! He has
sent a short letter to you in this alphabet—to wish you a very Merry
Christmas and lots of fun in the New Year and good luck at School. As
you are all so clever now (he says) what with Latin and French and
Greek you will easily read it and see that Polar Bear sends much love.
I am not so sure. (Anyway I dare say he would send you a copy of his
alphabet if you wrote and asked. By the way he writes it in columns
from top to bottom, not across: don’t tell him I gave away his secret).
This is one of my very longest letters. It has been an exciting time. I
hope you will like hearing about it. I send you all my love: John,
Michael, Christopher, and Priscilla: also Mummy and Daddy and Auntie
and all the people in your house. I dare say John will feel he has got to
give up stockings now and give way to the many new children that have
arrived since he first began to hang his up; but Father Christmas will not
forget him. Bless you all.
Your loving, Nicholas Christmas.
