#nursery magic

[holespoles]

Calendar: January 23 is #Hide-and-SeekDay (promoted by this institution). Named after the poem "One, Two, Three" by Kayler Banner (1887), it celebrates the playful game where an elderly woman and a toddler with poor mobility choose a familiar location to play "hide-and-seek in their minds." One hides, the other guesses, and after three turns, roles switch - pure nursery magic.

暦。1月23日は #かくれんぼの日 （当館提唱）。カイラー・バナーの詩「ワン、ツー、スリー」（1887）にちなみます。 　老婦人と足の悪い幼子がともに知る場所を選んで「心のなかでかくれんぼ」をするのです。片方が隠れる。片方が当てる。三回で攻守交替。これぞナーサリーマジック。

[holespoles]

Nursery magic

Involves constructing impromptu vehicles using furniture from a child's room. In England, building pirate ships to wreak havoc in the Caribbean was standard practice, while in America, streetcars were also common. The illustration comes from Brooks' First Reader (1906), showing "Shut-Eye Town bound, departing now."

[holespoles]

Nursery magic. In British children's rooms, pirates somehow appear to haunt them. There seems to have been an unspoken understanding that every British child must at some point raid Spanish ships in the Caribbean. If magical rituals trace their origins to childhood "pretend play," then what might be the magical significance of pirate play? Such speculation would make for an interesting discussion. The illustrations are by Greenaway.

[holespoles]

Nursery Magic.

It is important to have a favorite reading and playing space. That time and space can settle deep in your mind and affect you for the rest of your life. Someone once said that it is like a save point in case something goes wrong. Picture by Mary Hallock.

[holespoles]

Nursery Magic. What's a Boy Made of?" . They are made of frogs, snails, and puppy dog tails... So if you put them in a pot and mix them together, they become boys?　A magical idea, indeed. We cannot deny the possibility of the birth of an invisible spiritual boy.

[holespoles]

Nursery Magic.

'When you wake up before sunrise and When you see the dew glisten on all the flowers The shadows are still asleep in their bunks."

This is a precious passage that describes the moment of leaving behind the shadow that haunts us at all times. Stevenson is the man who wrote that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is only natural that he would stare at the shadow of a child.

[holespoles]

Nursery magic. Beastification and transformation. Mother Goose has a story about making a baby swaddle from rabbit fur, but it's pretty scary to draw. It's quite a horror, such as a figure surrounded by countless rabbit spirits. The abyss of "play" is bottomless.