Line #10 Literature/TheMidnightFolk


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/midnight_folk.png]]
2	''The Midnight Folk'' is a children's fantasy novel by Creator/JohnMasefield, first published in 1927.
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4	Young Kay Harker has a variety of adventures in search of the truth about a famous treasure that his great-grandfather, a merchant captain, was given for safe-keeping then lost when his crew mutinied. He is aided in his quest by the Midnight Folk, an association of {{Talking Animal}}s, {{Living Toy}}s, and other fantastic creatures.
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6	But not all the creatures that haunt the night are friendly: a coven of witches is also after the treasure, led by the scheming Abner Brown and the sinister Mrs Pouncer, and woe betide anyone who gets in their way.
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8	A sequel, ''Literature/TheBoxOfDelights'', was published in 1935. The two books also have links, in terms of shared settings and characters, with a series of adventure stories for adults which began with ''Literature/SardHarker'' in 1925.
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10	!!This novel provides examples of:
11	* AbandonedArea: The brewery and stables at Seekings, obsolete in the age of mass-produced beer and motor cars, now slowly falling into ruin.
12	* AllWitchesHaveCats: Blackmalkin and Greymalkin serve the coven as familiars. Nibbins also used to be a familiar, but is now a household cat who sides with Kay.
13	* AncestralName: Several characters pass their names down through the generations:
14	** Abner shares his forename with his father and grandfather.
15	** Miss Piney Trigger has the same name as her father.
16	** Roper Bilges the gamekeeper shares the name of his grandfather, one of the mutineers on Captain Harker's ship.
17	* TheAtoner: Twiney Pricker, one of the crewmen who mutinied to steal the treasure, subsequently repented and spent the last years of his life tracking it down to return it to Captain Harker. He nearly succeeded, but Abner's grandfather was too much for him.
18	* BlackKnight: On the way to meet King Arthur, Kay, the unnamed messenger and Sir Launcelot encounter a supernatural Black Knight who treats beheading as a minor setback.
19	* BrickJoke: Kay's letter-writing style, which his governess scolds him about during a writing lesson early in the book, returns full-force near the end when he writes a letter to the authorities to let them know the treasure has been found.
20	* CharacterOverlap: Abner Brown previously appeared as a henchman of the villain (also a black magician) in ''Literature/SardHarker''. Sard Harker himself is perhaps a relative of Kay, although they're not explicitly connected (the details that are given are at least sufficient to establish that he's not a direct ancestor).
21	* CunningLikeAFox: One of Kay's allies is Rollicum Bitem Lightfoot, a fox who relies on his wits to keep one step ahead of the local gamekeeper.
22	* DesertedIsland: What with all the mutinies and maroonings, the history of the treasure includes several, each more bleak and inhospitable than the one before.
23	* DirectLineToTheAuthor: The WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue includes a couple of lapses into first-person, indicating that the author lives in the neighbourhood where the novel is set and has met (or, in the case of the fox, had his poultry raided by) some of the characters.
24	* FinallyFoundTheBody: The discovery of Twiney Pricker's body, near the end of the book, is what finally leads Kay to the treasure.
25	* FlyingBroomstick: Used by the witches.
26	* FunetikAksent: Twiney Pricker's [[OopNorth Northern British]] accent is rendered like this.
27	* GenderBlenderName: When Twiney Pricker reinvented himself as Piney Trigger, he gave the same forename (Piney) to his daughter.
28	* GossipyHens: Kay's governess's social circle includes a flock of them, with names like Mrs Gossip, Mrs Tattle, and Mrs Scatternews.
29	* HaggisIsHorrible: The Rat fondly recalls a time when a haggis was delivered to Kay's family but had gone bad and was thrown away -- so he got it all to himself.
30	* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Piney Trigger (the daughter) boasts of being one even into extreme old age.
31	* TheHighwayman: Kay is told a tale about Benjamin the highwayman, who used to live in the area.
32	* {{Invisibility}}: One of the witches drops a vial of invisibility potion, which Kay makes use of. The gamekeeper's dogs can still detect him by scent, though.
33	* LatinLand: Santa Barbara, where the treasure came from.
34	* LivingDrawing: Kay's family portraits come to life and talk to him.
35	* LivingToys: Kay's toys are among the Midnight Folk of the title.
36	* MeaningfulName: Meaningful to the author, at least. "Caroline Louisa" was the name of Masefield's own mother, who died when he was six.
37	* TheMutiny: Captain Harker's crew mutinied and marooned him so they could steal the treasure. The subsequent history of the treasure turns out to involve several more mutinies and maroonings with the same motivation.
38	* NarrativeProfanityFilter: Whenever Roper Bilges uses a profane verb, which he does often, it's obscured by verbing the nearest relevant noun.
39	-->'It sounded like a young jackdaw got down the chimney again.'\
40	'I'll jackdaw them jackdaws one of these days,' he said, 'if they keep on jackdawing me.'
41	* OracularHead: The coven uses a Brazen Head that can see into the past in an attempt to locate the treasure.
42	* OrWasItADream: Played with all through the book. All the supernatural events end with Kay waking up, but the "mundane" adventure story (where he's definitely awake) only makes sense if the things he learns on these expeditions are true.
43	* ParentalAbandonment: Kay's parents are both dead.
44	* PortraitPaintingPeephole: Kay uses one to spy on a meeting of the coven.
45	* PublicDomainCharacter: Myth/KingArthur and his court make a cameo appearance.
46	* SevenLeagueBoots: The witches have seven-league boots, as well as forty-nine league boots.
47	* ShoutOutToShakespeare: Greymalkin is the name of one of the witches' familiars in ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}''.
48	* SpeciesSurname: Kay's toys include a dog named Dogg and another named P. Dogg (they're said to be cousins), as well as a bear named G. L. Brown Bear. Many of the wild animals he meets also seem to be named after their species, as Bat, Otter, Water Rat, etc.
49	* SummoningRitual: Mrs Pouncer uses one to summon various supernatural entities, to ask them where the treasure might be. One of the supernatural figures that appears is a woman on a black mare who arrives unsummoned, and Mrs Pouncer has some trouble getting rid of her. [[spoiler:She reappears at the end as Kay's new guardian, Caroline Louisa.]]
50	* TalkingAnimal: Many of the Midnight Folk are these.
51	* TwoAliasesOneCharacter: [[spoiler:Kay's governess Sylvia Daisy and the wicked witch Mrs Pouncer are revealed to be one and the same.]]
52	* WhenIWasYourAge: Kay's governess and Mrs Tattle have a session of complaining about what young people these days are coming to, and how none of them are "what we were when we were girls". "Which," the narrator drily notes, in the case of Kay "was very likely true."
53	* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Though not marked off as an epilogue (the book has no chapter divisions), the last couple of pages consist of a series of descriptions of what happened to various characters afterward.
54	* WickedWitch: Mrs Pouncer and her colleagues, complete with familiar felines, flying broomsticks, tall pointy hats, wrinkled faces, hooky noses, etc. [[spoiler:It turns out that the faces are cunningly-fashioned masks that come off with the hats when they return to their respectable daylight lives.]]
55	* YouDirtyRat: The Cellar Rat is an information broker, who will happily sell out either side for green cheese or haggis.
56	* YourSizeMayVary: The relative sizes of Kay and the various Midnight Folk is never nailed down, and seems to vary according to convenience. Whenever Kay is hanging out with animals, he's apparently about the same size as they are, and when his toys are out and about, they seem to be life-size. There is one occasion on which Kay explicitly shrinks, in order to go on a voyage in a model ship crewed by mice, but even then there are times in the voyage where Kay seems to be his normal size again and the ship and mice have implicitly grown to match.

Context Literature / TheMidnightFolk