Literature / The Faraway Tree

aka: The Magic Faraway Tree

"Up the Faraway Tree. Jo, Bessie and me!"

— Fanny, singing about climbing the Faraway Tree.

The Faraway Tree is a series of three novels (and one picture-strip book) by British children's author Enid Blyton.

The series follows the adventures of Jo, Bessie and Fanny (renamed Joe, Beth and Frannie in later reprints), three siblings who have just moved to the countryside with their parents. While out exploring, they discover an enchanted forest, where the eponymous Faraway Tree grows. It's easily the biggest tree in the entire forest, and is home to various fairy folk who live inside the trunk.

The topmost branches of the Faraway Tree reach up into the clouds, and are used to access various magical 'lands' that appear amongst the clouds. The lands themselves vary from nice lands, like 'The Land of Birthdays' or 'The Land of Take-What-You-Want', to not so nice lands like 'The Land of Punishments' or 'The Land of Tempers'. Each land moves away from the tree to make way for the next one, the length of time a land will stay seems to vary. Some lands will only stay for an hour or so, but other lands will stay for days, and even the time that will elapse between one land leaving and the next arriving is undefined.

If you aren't quick enough to climb back down the Faraway Tree before the land moves on, you will be stuck there until the land happens to move back to the top of the tree. This happens to the protagonists more often than not, but they find various ways to get back to the tree by travelling through other lands to get back to the enchanted forest, or by using magic.

In 1997, The Faraway Tree was adapted into the first season of Enid Blyton's Enchanted Lands, an animated series created for the BBC by Cosgrove Hall.

The novels are:

• The Enchanted Wood (1939)
• The Magic Faraway Tree (1943)
• The Folk of the Faraway Tree (1946)

The picture-strip book Up the Faraway Tree was published in 1951.

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The Faraway Tropes:

• Berserk Button: The Angry Pixie hates it when people look in his window when they're climbing up the Faraway Tree.
• Big Eater: The three main children eat quite a lot, but their cousin Dick is noted for being especially greedy, although he is never described as being outright fat.
• Bowdlerise: Fanny and Dick were renamed Frannie and Rick in later reprints. Dame Slap was also renamed Dame Snap, and instead of slapping people, she would shout at them instead. In a 3-in-1 reprint, all references to slapping were removed which makes a couple of passages odd (such as Moon-Face announcing that he had "such a scolding") and a number of food items were updated to make it more accessible to the children (such as Pop Biscuits being renamed "Pop Cakes" and so on)
• British Weather: Averted, the children seem to be blessed with mostly sunny and beautiful weather. Maybe because they live near an enchanted forest?.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Poor Beth doesn't seem to be having the best of luck in the first book. When the trio inquisitively looked into the Angry Pixie's house, the pixie immediately hurls a bottle of ink at them, which splatters all over Beth while missing Joe and Fanny. While Beth comments on how her dress is ruined, she ends up getting drenched mid-sentence by an entire bucket of soapy water emptied by Dame Wash-a-lot.
  • For the tree's residents, the Saucepan Man, due to being The Ditz. From getting arrested in the Land of Toys to getting kicked out of Mr. Wazitsname's house and getting into all kinds of misunderstandings due to his hearing problems.
• Character Development: Jo, Bess and Fanny change very little throughout the books, but their cousin Dick learns not to be quite so greedy, and their spoilt friend Connie becomes less of a brat.
• Crossover: With some public-domain fairy tales.
  • Goldilocks and the bears shows up in one of the stories, where as it turns out after her initial misadventures, Goldilocks eventually befriended the bear family and even became a caretaker to the baby bear.
  • An adventure in the Land of Giants features Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. And the only way to escape from some hostile giants? Via the beanstalk, of course!
  • The Old Woman who Lives in a Shoe has her own land, and at one point she takes up residence in Moon-Face's rooms while he's temporarily away.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Angry Pixie is a pixie with a Hair-Trigger Temper, Dame Washalot is a woman who enjoys washing clothes to the point that she'll clean the leaves of the Faraway Tree if she has nothing else to wash, and Moon-Face is a man with a round, moon-like face.
• Fanservice: Our heroes are captured by evil snowmen. Their solution is to stoke the fire in the room in which they're held prisoner. It gets so hot that Fanny wishes at one point that she could "take everything off". Cue the curiosity of young boy readers...
• Food Porn: The Land of Birthdays and the Land of Goodies (along with the Land of Treats to a minor extent) is very heavy handed on the Food Porn, but there's also magical treats that Moon-Face and Silky hand out to the children whenever they visit such as Pop Cakes, and Toffee Shocks.
• Free-Range Children: Played with, the children are allowed to go out to the Faraway Tree when they aren't doing chores at home, but they're often told to come back at a certain time. They also end up exploring far off lands with little to no adult supervision. (at least parental supervision, although one could imply that the folk in the tree are adults)
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: In the second book there are two boys, Jo and their cousin Dick, and the two girls, Bessie and Fanny. Averted however, when you add in the Faraway Tree characters, who outnumber the girls.
• Hair of Gold: Silky's hair is very blond and beautiful, and she's easily the sweetest person in the entire series.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: The Angry Pixie has one. Also everyone from the Land of Tempers; it's said that if you lose your temper there, then you're forced to live there for the rest of your life (which is the reason the Angry Pixie never went up there himself).
• Intercontinuity Crossover:
  • The Saucepan Man showed up in another Blyton book, The Book of Brownies, where he befriends the three brownies after they escape from an evil dwarf sorceror. It's implied that Brownies is set before any of the Faraway Tree books.
  • Some of the worlds in the Faraway Tree shows up in another Blyton book, The Wishing Chair. Such as Topsy-Turvy Land and the Land of Goodies.
• Journey to the Sky: The titular magical tree grows right up into the clouds, and climbing to its top usually leads to some Magical Land (a different one every week), although the length of time each land stays can vary from days to hours, which can result in characters being stuck there. On one occasion, in order to rescue someone who had become trapped in the Land of Marvels, the others have to get there via the adjoining Land of Giants, which they access by climbing Jack's beanstalk.
• Limited Destination Time: The eponymous tree contains a portal to a magical land, but which magical land it leads to changes regularly. There's at least one story where the protagonists stay too long in the magical land de jour, and when they go back to the portal they find that it's moved on, leaving them stranded.
• Living Toys: The residents of the Land of Toys. They're also the size of humans.
• Mouthy Kid: Dick can be like this at times, but he's still quite a polite version of the trope. Connie also fits this to a lesser extent.
• Nuclear Family: There's a mother and father, and the three children themselves.
• Once an Episode:
  • Dame Wash-a-lot emptying her used soap water from on top of the tree, which ends up drenching someone on their first trip up the tree (in order of the books: Beth, Dick and Connie).
  • The Angry Pixie losing his temper over the most insignificant of reasons and throwing stuff at anyone inquisitive enough to peep through his window (at one point Joe only just managed to remind the Pixie that he should really be angry at the Red Goblins who'd locked him in his rooms in the first place rather than Joe who had just let him out).
  • The Saucepan Man mishearing something due to carrying all that saucepan on him. And then getting into all sorts of hijinks that the other characters have to drag him out.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Mr. Watizname, a resident of the Faraway Tree, doesn't remember what his actual name is, and is happy to go by Mr. Watizname. He later founds out in the Land of Secrets that his name is actually Kollamoolitumarellipawkyrollo, but goes back to being Mr. Watizname by the end of the story, due to forgetting his name all over again.
• Only One Name: You never find out the children's surname, and none of the Faraway Tree residents appear to have surnames. Or in the case of Mr. Watizname and Dame Washalot, any first names.
• Overly Long Name: Mr. Watizname's real name is Kollamoolitumarellipawkyrollo, as revealed in the Land of Secrets. It's probably not English.
• Punny Name: Most of the folks living in the tree; Moon Face has a face shaped like a round moon, Silky has fine silky hair, Mr. Wazitsname doesn't know his true name, and so on.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The Saucepan Man had tendencies to randomly break out in rhyming songs, for no reasons whatsoever.
• Running Gag: Whenever someone climbs the Faraway Tree for the first time, they'll always look inside the Angry Pixie's window, despite being told not to, and will usually have cold water or ink thrown at them. They'll also be hit by Dame Washalot's dirty wash water, and will ask if anyone's ever been tempted to drop something into Mr. Watizname's open mouth as he sleeps. They'll also be surprised by Toffee Shocks, a sweet that grows larger in the eater's mouth until it finally pops (Connie was particularly shocked when she took two at once without being told what they did).
  • The Saucepan Man mishearing what people say, because he's a little deaf from the clashing of the various pots and pants he keeps strung about his person.
    • This becomes an Brick Joke later when we're introduced to Saucepan's mother, who is just as deaf as he is without any pots.
• Sixth Ranger: Dick in the second book, and Connie in the third.
• Spoiled Brat: Connie starts out like this.
• Status Quo Is God: No matter who gets stuck in one of the lands, or what happens to the Faraway Tree, everything will always go back to normal by the end of that particular adventure.
  • Slightly averted with the Saucepan Man; his land moves on while he's visiting the Faraway Tree, but he's more than content to move in with Mr. Watizname.
• Staying with Friends: More than one subplot had Moon Face and the Saucepan Man bunking in with Joe and his sisters after getting into trouble. The Saucepan Man himself permanently lived with his friend Mr. Wazitname, after his own land drifted away and he must wait until it returns.
• Sticky Fingers: Dick, in the Land of Goodies gets into trouble for stealing and eating someone's door knocker.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: It's very subtle, but Fanny seems to be more of a Tomboy, and Bessie is more of a Girly Girl.
• Took a Level in Badass: Evil goblins invade the Tree at one point, and everyone has to step up to the plate. Each fights according to their strength - Dame Washalot drenches them, the Angry Pixie lets his anger loose, Saucepan Man takes all his saucepans off and THROWS them as weapons (he's not recognized by the children when he appears without them later), Silky ties one up in her curtains, and Moon Face uses his slide (see below) as a trap to hold the subdued ones, with the lower door sealed shut.
• Tube Travel: Moon Face has a slide- known as the slippery-slip- all the way from his house at the top to the bottom of the Faraway Tree which runs in a spiral down the middle of the tree to the bottom. You have to bring him toffees next time you visit (at first, no mention of this is made in later books), and a squirrel collects the cushions when you emerge.
• The Unpronounceable: Good luck trying to pronounce Mr. Wazitsname's real name, which is Kollamoolitumarellipawkyrollo. Heck, even Mr. Wazitsname doesn't know how to say it aloud!
• The Voiceless: The third book had Connie losing her voice after trying to eavesdrop in the Land of Secrets. The following adventure have the children trying to find a way to restore her voice in the Land of Enchantments.
• World Tree: The titular tree, which leads all the way into the skies and can reach mysterious, wonderous lands.

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