“The Swan”

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Information


Plot Description

Spoiler warning! A boy named Ernie has been given a rifle for his birthday. Ernie is a violent, ignorant bully and hooligan. Raymond, another bully, is Ernie’s best friend. The two of them go off to hunt rabbits. On the way they run into Peter Watson, a small frail boy who is watching birds. Peter is their favorite victim. He’s smart and polite and nothing like them. They insult him and threaten to shoot him, but backoff when he reminds them that they’d be sent to prison. Instead they punch him and tie him up. Then they drag him to the railway line and tie him between the rails. When he realizes that they are serious about not letting him go, he tries to figure out how to survive the train. It passes over him and he is unharmed. The bullies are disappointed and decide on a new game. They march Peter to a nearby lake, a waterfowl sanctuary. They shoot a duck and force Peter out into the lake to retrieve it for them. When he tries to refuse, they hit him and beat him. Next they shoot a nesting swan. Peter retrieves it and hides the baby cygnets beneath from the bullies’ eyes. When he gets back on dry land, he turns on his captors. “That was a filthy thing to do! … You’re not fit to be alive!” Ernie gets an idea and claims that he can bring the swan back to life and make it flight around the sky. He takes the dead swan and cuts its wings off, and then he and Raymond tie them to Peter’s arms. Then they make him climb a high willow tree in order to jump off. When he doesn’t jump, they begin firing at him with the rifle. He remains hidden until one of the bullets hits him in the thigh. With a cry, he began to fall. Yet, the author tells us, there are some peoploe who will always be “unconquerable”. Peter Watson was one of these. He saw a light shining above the lake and spread his wings. Three different people reported seeing a great white swan circling over the village that day. Mrs. Watson happened to look out her kitchen window at the exact moment her son flopped down out of the sky. He fainted and she called for the ambulance. “And while she was waiting for help to come, she fetched a pair of scissors and began cutting the string that held the two great wings of the swan to her son’s arms.”


“Galloping Foxley”

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Information


Plot Description

This story has a very autobiographical feeling to it, and one can’t help but wonder whether it actually happened to Dahl or not. His feelings about the English Public School system are well-documented (see Boy – Tales of Childhood or Jeremy Treglown’s Roald Dahl: A Biography), and he loads this short story full of so many intense details that it seems unlikely he would ever make such a thing up. Perkins also attends Repton, where Dahl himself went to school.

Spoiler warning! The story, if indeed it can be called that (since there really isn’t much of a plot at all), is about a “contented commuter” named William Perkins. He is a distinguished businessman and prides himself on the regularity and precision with which he goes about his daily routine. One day his peace is shattered, however, when a newcomer joins the usual group waiting for the commuter train. After several days of grudging conversation with this obnoxious man, Perkins suddenly recognizes him as Bruce “Galloping” Foxley, an older boy who sadistically tormented and tortured him for years in school. The entire story then comes to a grinding halt as fifty-year-old memories begin to flood Perkins: warming the toilet seat for Foxley, cleaning Foxley’s study, receiving a beating from Foxley. As Perkins becomes more and more shaken by these memories, he decides to reveal himself to the man and watch his reaction. He leans over and introduces himself: “My name is Perkins – William Perkins – and I was at Repton in 1907.” Imagine his surprise, then, when his companion answers, “I’m glad to meet you. Mine’s Fortescue – Jocelyn Fortescue, Eton 1916.” He is NOT Galloping Foxley!


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