Dick Whittington has always been a favourite fairytale character, and no wonder. He was a hero without ever knowing it. But wait-is fairytale had just description of where to find him?
In Shakespeare, there are plenty of fairies, small as mustard seeds or human size if it suits the tale of verse. Shakespeare, like most Elizabethans, totally believed in fairies-and what is totally believed in, truly exists -for the believer.
And is their magic in Dick Whittington's story? There are no magical animals, not a bird, nor of fish, the cat itself does not speak any language but its own and behaves always in cat fashion, doing what it naturally dose. And yet the whole tale is infused with wonder.
Now here is a fact known to few, if any, humans, and yet affecting all, every single one. Every human has within himself or herself- for good or evil-a grain of magic. And that magic has a name. Its name is chance. Was it anything but chance that made Dick fall asleep on that particular doorstep, the doorstep of Mr Fitzwarren? And to be lying there when Alice (with her father) came to arrive and unknowingly change the course of his life? What chance took an unwitting Dick to Highgate Hill (look at the stone) where his cat was waiting for him? Only chance could have made the cat come out and choose him. Have you always chosen the right road?
