The Chapter Too Dark for 'Wind in the Willows'

Video from The Resurrectionists

The Chapter Too Dark for 'Wind in the Willows'

"Most remember The Wind in the Willows as a cosy tale—picnics on the river, Ratty and Mole, and Mr Toad’s glorious chaos. But hidden in its reeds is a chapter so strange many editions cut it entirely. Why did Kenneth Grahame place a pagan god at the heart of a children’s book—and why did later editors try to erase him?

In this episode of The Resurrectionists, we open the forgotten pages of The Wind in the Willows to meet Pan—the horned god of wild places—whose sudden appearance turns a bedtime story into a vision. From Edwardian nostalgia to occult revival, from riverbank hush to holy terror, we trace how a single chapter changed the book—and why its absence still haunts modern reprints.

Was Grahame writing a quaint animal fable—or a hymn to the old gods hidden in the English countryside?" from the video introduction

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