Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur

Arabel’s Raven was the first Aiken/Blake collaboration about Arabel and her pet raven Mortimer; this title was originally published by BBC publications in 1979. More than a quarter of a century later, both narrative and illustration remain engagingly fresh; for Aiken and Blake, not a word or a stroke of the pencil is wasted. The place is Rainwater Crescent, north London, and Arabel Jones and Mortimer are sitting on the bedroom window-sill ‘which was a very wide and comfortable one, with plenty of room for them both, and a cushion as well’. In the community garden opposite they watch an excavator creating a very deep hole and are naturally drawn to the action. Once in the garden, their encounters with Sandy, who is training for the circus, are the subject of much delight and plenty of ‘Kaaarking’ from Mortimer. But what the raven really has his eye fixed upon is driving the gardener’s wonderful motor mower, LawnSabre. In this he finally succeeds, with extraordinary consequences as King Arthur’s sword Excalibur emerges fantastically from the very deep hole.

Arabel’s innocent exchanges with the adults around her, especially long-suffering Mum, lie at the heart of these tales, while the antics of the raven are captured with great humour and delicate observation, as though the bird is Arabel’s naughty, indulged sibling. The drawings of Mortimer whirling a banana skin like a discus-thrower, of the unicyclist whisking up Arabel in his umbrella, of the raven flying the LawnSabre – these are a reminder of Blake’s prodigious talent for capturing all human and animal life at play.