The Wind In The Willows

`I beg your pardon,' said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort. `You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me. So--this--is--a--River!' 'THE River,' corrected the Rat. And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!'

`By it and with it and on it and in it,' said the Rat. `It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we've had together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, it's always got its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars and basement are brimming with drink that's no good to me, and the brown water runs by my best bedroom window; or again when it all drops away and, shows patches of mud that smells like plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog the channels, and I can potter about dry shod over most of the bed of it and find fresh food to eat, and things careless people have dropped out of boats!'

It is with that description of The River, by The Water Rat, that we welcome you to this page, dedicated to the places, and to Kenneth Grahame himself, the places that came to make up much of The Wind in The Willows. Not only The Wind in The Willows, but Grahame's other books as well. The original of this page can be found on a website of ours dedicated to The Wind In The Willows on which we've included the complete e-text of his The Pagan Papers, indeed if you read The Papers carefully you can find hints of what was to come in

The Wind in The Willows. On this site we've included four chapters from The Wind In The Willows, because we feel that they illustrate our point about journeys and odysseys.

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn was also included to show where Pink Floyd got the title for their first album....enjoy.