One of my favourite episodes from the Winnie The Pooh first book (which is called just like that) is set in winter and I like it because it’s extremely silly but also extremely wise, like our favourite bear: it’s a tale about how often we chase our own tail just because we get too worried and preoccupied to think clearly.
We open the tale with Piglet, the master of overthinking, who’s sweeping the snow away from the doorstep of his big, luxurious house in the middle of a beech-tree in the middle of the forest.
All illustrations are by E.H. Shepard
One fine winter’s day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called to him, he just went on walking.
When Piglet asks him what he’s doing, Pooh responds he’s hunting or, to be more appropriate, he’s tracking something. But he doesn’t know what.
“I shall have to wait until I catch up with it”
Being the helpful swine he is, Piglet immediately suggests it might be a Woozle, which of course is a dreadful thing. Pooh is not sure about it but, of course, he can’t rule this out (could YOU?): he keeps on tracking and, after a brief hesitation, Piglet runs after him.
It’s not too long since the inevitable happens.
Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden stop, and was bending over the tracks in a puzzled sort of way.
And what’s puzzling our favourite bear is that the tracks have doubled. To put it into his own words: “This whatever-it-is has been joined by another whatever-it-is and the two of them are now proceeding in company”.
They start wondering whether they might be Hostile Animals and, since Piglet doesn’t have anything to do until Friday, he gladly offers to accompany Pooh, in case they turn out to be two Woozles.
Shepard gives you another angle for this next illustration, in case you’re dense enough not to understand what’s really going on.
There was a small spinney of larch-trees just here, and it seemed as if the two Woozles, if that is what they were, had been going round this spinney; so round this spinney went Pooh and Piglet after them.
Eventually, of course, they come across a third set of tracks, which is rather different from the first two.
So they went on, feeling just a little anxious now, in case the three animals in front of them were of Hostile Intent.
Again and again, they come across multiple sets of tracks, joining the previous ones and growing more and more menacing by the minute.
Eventually, Piglet gets too scared and bails, but not before a whistle comes from the top of the tree and they see Christopher Robin being seated on top of a branch. Of course, being up high, their young master knows what is going on. And I really hope you have figured it out by now.
The episode was also animated by Disney, merged with the one in which Tigger jumps on top of a tree and he’s unable to jump down.
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