The Myth of the Londoner

FEW HISTORIES OF London can resist retelling the city’s most enduring rags-to-riches story. Dick Whittington, an orphaned boy from the country, seeks his fortune in London, where, he has heard, “the streets are paved with gold.” Finding instead a pot-washing job in the domain of a bullying cook, he decides eventually to run away. But as he is leaving the city, he is stopped by the sound of church bells, which ring out: “Turn again, Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London.” He turns around, and when he arrives again in the city, he finds that he has come into a vast sum of money. A king, whose palace is infested with rodents, has bought his cat, a ruthless mouse-catcher. Power follows riches, and the story ends with the fulfillment of the bells’ prophecy.