The King therefore, for her defence,

against the furious Queene,

At Woodstocke builded such a bower,

the like was neuer seene.

Most curiously this Bower was built

of stone and timber strong,

An hundred and fifty doores

did to that bower belong.

And they so cunningly contriu’d

with turnings round about,

That none but with a clew of threed,

could enter in or out.

— Thomas Deloney, 17th century poet

<extra_leading_11pt>

Allow me to help you through the maze.

The King is Henry II, the Queene is Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the unnamed love is the Fair Rosamund, with whom the king is besotted. To enable the lovers’ trysts, the king is said to have built a clever maze, so cunningly contrived “with turnings round about,” that only through possession of a “clew,” or ball of thread, could the centre of the maze be attained.

Now, it may well be, as the British writer William Henry Matthews suggests in his 1922 landmark work, Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development, that the story of the lovers’ maze is little more than the “imaginative efforts of mediaeval romancers.”

But that rather spoils it.

Adults can do that.

Other adult shortcomings: They likely do not believe that Ariadne gave Theseus a clew of thread so he could wend his way out of the Cretan Labyrinth, having slain the frightful Minotaur. Or that Daedalus designed the labyrinth.

Honestly.

This week, Toronto City Council has a chance — no, let’s call it a responsibility — to return enchantment to Centre Island with its approval of the privately funded reconstruction of the maze, which was razed in 2011.

Entrepreneur William Meany has committed to ponying up the estimated $150,000 to $200,000. He had been stunned last year, as he told Star reporter Diana Zlomislic, to find the maze gone and no trace remaining of its existence.

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The thought that it could just disappear, he said in a follow-up interview, threatened to turn the maze into a wispy historical memory, like Babe Ruth’s first home run at Hanlan’s Point. That won’t do.

It seems such a curiosity. A maze. Does Canada even have another? Note: I’m not talking about corn mazes and late-night Halloween boo-runs through spooky stalks.

The conventional maze — surely we can all agree on this — is made of high hedges (yews are popular) that one cannot overlook. The hedges form veritable walls of greenery, their spines built with fencing that you cannot initially see but which you will surely find if you try to cheat and cut through.

The best mazes are designed with, well, a maze of hard turns that direct the fleet of foot into dead ends as they seek the centre. What fun.

Yes, there were turf mazes eons ago — there may be some left in England. I don’t care. What is the point of a maze if you can’t get lost in it? Turf mazes, as the name suggests, were just sort of squat, sad things. And yes the French have their pavement labyrinths, Chartres Cathedral being an example. Chartres is meditative but, ultimately, meh.

Matthews maintains that labyrinths and mazes are one and the same, but the unicursal labyrinth seems plainly distinct from the loops and branches of a maze.

The history of the Centre Island maze proved, initially, a bit of a puzzle. Warren Hoselton, an arborist and parks supervisor at the island, offered a viewing of the original blueprint, but all that could be unearthed was a drawing rendered in 1975 to indicate where worn fencing needed to be replaced.

Zlomislic’s story, however, caught the attention of the Vanderwerf girls.

Well, they’re in their 50s now, but Trudy Kavanagh and Tieneka Vanderwerf are two of Peter Vanderwerf’s six daughters.

Peter Vanderwerf, who immigrated to Canada from Holland in 1948, was awarded the commission to design the 120-foot-by-120-foot maze by the Netherlands Centennial Committee. In June 1967, the maze opened, Canada’s first, consisting of 5,000 White Highland cedars, paid for by the Dutch community of Toronto.

To the Vanderwerf girls it was always “Pappy’s Maze.” It wasn’t executed precisely as their father designed it: his clever concept of a wooden tower at the centre of the maze with a slide whisking children back to the entranceway was never executed. But its labyrinthine trickery was true to his initial vision. Among Vanderwerf’s papers is a sketch that shows his scribbled rethinking as he altered the maze’s alleyways and dead ends.

Needless to say, the Vanderwerf family is thrilled to hear of William Meany’s intentions. Peter Vanderwerf died in 2009 at the age of 89. It sounds as though there was always something of the kid in him — he started rollerblading at the age of 72.

Meany, who first played in the maze at the age of 7, remembers the reaction of the children who would frolic there, chiefly the looks of “joy and amazement” upon their faces. The adults, on the other hand, “seemed to be in awe of it,” to which Meany adds, “I hope you appreciate the distinction.”

Children get it naturally.

On Tuesday, city councillors get their chance to demonstrate that, this time, they get it too.