To Be a Pilgrim

To Be a Pilgrim is the hymn that gives The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry its spiritual keynote. The novel opens with an epigraph drawn from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, quoting the famous stanza: 'Who would true valour see, / Let him come hither; / One here will constant be / Come wind, come weather. / There's no discouragement / Shall make him once relent / His first avowed intent / To be a pilgrim.' These lines, attributed to Bunyan, establish the book's central conceit: that Harold Fry's impulsive walk from Kingsbridge to Berwick-upon-Tweed is not merely a long stroll but a pilgrimage in the classic sense—a journey of valour, constancy, and unwavering intent. The hymn's promise that no discouragement shall make the pilgrim relent becomes the novel's quiet thesis, tested again and again through Harold's blisters, his doubts, and the collapse of his faith near the end of the road.

The Hymn in the Epigraph and the Novel's Frame

The epigraph is the novel's first and most explicit invocation of the pilgrim tradition. By placing Bunyan's words before the story begins, the author signals that Harold's journey will be read through the lens of religious allegory, even though Harold himself is not a religious man. The stanza's emphasis on 'constant be' and 'first avowed intent' foreshadows the central drama of the novel: whether Harold can hold to his promise to walk until Queenie Hennessy lives. The hymn's language of valour and weather also anticipates the physical and emotional trials Harold will face—the wind, the rain, the sun-bleached skies, and the inner storms of memory and guilt. The epigraph thus functions as a map for the reader, inviting them to see the mundane act of walking as a heroic and sacred undertaking.

The Hymn in the Breakfast Lounge

The hymn surfaces diegetically in the novel's early chapters, during Harold's first night away from home. At a hotel breakfast lounge, Harold tries to explain his mission to the other guests, who stare at him 'as if he had broken into a foreign language.' A plump lady helpfully asks whether he means 'a religious walk? A pilgrimage?' Then, without warning, her friend begins to sing 'He Who Would Valiant Be'—the hymn's alternate title—her voice rising 'pure and certain' while her slim face pinkens. Harold, unsure whether the performance is for the room or for her friend, smiles because he has no idea what to say. The moment is both comic and profound: the hymn, which Harold has never claimed as his own, is imposed on him by a stranger who recognizes what he cannot yet articulate. The singing validates his journey in the eyes of the other guests, even as it highlights Harold's own bewilderment. The scene also introduces the novel's recurring motif of strangers who understand Harold better than he understands himself, and it plants the seed that his walk will be interpreted by others as a pilgrimage long before he fully embraces the label.

The Hymn and the Meaning of the Walk

As Harold's journey progresses, the hymn's themes become internalized. In the early days, walking feels like freedom: 'England opened beneath his feet, and the feeling of freedom, of pushing into the unknown, was so exhilarating he had to smile.' But the hymn's promise of constancy is tested. Harold measures distance not in miles but 'with his remembering,' and the past he has spent twenty years avoiding 'chattered and played through his head with a wild energy.' The walk becomes an act of atonement, a way of holding Queenie alive through sheer will: 'As long as I walk, she must live.' The hymn's 'first avowed intent'—Harold's promise to walk to Berwick—becomes the engine of the plot, and its 'no discouragement' is echoed in his refusal to accept lifts or give up, even when his feet are bound with duct tape and his faith collapses at Wooler. By the end, when Maureen tells Harold that his getting up and doing something 'isn't a small miracle,' the novel has fully transformed the hymn's religious vocabulary into a secular creed of endurance and love. The hymn thus moves from epigraph to song to lived philosophy, binding the novel's themes of faith, pilgrimage, and the ordinary-extraordinary into a single, resonant refrain.