It keeps raining and raining and raining… It’s been raining in Moominvalley for a month now, and according to Moominpappa’s measurements, the water level is already higher than it was during the peak of the last flood in 1920. Families and groups in distress take refuge at the Moominhouse. The entire circus and its prima donna, Miss La Goona, with whom Moomintroll falls in love, also find themselves in distress at sea. What follows is a classic tale of jealousy involving Snorkmaiden, the strongman Emeraldo, who is in love with Miss La Goona, as well as her beautiful horse, whose coat is adorned with large flowers.

Moomintroll and Emeraldo, who bears a striking resemblance to the British actor David Suchet in the role of Hercule Poirot in the TV adaptations of Agatha Christie’s books, become classic rivals. Miss La Goona plays with the men, and Snorkmaiden suffers from Moomintroll’s fluctuating feelings. As is often the case in traditional tales of jealousy, by the end of the story Moomintroll and Emeraldo become lonely men who reject women.

A key supporting character in the story is, somewhat surprisingly, Miss La Goona’s flowery horse. It is a little mischievous, a know-it-all philosopher and, above all, a creature that brings lovers together. The flowery horses also appear later in Tove Jansson’s work. They gallop through the picture book Who Will Comfort Toffle?, published in 1960, and in the Moomin novel Moominpappa at Sea (1965), in which Moomintroll is enchanted and falls in love with the flower-adorned horses with their silvery horseshoes. In the book, they are called sea horses, even though they are clearly the flowery horses we already recognise from the series.

Moomin researcher Sirke Happonen has written that the flower horses already appeared in Tove Jansson’s early drawings and that they were influenced partly by the appearance of the classic Swedish Dala horses, and partly by Ivar Arosenius’s picture book The Cat Journey from 1909, which Tove Jansson read as a child.

The series’ adventure ends happily with the infatuated couple, Moomintroll and Snorkmaiden, sitting on a park bench where someone has previously carved a heart with Snorkmaiden’s initials inside it. There is less visual humour than usual in Moomin Falls in Love, as well as fewer special objects serving as dividers between the individual comic panels, compared to the previous comic stories.

Moomin Falls in Love was published in 1956. The Finnish name is Muumipeikko rakastuu, and the Swedish name is Mumintrollet blir förälskat.