Talk to the hand

Each week Prof Bromfield and Dr Clattercut roll up their sleeves and plunge into the mail sacks that have arrived at the Royal Mythological Society's offices. (Dame Sepia wisely stays out of it.)

Dear gents

I’m not one for fancy words so I’ll come right to point. I’m the gamekeeper for the Earl of Derby at his Whitley estate. Few days back, there were a right exodus from the woods up by his coverts. Squirrels and birds and mice and frogs, insects too, all come pouring out. You’d think whole forest were aflame. And dead quiet after. I went on me own to take a look, none of the beaters would stir an inch, and you’ve never heard the like of that silence. Right in the heart of wood all the trees were down like skittles, and in the midst were a great gigantic hand, knuckles like boulders and each nail as big as a coal cellar door. Hairs on it like barbed wire. The old dog would have nowt to do with it, no fool him.

It’s just the hand, like, no blood or bone showing. You’d mark it clay but for the plain fact it’s warm flesh. And it lies there, cupped with the palm down, but not limp like a dead ‘un. More like your own hand if it were resting on the arm of a chair, now and then moving just a bit, a twitch or a scratch.

Well, there’s no shooting to be done while it’s there. No wildlife will come within a mile of it, you see, except for adders. And I can’t think what it’d take to move the thing. Any notions?

Yours, Ben Gummer, Great Heck, Yorkshire

Dr Clattercut replies: This is a curiosity indeed. From the scale of the extremity, I think we can surmise it belongs to a giant, god or titan. It is unfortunate, Mr Gummer, that you omit to say whether it is a right or left hand. The god Tyr, of course, famously had his right hand bitten off by the Fenris wolf, whereby the Old Norse word for the wrist was “wolf-joint”.

Prof Bromfield: It would be a bit chewed up in that case, wouldn’t it? Not to mention that Fenris swallowed the hand, so you’d expect to see industrial quantities of wolf poo around. As Mr Gummer specifically says the wrist is clean of blood, I take it to be more in the nature of a supernatural dismemberment. Didn’t the Egyptian god Set use magic to sunder Osiris’s body into fourteen parts?

Dr Clattercut: But none of those parts, I think, would logically turn up now in a wood in Yorkshire. More likely, I feel, the hand is a fragment of one of the giants Gog and Magog, who were disjected by Brutus of Troy when he founded Britain. This could also explain why snakes, which owe their allegiance to older gods, are comfortable in the hand’s presence.

Prof Bromfield: As to the practicalities: it’s obviously too big to get on a cart, even if Mr Gummer could induce the horses to approach it. So what about tickling it with a feather. It’d take a bit of patience, but that way it should be possible to get the hand to twitch and convulse enough to drag itself out of the woods.

Dr Clattercut: And, always assuming it didn’t flick its tormentor away, unless you would take the trouble to tickle it all the way to the sea that would still only result in a giant hand blocking the road. Personally I’d advise putting a fence around the woods and moving the coverts elsewhere. No doubt it’s a bother, but it’s the lesser of two bothers.

FURTHER READING

• A Minotaur At The Savoy
• But That's A Detail by A J Alan
• The Collected Short Stories by Saki
• Fancies & Goodnights by John Collier
• Gods, Men & Ghosts by Lord Dunsany
• The October Country by Ray Bradbury

Wishing makes it so

Another snippet of correspondence from the files of the Royal Mythological Society:

Dear Doctor Clattercut and Professor Bromfield

As it is the season for falling stars, and this summer we may expect a number of green meteors from the tail of Comet Meadowvane, I wonder what will result from the consequent spate of wishes all coming true?

Yours,

Frank Dyson,

Greenwich

Dr Clattercut replies: It has been my experience that, for every person harbouring a given wish, there is somebody else who wishes the exact opposite. Therefore, although hundreds of wishes will be granted during this year’s meteor showers, the overall effects can be expected to cancel out. You’re very quiet, Bromfield.

Prof Bromfield: I just realized that I’ve blown rather a lot of money at the bookies.

Too much magic!

Dear Professor Bromfield and Dr Clattercut

It has come to a pretty pass, I have to tell you. From when I was a small boy I had my nose in old maps, tracing the routes taken by the great pioneers. Lewis and Clark traversing the Rockies. Parry mapping the Hudson Bay pack ice. Livingstone in his canoe getting his first sight (indeed, sound) of Victoria Falls. In my imagination I accompanied them all, and my dream from those early days was to become an explorer.

Not to blow my own trumpet, but I achieved the Royal Geographical Society’s Gold Medal when I was yet nineteen, for my expedition in the northern Sahara. I was getting things together to go up the Indus. But then it happened. What, you may ask? Your green comet, gentlemen!

The first inkling was during a trip to Pompeii. I was there a couple of months ago and the ground just cracked open one day—fissures down thirty feet to the houses and shops of Roman times. Being covered in pumice didn’t stop the citizens from getting up a thriving trade with the locals. Net result: archaeologists and historians might as well pack up and go home.

Next thing: scouting trip to the Hindu Kush. Safe enough, you may think, from fantastical influences if not from jezail bullets. But you can’t move now for yeti selling trinkets. And as for ancient lost kingdoms — there’s a queue to get in!

This is no good for a man like me. I need a challenge, a mystery to solve, an uncharted region to dent the bounds of. So off I set to the Antarctic, quite alone. Surely here I could escape the flood of goblins, gods and who-knows-what that has become the curse of the modern world?

On the third day out I came across a giant staircase cut into the ice. I began to descend, only for the ground to give way below my feet, plunging me — no, not into freezing snow, but a subterranean realm of dripping jungle lit by the fires of inner Earth. Long story short: I evaded the carnivorous dinosaurs infesting this land by covering myself in their ordure. But when I finally reached a savannah that was free of them and stopped to wash, no sooner was I clean again than a giant bird swooped down and carried me off to a mountaintop palace inhabited by men who I take to be descendents of the ancient Toltecs. They insisted on keeping me with them and now I learn that they intend to crown me as their god-king.

This is no good. I desire a bit of solitude and a place where man has to make an effort to uncover the unknown — not where it comes knocking at his front door and demanding entry with all the grace and mystique of a cockney shoe salesman. Too much magic, gentlemen!

Yours sincerely,

Sir Iain MacTavish,

the Earth’s Core

Prof Bromfield replies: I’m getting a bit fed up of people blaming us for all the magical to-do. Shooting the messenger, and all that. Might as well shout at your bookie if the horse you backed comes in last. Though, on reflection, they often are the culprits there… You’re a bit quiet, Clattercut.

Dr Clattercut: I’m a tad concerned that Toltec custom was to sacrifice their god-kings after a year on the throne. If this reply reaches you, Sir Iain, then I suggest you set off back to Britain as soon as possible. It may not be exciting, but it’s home.

TKO

O magistri sapienissimi,

In a fight between Hercules and Thor, who would win?

Yours, Piers Craddock and Will Rice,

St Paul’s School,

Hammersmith

Dr Clattercut replies: Ah, doesn’t that take you back, Bromfield? In one’s schooldays the world seems so simple, every problem so black and white. Well, Masters Craddock and Rice, I have to tell you that even in the Year of Wonders, reality is a little bit more complicated than algebra books and rugger pitches may have led you to believe.

Prof Bromfield: Quite. In any case, Thor would obviously win, being a god.

Dr Clattercut: The matter is entirely hypothetical, but even so I don’t think it is as clear cut as you say, Bromfield. Hercules’s father is Zeus, king of the gods.

Prof Bromfield: He’s half-divine, then. But still only mortal. And wrestling a few boars and oxen and whatever — all those tedious labours—hardly puts him on a par with the god of thunder. Remember that Thor’s hammer is so heavy that only he can lift it…

Dr Clattercut: What about when Hercules took the entire weight of the heavens off Atlas’s shoulders? I daresay that’s a greater burden than any hammer.

Prof Bromfield: Well, there you have it. The hammer’s the key. Big biceps aren't going to matter a jot after a clonk with a weapon like that. You know the Norse myths, full of giants falling like skittles. Think what it sounds like when a thunderclap goes off right over your head. Rattles the furniture, eh? Well that’s Thor’s hammer heard at long distance.

Dr Clattercut: It’s hardly an even contest if Thor is going to use his hammer. I’m saying that without the hammer, a straight grappling match — then Hercules is bound to be the victor.

Prof Bromfield: Why would the god of thunder agree to fight and leave his hammer at home? Not that he needs the hammer to defeat a Greek strongman, seeing as he actually is the mightiest of all the Aesir.

Dr Clattercut: But that’s…

Prof Bromfield: And I haven’t even mentioned Thor’s magic belt yet that doubles his strength. Or his iron gloves that double it again.

Dr Clattercut: I give up.


Prof Bromfield: As would Hercules!

Justice from on high

With news today of a Gigeresque alien gargoyle on Paisley Abbey, this seems like a good excuse to feature another letter to the Royal Mythological Society...

*  *  *

My esteemed friends

If you were to visit our most charming town, you would delight in the beautiful and historic church, much of the exterior structure of which dates from the 11th century. One of the features added in the 12th century were the many decorative gargoyles, each with its own personality stamped very clearly on faces of jocular menace.

Of late, the gargoyles have taken their traditional duty perhaps too much to heart. Charged with scaring away the ungodly from our church precincts, they first took to hounding out the bats that were accustomed to roost in the tower. My bell ringers were glad of this, as they often complained of the bats’ droppings, but I felt the departure of the bats robbed the town of some of its character at dusk.

More extreme measures were to come. When a young couple began stepping out in secret against their parents’ wishes, the gargoyles first chased them from the church and later began to swoop on them whenever they went courting, flinging pebbles and even bits of bone from the churchyard down on their heads. The poor suitor has entirely given up his love and now spends his evenings at cider and skittles.

And then—and this most intolerable—the gargoyles began to persecute poor Madame Cloville, who at eighty-two is the town’s oldest resident. I will break the seal of the confessional to tell you, good sirs, that this honest woman has committed no wrong save only when she was a schoolgirl, no more than nine years of age, and having broken a neighbour’s window she allowed another child to take the blame. Yet for that peccadillo over seven decades past, the gargoyles break her windows, steal her vegetables, and pelt her with dung. So unfortunate!

I would be loath to banish the gargoyles, as they are a venerable part of the church’s history, but pray tell me, sirs: whatever can be done to rein in the excesses of these zealous creatures?

The Reverend Père Blanchard,

St Julien de Brioude,

Auvergne

Prof Bromfield replies: A firm hand is what’s needed. Climb up there and biff them on the nose with a mallet. And while you’re about it, give them that sermon from the gospel of St John about casting the first stone.

Dr Clattercut: Perhaps it would better to avoid any mention of throwing stones, as the gargoyles haven’t shown any reluctance in that regard up till now. I suggest having masonry pins applied to fix them to the church walls. Then, like a fierce dog on a stout chain, they can make as much noise as they please but no one need fear the bite.

Read more in A Minotaur At The Savoy

The moon in June

Esteemed scientific gentlemen

I flatter myself that you may have seen some of my cinematographic presentations such as Un Homme de Têtes and Visite Sous-Marine. This year, I am resolved to bring to the screen a long-cherished project, a magnificent spectacle entitled Le Voyage dans la Lune. I envisage this as a drama almost fifteen minutes in duration — a true epic of the cinematic medium, I am sure you will agree.

In previous years I have achieved my astonishing visual effects with a combination of painted glass mattes, mirrors and double exposure of the film. It has occurred to me that, by reason of the green comet that currently looms so large in our sky, marvels have become easier to accomplish “in the field”, so to speak. In short, I am considering whether to shoot on location.

Could I ask your learned advice on any difficulties that might present themselves in the course of a trip to the Moon?

In anticipation of your help, Monsieurs, I ask you to accept the expression of my heartfelt regard.

Yours,

Georges Méliès,

Montreuil

Dr Clattercut replies: I must confess that—although this year I have had to contend with kleptomaniac spriggans, some very rude spirit writing in the Gents, and a sphinx running amuck in the Babylonian Gallery—I have yet to visit one of these newfangled “moving picture” shows.

Prof Bromfield: Much the same thing as watching a stage play, only it’s all in black and white and you can’t hear what they’re saying—though, in the case of Monsieur Méliès’s films, I take it that what you can’t hear is in French anyway.

Dr Clattercut: Monsieur Méliès, I’m afraid I don’t know a great deal about astronomy. I advise you to write to Mr Selwyn Cavor at the Royal Institution, as he may be able to offer some practical tips about food, oxygen, anti-gravity and Selenite politics. Also, be aware that Mr Thomas Cook is now advertising weekly trips by ladder to the Moon, which may lessen the impact of your production to today’s audiences.

Prof Bromfield: If not the impact, I might add, on landing.

Big bare behind

 
Dear Prof Bromfield and Dr Clattercut

We’re having trouble with our giant. He’s not content to lie on the hill any more; he goes for a wander at all hours, stepping right over the houses. Children are asking their parents all sorts of difficult questions and the nub of it is, we need to get some trousers on him.

Some of the ladies who organize the church fête were kind enough to sew him a big set of leather breeches, but he won’t keep them on for five minutes. Last week he went for a dip in the river to cool off, leaving the breeches blocking traffic in the high street. We had to cut them up with cavalry sabres so that the brewer’s dray could haul them off.

Sincerely,
the Reverend Cuthbert O’Dwyer,
Cerne Abbas 

Dr Clattercut replies: He may simply be unfamiliar with the concept of trousers. Some of the pre-Roman tribes of these isles wore kilts. Perhaps you should try that.

Prof Bromfield: Not a lot of use, Clattercut, if you think about it. The altitude, you see, means the kilt would do little for propriety.

Dr Clattercut: Yes, I see. It would have to be something more like a nappy.

Prof Bromfield: Heavens, man, imagine somebody told you to put on a nappy! How do think you might react to that, eh? Good lord, the last thing we need in this heat is a giant on the rampage through Dorset.

Dr Clattercut: Or any county other than Essex. Well then, Mr O’Dwyer, let me suggest an inducement. Why not get everyone in the village to take up bee keeping? Then I think your giant will soon see the benefit of a thick pair of trousers.


Tales of the Year of Wonders abound in A Minotaur at the Savoy, a collection of curious correspondence curated by Professor Bampton Bromfield and Dr Cyril Clattercut, with the studious noninvolvement of Dame Sepia Belchamy.

Urbane fantasy

"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything," and to mark the rebirth of the year, you can pick up a free Kindle copy of A Minotaur at the Savoy (US edition here) all this week. Yep, right up until Friday 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious.

This little volume, as regular readers will know, is a tie-in with the world of the Mirabilis graphic novel, fleshing out the background by means of fifty Dunsany-ish tall tales woven around the postbag of the Royal Mythological Society. For example:

Dear Prof Bromfield and Dr Clattercut

Recently I was taken by a friend to a restaurant in Fitzrovia. As we were settling down over whisky and cigars after the meal, I glanced at the menu and noticed that the à la carte listed Dodo Véronique. Intrigued as I was, I had by this time already put away a dozen oysters, the onion soup, a smoked haddock dish, two helpings of beef wellington, a lemon soufflé, a plate of almond biscuits, a bottle or two of Chateau Yquem and three large brandies. Also, I’d had a bit of a gyppy tummy earlier in the week, so at that stage I really didn’t feel up to fitting anything else in. I now rather wish I had, as I went for a bit of a walk to see if I could find the place again and there’s no sign of the street. I remember it had a little blue sconce of flame over the door, and a sort of curtain of ivory beads to keep the fog out. My friend has gone on a trip to Venezuela so no use asking him.

Sincerely, Edward Plunkett, The Attican Club, Pall Mall

Dr Clattercut replies: O rara avis in terris!

Prof Bromfield: Latin? You’ll have lost most of our readers right there, old man.

Dr Clattercut: I merely remarked on the pang of missed opportunity. Who knows how long before Mr Plunkett will again find himself in a restaurant with dodo on the menu?

Prof Bromfield: I doubt if there’s honestly any cause for regret. From what I hear, dodo is a tough, gamey sort of fowl. No use cooking it like chicken. Dodo meat is more like what you’d get on a year-old pheasant: tough if served pink, and dry if overcooked. Much more sensible to put it in a curry or a spicy Mexican dish. A Véronique sauce would be all wrong. There’s your explanation, Mr Plunkett – you can’t find the restaurant because it’s gone out of business.

Dr Clattercut: Perhaps the words of another rare bird, the Swan of Avon, will offer some consolation: “Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.”

Is that a dragon in your stocking..?

If you've enjoyed the Royal Mythological Society epistolary short stories (eg here and here) wherein Dr Clattercut and Prof Bromfield reply to various fantastical events, you might be interested in the paperback edition. Intended as a little Christmas gift, this collects all fifty-odd stories in one neat little pocket-sized package, complete with that beautiful piece of iconic Mirabilis artwork by Martin.

You can get A Minotaur at the Savoy from the Book Depository, from Barnes & Noble, and of course from Amazon. Don't take any notice of Amazon's estimate of 5 to 8 weeks for delivery - they often do that with books printed through Lightning Source; order now and you'll get it in good time for Christmas - and look at those prices. Spiffing, eh what?

Mean little beasts, all shaggy with kelp

Two more days remain of the under-a-dollar special offer on the Kindle edition of The Year of Wonders. The book comprises fifty fantasy vignettes in the form of correspondence sent from around the world to the Royal Mythological Society. Wondering what to do about a talking cow? Missing breakfast because fairies got at the milk? Turfed out of your local by pirates? Vexed by the problem of how to catalogue a chimera? Or at the mercy of the elements thanks to a levitating roof? Our boffins, armed with little practical experience but plenty of enthusiasm, are ready to advise on these and many other problems caused by the head-on collision of reality and fantasy. For example:

Dear Doctor Clattercut and Professor Bromfield

I would expect you to be familiar with our village, as it is famous in a small way for having a sunken twin a little way out to sea. When I was a girl, I could stand on the cliffs and, with the wind in the right direction, it was possible to hear the tolling of the submerged church bell coming up out of the waves.

Now that things are as they are, our submarine neighbours no longer content themselves with the occasional ringing of a bell. Walking my dog along the beach, as often as not I will encounter a group of mermaids riding there. Their manners are polite, but I think there is some teasing in their glance and their ponies are mean little beasts, all shaggy with kelp and very high and briny to the nose. You know the smell when the tide goes right out; it's like that.

My concern, however, is the mermaids’ effect on our village. Twice a week, or Wednesdays and Saturdays, they come and sit on the beach with trinkets to sell. And I know where they get those trinkets. One of them had an ivory pipe that I recognized. It belonged to my grandfather, who was drowned at sea on my first day at junior school.

Yours sincerely, Mabel Catchpole (Mrs), Dunwich

Dr Clattercut replies: An interesting case, Mrs Catchpole, and thank you for bringing it to our attention. I don’t know if I would consider what the mermaids are doing to be looting. Any knickknacks they find on the sea bed were, after all, irretrievably lost to us on dry land. One could argue they are performing a valuable service akin to marine salvage. Admittedly, however, there is a suggestion here of grave-robbing. What do you say, Bromfield?

Prof Bromfield: Hmm? Just thinking… Cabyll-ushteys, those sea ponies are called – that’s what they call them in the Isle of Man, anyway. They’re more than pesky. Get in trouble out swimming and they’ll drag you down and eat you up. All of you except the liver, funnily enough.

Dr Clattercut: I believe the Suffolk version is less outrightly murderous, though still a creature to be wary of. I was kicked by one while collecting trilobites at Aldeburgh two months ago and I still have a bruise. But just a moment – how do mermaids..?

Prof Bromfield: Side saddle, old chap.

You can get the complete Kindle book of Royal Mythological Society correspondence from Amazon US, Amazon Europe or Amazon UK, and if you want to look at a few more letters you could check out the free previews on MyEbook or fReado.

And I will make thee beds of roses

There's just one more week for you to get yourself a copy of the Kindle edition of A Minotaur At The Savoy at the special offer price of 99 cents - in the US here, in the UK here, and in mainland Europe here.

Recent discussion in these parts having been on the definition of fantasy, I should explain that there is a very broad range on display in these letters to the Royal Mythological Society. As the green comet's effect is to erase the line between the real and the imaginary, you will find every flavor of the fantastic from gods to goblins to green-skinned Martians. But my own favorites are the non-genre stories that slip between the cracks. Like this one.

Dear sirs

You have heard the expression “a whirlwind romance” and I can attest that courtship truly can spin a person quite dizzy. Only a year ago, I was in Sicily with more thought of collecting archaeological specimens than of collecting a husband. And yet there at a little tavern overlooking the bay, a man at the next table sketched my portrait on his napkin and I could see at once that his eyes had found something beautiful in my poor plain thirty-year-old face. I shaded my eyes from the sun to look up at him. And like a Mediterranean storm, there it was, gentlemen: love.

We were wed soon after at his family church near Palma di Montechiaro, but my husband’s father does not approve of his choice of career as a painter, so to avoid daily arguments - which in Sicily can take on the proportions of a pitched battle - we returned to set up home in England, at a country estate left me by my uncle.

The estate has extensive grounds, and at first I was surprised at my husband’s enthusiasm for an activity so staid as gardening. But he said that the gardens would be his new canvas, and indeed his art found full expression there. When he is angry, the flower beds are violent with dark reds and brooding purples. When he is amused, the topiary bushes strike funny poses that have me laughing too. And when he is sad, the shrubbery droops and I seem to notice far more weeping willows about the lawn than at other times.

A wife frequently is left to guess at her husband’s moods, for men do not talk of their feelings even if they are Sicilian. Therefore I have come to rely on the garden’s visual cues to help me better understand his feelings and support him as a dutiful wife should. In the last week, however, the garden has changed in a way I do not recognize. The flowers are in full bloom, a thousand of them, so that everywhere one looks is a riot of passionate bright colours like the most heartfelt Impressionist painting. I have spoken of this with my young cousin Amanda, who recently came to stay with us, but though she has struck up quite a friendship with my husband she too is at a loss to explain what it all may mean.

With your wide experience of supernatural matters, I wonder if you are able to illuminate this mystery. For some reason it vexes me greatly, though why I cannot tell.

Yours faithfully, Mrs Rachel Sindona, High Wycombe

Prof Bromfield replies: Dear lady, do not allow your cousin to outstay her welcome. I will say no more.

(Photo by Ozeye from Wikipedia.)

Merlin and the motor car

The collected correspondence of the Royal Mythological Society comprises more than fifty fantasy tales involving such thorny issues as what to do with a miniature civilization discovered in an Oxford professor's rooms, whether to blow the Gjallarhorn on the Last Night of the Proms, and how to pot your husband if he should happen to turn into a plant. Or, as here, whether you should sell a used car to the court wizard of Logres...

Dear sirs

I don’t know how you feel about the motor car. I am a founder member of the Automobile Club of Great Britain, and during the summer we often get ourselves out for a bit of a race, all in fun really, with a pub lunch in the middle.

Yesterday, I was just in the first leg of a race from Wilmslow to Nottingham and I had a bit of trouble getting started, so I was at the rear. No sign of the others but their dust, and there at the side of the road as the dust cleared I saw a queer old duck who was waving at me to stop. You don’t know if he might not be in trouble, do you, in a case like that, so even though I didn’t like the look of him, I pulled over. You know that picture by William Blake of God? He looked a bit like that, only with a long robe and a staff.

Blow me down if the fellow didn’t offer to buy my motor car. Right there in the road, just as if he was asking a light for his pipe. He didn’t have a pipe, but you know what I mean. I’m in a rally, I told him; no time for tomfoolery. He had something to say about that, but I didn’t catch it because I was off on my way again.

But not for long. An official at the next checkpoint waved me down and gave a disqualification. Never mind what for; it wasn’t fair, that’s all. So I turned around, went off back down the road, and there’s the old chap with the beard. I’m still interested in that horseless carriage, he says, and this time he shows me a purse. I say a purse; it was more of a sack really, and bulging with jewels. Or perhaps it was my eyes that did the bulging.

It was only a couple of miles to walk home, and you don’t get shown a fistful of diamonds every day, so I drove the old chap to a cave that he pointed out. You don’t want to keep it in a damp place like that, I said. Drive right in, he says, and it’s his money, after all, so I put the lights on and down we went. I had my hand crank beside me; he seemed a frail old chap but you can’t be too careful. But when we got down to the cavern I could see he was on the square. The place was full of knights, the armoured sort, all sleeping in a circle – a hundred of them at least. And beside about three-quarters of the knights stood a horse, asleep on its feet as they do. But the rest of the knights all had a motor car parked at their head.

Seeing me taken a bit aback, the old fellow asked how many horsepower had my vehicle. Twelve hp, I tell him. There you are, he says, you can see why we’re modernizing. And for ten rubies as big as eggs I sold him my car. What do you think about that?

Yours faithfully, Edwin Laurie Esq., Alderley Edge

Dr Clattercut replies: I used sometimes to enjoy a ramble in the countryside, or perhaps a picnic, but the era of the motor car has spoiled all that. One might as well take a stroll across a battlefield in the middle of an artillery barrage.

Prof Bromfield: Oh, I don’t know. You’re such a stick-in-the-mud, Clattercut. If I were ten years younger, I think I might put on the leathers and a pair of goggles and give this rallying a go. Great fun. And the notion that, in England's hour of need, the Lord of Camelot and his knights will ride to lead us at the wheels of 12 hp Daimlers… Splendid!

A curious manifestation on the Strand

As the green comet looms ever-nearer in the sky and the world gets stranger, the Fellows of the Royal Mythological Society (Cyril Clattercut and Bampton Bromfield; that's them above) are busy answering queries about extraterrestrial etiquette, fairy faux pas, and how to live with a minotaur next door. You can read their collected correspondence in A Minotaur At The Savoy, which for this month only is priced at just 99 cents for more than fifty mini-stories like this:

Dear perfessors

I hope that you may help me with my Trouble and do not object to a letter from one as does not know you. I have the agreeable position of regular employment at a public house by the Strand, name of The Three Gypsies. My duties there in the main being the stabling of horses, polishing brasses, & co. I also do in the taprooms and some private bedrooms that are kept for travellers, though not so frequent as in former days, now that the coach stand is not there no more. In the morning I rake out the fires and carry the ashes in a pail, which I have been in the habit of tipping down the drain that is in the street near the entrance to the yard. Only the other morning I went out that way and saw what had the look of two sooty, or I should say ashen, footprints on the pavement outside. Scuffing at these with my foot had no effect to remove them, and thinking no more I went and poured the ashes down the drain as per usual. Then on the next day I found two bare feet standing there. Just the plain feet, you understand, and not with no body above them, the feet being grey and looking to my eye to be made of ashes. Subsequent to that, having visited the drain on my purpose some other times, the feet have now been joined by ankles and the lower part of the legs, that is the calf. Mr Bardley, him being the landlord, says not to be tipping the ashes that way no more, but I have become quite driven with Curiosity to find out what will come. Today I tipped out another pail of ashes and in the morrow I’m in expectation of a pair of knees. Do you gents think this is advisable, or is Mr Bardley right?

Yours, Joe Gammock, Raven Row E1

Dr Clattercut replies: Mr Gammock, I have no direct experience of exactly such a phenomenon as you describe, but I implore you to consider all the ways that it could turn out if you continue as you have. One does not have to be an avid reader of the works of Mr Bram Stoker to foresee something rather chilling. There are many bad endings to the story and few good ones.

Prof Bromfield: Hmm. You do not say as much in your letter, but I surmise that the pedal extremities in question are feminine, and reasonably shapely. For once I have to agree with Clattercut. If this goes on, Mr Gammock, I feel it could be a case of curiosity killing the cat.

From Paddington Station to the helium mines of Phobos

It's the Fourth of July and there will be fireworks even here in London. To mark the occasion, Leo and I are knocking a whopping $4 off the price of the Kindle edition of The Year of Wonders for one month only. So that's fifty whimsical vignettes of green comety weirdness for just 99 cents.

The stories range from a mysterious giant hand found in a wood in Yorkshire to the best way to deal with a dragon that's taken a shine to the gold reserves of Fort Knox, and although it's hard to pick one that can be described as typical, this will give you a taste of what to expect:

Dear human savants

Following a motion of no confidence in the prime minister, I find that my Martian Party has enough seats in the House of Commons to form a new government in coalition with the Liberal Unionists. The only sticking point is that, as you may know, my prospective allies are committed to a very specific agenda. Their three-point plan entails establishing a minimum wage, giving women the vote, and maintaining the unity of the British Isles - whereas the Martian Party is pledged to subjugate the planet Earth, replace corn with red weed as the staple carbohydrate dietary supplement, and ship a million slaves to the helium mines of Phobos.

As a compromise, I have agreed to defer mass enslavement for the term of the current Parliament, concentrating instead on domestic transport policy as an area of common ground on which our two parties can agree. For example, to alleviate the growing problem of “rush hour” congestion at the major London rail terminuses, we propose loading commuters onto massive catapults which will fling them across the city to land in collection nets near to their place of work. We estimate this would save at least seventy thousand man-months of labour per year. However, some of our advisors believe that it will not be a popular measure and could lose us votes at the next election. What do you counsel?

Yours, the Right Honourable Xangovar the Merciless, OBE, c/o the Palace of Westminster

Prof Bromfield replies: It would be very popular with small boys. Unfortunately, they don’t have the vote. Might be a better world if they did, if you ask me.

Dr Clattercut: Oh yes. Because resolving international disputes with conkers matches is obviously the way to go. Pulling girls’ pigtails when they demand enfranchisement. Declaring the whole of January a national tobogganing holiday. Making marbles the official currency of the Bank of England…

Prof Bromfield: You think you’re being wittily scathing, Clattercut, but in fact you’re just proving my point. So that’s what I’d suggest, Mr – er, Xangovar: shake up the Cabinet a little. Bring in some schoolboys and artists and poets and whatnot. Be more radical with your reforms, if anything. This is the Year of Wonders, so what’s wrong with sprinkling a bit of magic on the tired old machinery of politics? Trust me, the electorate will thank you for it.

Dr Clattercut: Those that land in the nets, anyway.

You can get The Year of Wonders from the Amazon Kindle store in the UK and in the USA. But just till August, remember. Happy landings.

If you can't stand the heat...

Now that the days are getting longer and warmer and the world is waking up, here's a letter from the RMS files for May 1901:

Dear Professor Bromfield and Doctor Clattercut

It gets to being quite warm here in the valleys at this time of year, and for several months in the summer I do without my old boiler altogether. Only this year, see, the boiler’s still going and the cottage is as hot as a greenhouse, and if you find this note rather smudged and hard to read, that will be the literal sweat of my brow, dripping onto the page even with all the windows open.

The way of it is, some little being has taken up residence in the boiler. He says he’s the spirit of the hearth and refuses to go out. If I don’t bring him coal, he gathers up other bits to burn when I am asleep. I have already lost an occasional table, my dad’s old writing desk and the breadboard.

I don’t like to mention it to Pastor Richards as he’d make an awful fuss of anything like this with a bit of a pagan whiff to it. And perhaps after all it is a sort of household god. You can’t be too careful, can you? But if only it wasn’t so blasted hot, you see.

Yours, Talfryn Jeavons, Kidwelly

Dr Clattercut replies: This type of creature - the genius loci, or spirit of a place - has been known since Roman times. They usually dwell in the chimney or fireplace and on the whole constitute a good bargain, as they protect the household and may even keep it spick and span, often for no more remuneration than a saucer of milk or a bit of cake.

Prof Bromfield: On balance, though, I think it’s safer to have no deity at all in your house. You never know when the damned thing will feel slighted. It may protect the house, after all, by deciding that you’re no longer a suitable resident.

Dr Clattercut: True, but I suspect that what Mr Jeavons has there is probably just a hob or brownie that has got into the boiler and decided to stay. They can be like squirrels and stray cats in that regard. A real household god usually starts its career as a ghost. At one time, builders used to sacrifice a lamb and put its body under the cornerstone in order to get the process started.

Prof Bromfield: Similar thing used to go on with new churchyards. Traditionally a stallion would be buried before any human graves went in. Then you get a hell horse, as they call it in Scandinavia - sort of a spectral guardian of the cemetery, if you like. It provides psychic protection in the same way that leaving a rabid dog running about in your garden will protect the house from burglars.

Dr Clattercut: At any rate, returning to the problem at hand: Mr Jeavons, if it is a brownie, all you need do is leave it a pot of ale. When it has become merry, fish it out of the boiler with iron tongs, demand that it tells you its true name, and then you will have complete command of it. Think of that; you will be able to set the precise temperature of your home merely by asking. I’d like to see modern technology achieve such a marvel.

Prof Bromfield: Hmm. If it is a true household deity, however, then the plan could backfire quite severely. And not in a metaphorical sense.

More questionable advice and curious correspondence from Clattercut and Bromfield here.

KAPOW continues

He thought he was out, but they sucked him back in. I'm talking about Leo and the noisy comics nirvana that is London's Kapow! Comic Convention. He's been staying with us in south-west London (a daily 8-hour commute from Somerset being less than ideal) and bravely holding the fort up in Islington, struggling onto the Tube with giant posters of Estelle in Goth gear and trying to draw superheroes he's never heard of, while I get to stroll across Wandsworth Common in the sunshine and tinker with the script for Mirabilis #10.

But don't think I wouldn't swap in an instant. At Kapow! Leo is getting to meet loads of fellow comics creators - not only our former colleagues on The DFC but new friends throughout the industry - artists, writers, publishers, journalists and fans alike.

This is pretty much the first time Mirabilis has been unveiled to the public and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Unfortunately we still don't have copies of the UK hardcover books (they're traveling across Europe at this very monent) but Leo was able to take along a few of the limited-edition TPB editions. If you bought one of those off him yesterday, make sure to store it in an airtight box as it's already a collector's item. Particularly gratifying was the guy who bought Winter volume one only to come back an hour later saying, "I read the first 20 pages over lunch and I already know that I must have volume two."

If you want to meet Leo, he's on Table 8 today. Go and say hi, chat about Mirabilis - and I think he might be keeping a couple of emergency reserve copies of the trade paperback under the table, so just give him the secret RMS handshake and say I sent you. Just don't ask him to draw Kraven the Hunter.

Year of Wonders in the Kindle Store today

Two of my favorite fantasy novels are Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell and Jack Vance's The Green Pearl. Both are very weighty tomes that suck you into richly detailed, immersive universes, and one of the techniques the authors use to do that is the liberal sprinkling of footnotes. These serve as little asides, often mini-stories in their own right, that you can dip into to get a sense of the broader world behind the action of the novel.

This is one way that e-publishing and regular publishing will co-exist and feed into each other. Ebooks are ideal for flash fic that you can snack on in between longer episodes of the main narrative. With that in mind, I've corralled all those whimsical letters to the Royal Mythological Society and packaged them up as a Kindle book called The Year of Wonders that goes on sale on Amazon today. It's previewed on the BookBuzzr free flipbook site.

The Year of Wonders comprises more than fifty fantasy and SF tales in vignette form, from the mysterious giant hand found in a wood in Yorkshire to the best way to deal with a dragon that's taken a shine to the gold reserves of Fort Knox. At a price of $1.13 in the US, £0.71 in the UK - yes, that's for the whole book - what are you waiting for?

Dance on moonbeams, slide on rainbows

While adapting the first 8 issues of the Mirabilis comic book for iPad, iBookstore and Kindle, I'm not neglecting the whimsical correspondence of the Royal Mythological Society that features on the comic's letters pages. These missives show the kind of things that are going on around the world as the ever-nearing Comet Meadowvane strikes a great green line through every rule of science, reason and logic. There's a whole book's worth already - and more coming in all the time - which makes them ripe for packaging up as an ebook.

New readers, of whom we have quite a few lately, may appreciate a bit of explanation at this point. (You old hands can jump straight down to the latest RMS letter.)

It is a little known fact of history – or myth – or both, that around the start of the twentieth century there existed a lost year.

In this year, a green comet appeared in the sky. As it grew larger, things that would previously have been considered utterly fantastical began to seep into everyday life. By the height of summer, imagination and reality were so seamlessly merged that few recalled a time when the world had been otherwise.

Mermaids swam in the Mediterranean. Martians commuted by train from Woking. Greek gods gave lecture tours of the United States. And with this new way of life came a whole set of problems of etiquette and decorum (see reference to mermaids).

Fortunately, the solution was at hand. In the depths of the British Museum, intrepid academics Bampton “Bammy” Bromfield and Cyril Clattercut had long been cataloguing accounts of the uncanny from around the world on behalf of the Royal Mythological Society. The arrival of the green comet was about to give them the busiest year of their lives. As you can see from letters like this:

Dear Doctor Clattercut and Professor Bromfield

If you could see my hand shake as I write this. Well, you can see from the ink blots how my nerves are shot. I am lately escaped from an ordeal of some months, and here is the way of it.

I think it was back in April - my diary says it was April the twentieth, but it seems now to have been in another life - I had occasion to drop in at the Savoy. O unhappy day! By bitter irony I was not even staying there; I had taken rooms at Claridge’s and only called at the Savoy to see if a lady friend of mine was in town.

The hotel had lately appointed a minotaur in a commissionaire’s uniform to stand outside the doors and hold an umbrella for people arriving by carriage. I have had to cross a few fields in my day, and I did not like the look of those little dark eyes and the snorting nostrils, I can tell you, nor the way the cap was pushed up by the fellow’s horns. But I hurried past him, pushed through the revolving doors - and there my ordeal began. An ordeal of four months when I wandered as though in a maze, ever turning as those accursed doors spun round and round and I thought I would drop from dizziness!

Occasionally I saw fleeting figures pass through. I called out but cannot tell if any heard me; certainly no-one stopped to help. At one point, after perhaps a month had passed, I stumbled out of the door and thought I had achieved deliverance. But it was not the lobby of the Savoy at all, but a vast hall of cracked masonry filled with sand drifts, which gave the impression of a great weight above as though far under the ground.

After that I returned to the revolving door - anything rather than bear the stillness and silence of that empty tomb. I survived on the rainwater that intermittently blew in as the weather changed outside, and once I caught a pigeon that had strayed through the hotel doors. Very tough and stringy meat when one has no fire. But for that poor bird, and the deposits of chewing gum left by some of the hotel’s foreign guests as they flitted through, I would surely have starved.

Was it desperation that led me to recall the stories of my youth? I was half mad by then, certainly; the whole world was on a corkscrew and my mind with it. I found myself thinking of the thread that Ariadne gave Theseus to lead him safely through the Labyrinth. It may have been in a delirium that I plucked the end of a thread from my trousers and attached it to the door frame so that even as it whirled around, I could keep my hands on that thread and follow it slowly back until I emerged onto the Strand, in the clear September light, and gulped the sharp and smoky autumnal air. It could have been a breath on the summit of Olympus, gentlemen, so sweet I found it.

The minotaur was still there. I gave him a look and he gave me a look back, and I was at the point of confessing how meanly I had thought of him before, and declaring him a good fellow, and I plucked at his sleeve and was ready to embrace him. But do you know what he did then? He called for the police and they took me away, and now I am up on a charge of public indecency. For, you see, in the escape my trousers had all unravelled.

Yours sincerely,

Theodore Lolley,

Seaford

Dr Clattercut replies: My heart goes out to you, poor chap. But other than publishing your letter as a caution to others, there is little we can do. My advice is to pay the fine and put the whole thing behind you.

Prof Bromfield: Quite. I got in touch with the manager of the Savoy and he tells me they originally had Cerberus on the door, but that was even worse.

Five rounds rapid

Here's another of Martin McKenna's spectacular illustrations that were originally intended for the Gazetteer. I wantonly vandalized this for use as one of our counterfeit Silver Age covers recently, but here it is in all its glory - because, although a firm believer that the future of comics is on mobiles and e-readers, I prefer paintings to have tangible form, and this, like all of Martin's work, really should be appreciated at full size emblazoned across two big pages of high-quality art paper.

As I mentioned before, Martin and I conceived the idea for this picture to set the record straight on unicorns, which in twee fantasy novels these days are too often reduced to rather soppy critters. Bromfield and Clattercut are of exactly the same opinion (funny, that) and here's their reply to a correspondent who wrote in with unicorn trouble:

Dear Dr Clattercut and Prof Bromfield

To the rear of my country house there are fields bordered by extensive woodland, so that it is not unusual to look out in the early morning to find deer on the lawn. No doubt the poets would have words to describe the tug on one’s soul in gazing on such a beautiful sight, the doe and her fawns like wanderers from Eden in the golden dawn. It is sometimes all I can do not to fetch my gun and join in “with both barrels” – but my wife would not appreciate being woken in such a robust fashion.

A few days ago a still more breathtaking apparition awaited me on rising. It was a magnificent stallion, as white as a statue of marble, with a straight horn in the middle of its forehead. I reached out towards it, but with the merest touch of my fingertips on the window pane, it bolted into the fields and was gone.

But, gentlemen, this is not the only marvel I have to relate. For this morning I looked out from the window to see the unicorn had returned. And my daughter, still in her nightgown, was there standing in the dew beside it. Have you ever witnessed a unicorn taking grass from the hand of a young girl? It is more humbling than bagging a dozen rhinos.

Now I have conceived a purpose, and I would be grateful for your advice on how best to achieve it. For I have a mind to capture this unicorn, and tame it to the bridle. I fancy that I will excite quite a stir at the Old Berks when I turn up riding a unicorn behind the hounds!

Sincerely, Sir Samuel Wadwough, K.G., Hinton Waldrist

Dr Clattercut replies: You will excite quite a stir too, my dear sir, when you are found dead on your lawn with a two-inch hole punched through you from sternum to spine.

Prof Bromfield: Quite so. Tame a unicorn? You may just as well attempt to put a leash on the Sirocco or teach Cleopatra’s Needle to dance the Argentine tango. I don’t know how the idea gained currency that unicorns are shy and gentle creatures, but I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.

Dr Clattercut: Consider Pliny’s words: “The most fell and ferocious beast of all is the Unicorn or Licorne. His body resembles a horse, his head a stag, his feet an elephant, his tail a boar. He loweth after an hideous manner. One black horn he hath in the mids of his forehead, bearing out two cubits in length. By report, this beast is so wild that it cannot possibly be caught alive.”

Prof Bromfield: There you are; I knew Clattercut would have an obscure quotation on the subject. On a more practical level, I can assure you that a unicorn is quite capable of killing an elephant with a single thrust of its horn, and nor would it be averse to doing so. Its amenableness towards your daughter is also cause for concern – though of a different nature, too delicate for me to discuss here – and I advise you to keep her indoors while this creature remains in the district.

Cave canem

There’s something outside on the pavement (the sidewalk, to our American cousins). Nobody wants to touch it. We’re waiting for the rain to wash it away. One of the neighbours has pinned a big notice on a tree nearby: PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG.

My point? That little brown pile, that’s how UK publishers view comics. By and large they wouldn’t actually want to pick one up.

Having grown up with comics and got my love of fiction from them, I really don’t get it. Movies, comics, novels, games – aren’t those all valid and effective ways of leading somebody on an imaginative journey?

I’m sure American and continental European readers will simply be baffled by this, but most adults in Britain see comics as a mean and contemptible medium. I tell people I’m writing a graphic novel and they look at me like I’ve joined the Hare Krishnas. It goes beyond blank uninterest; it's more like pity. Some (and these are the worst) will say, “Oh, I think comics can be ever so helpful in getting reluctant readers to pick up proper books.” Nobody can do condescension like a British literary snob.

Leo, Martin and I have sometimes toyed with writing Mirabilis as a prose novel instead of a comic. Just to get some respect, you understand. I think publishers would sit up and take notice then. Some of them might even read it!

We’re not going to do that because – well, for a bunch of reasons. Because we like comics. Because we love making comics. Because Mirabilis is a visual story. And because anyway who needs respect from those twits? Stuff ‘em if they don’t like comics. Me, I don’t like crap novels where nothing actually happens. We’ll have to agree to differ.

But all the same, Mirabilis was conceived to be medium-agnostic. I’ve worked in games, television, books, you name it, and any way that gets the story across is fine by me. So Mirabilis is a comic but it isn’t only a comic. We have all the Royal Mythological Society story snippets, for example. And there are other bits of prose that got written for various reasons. Some of them we’ll use in that form, some get repurposed.

This vignette for instance. It was originally planned as a prose story to go in the Gazetteer, but got reworked as the basis for one of our newspaper comic stories. Though the pterodactyl didn't make it into the comic version, it got airlifted to Paris for a screech-on role in the main Jack and Estelle story instead. (And, as you can see from the picture, it had to dress up in a pteranodon costume.)

Hope you like our little amuse-cerveau. Tomorrow we’re back to picture stories. With flying dinosaurs. Promise.

Never Never on the Portsmouth Line

"You know, Jennings, it's getting worse if anything," remarked Sanderson over the glass bubble-helmet of the little green man on the seat next to him.

"I think you're right," his friend said in the same matter-of fact tone. "Take that last station. I could have sworn the sign said Never-never Land. Never-never Land didn't use to be on the Portsmouth line, did it?"

"That's not all. Do you know, just as we were leaving the office, there was something rather large perched on the top of Nelson's Column." Sanderson hesitated. "I didn't like to say at the time, but..."

"No need to apologise, old chap. Pterodactyl - no mistaking it. That's the second time this week it's been there. I suppose it's been keeping an eye out."

"For pigeons?"

"Well, I was thinking more of tourists."

"It's this comet that's to blame, of course."

"Without a doubt. No other explanation. Chap on the radio last night saying the same thing. Oh I say! What a cheek!"

The Martian sitting on the other side of Jennings had clamped a tentacle onto the page of his newspaper and was silently reading the share prices.

Jennings tugged the paper away and folded it up. "The nerve of these blighters, reading over a fellow’s shoulder like that."

"Tickets please," said the inspector.

Mr Sanderson handed over his ticket. The Martian beside him sat immobile. The inspector leaned down and rapped his knuckles on the glass dome. The green brain inside opened several eyes like a crab waking up inside a shell.

"Tickets," repeated the inspector.

The train rattled on through the dusk. The Martian sat in dumbfounded silence.

"He wants your ticket," explained Jennings, enunciating one word at a time as though the Martian was a very small child.

The Martian turned its eyes in several directions at once. Reaching into its little silver knapsack, it pulled out a ray gun.

"Ticket," said the inspector stolidly.

The Martian seemed taken aback. It leaned over Jennings' lap to confer with its comrade. The two buzzed and twittered at each other for a few moments, while Jennings stared at the ceiling of the carriage with a disdainful expression and pretended to ignore them. Finally the ray gun was put away and the Martian produced a ticket.

"Tak uz to yir leader," the second Martian said. Sanderson thought that its accent sounded faintly Scottish.

The inspector glowered at their tickets. "You want London, then. This is the down train."

The Martians sat bolt upright like glove puppets and started waving their tentacles. There was more buzzing, quite heated now. The inside of the glass helmets was beginning to steam up.

"He said you're going the wrong way!" said Jennings, losing his patience. "No use arguing about it."

"You'll have to go back to Woking and change there," said the guard. He gave the Martians their tickets and went on to the next compartment. They looked at each other glumly, silent now inside the fishbowl helmets.

Sanderson looked up at the window. "This is my stop," he said, rising.

Jennings nodded. "Looks like it.” He raised his paper and leaned over to speak confidentially. “What do you know? Martians. It’ll be Venusians next week.”

Sanderson paused as he stepped down to the platform. He thought about what Jennings had said and brightened. There was even a bit of a twinkle in his eye that had not been seen since Mrs Sanderson was a Miss.

“Venusians…” he said dreamily. “Marvellous!”