F#27: Silkwing

Sometimes called ‘cloud mouse’ or ‘false dragon’, the silkwing is delicate creature that is often romantically described as ‘travelling with the winds’.

As autumn arrives, you’ll see silkwings far more often in the skies along the coast. They’ve flown in from the inland meadows where the spend the summer; riding the strong winds to wheel and gather in flocks of tens to hundreds strong. 

Come early October, after a month of socializing and cementing strong flock relationships,  the silkwings migrate to winter in the southern hemisphere.

Goodbye ’til next summer, cloud mouse.

Archive23: The Knucker Hole Dragon

This summer may be full of weird cult activity and necromancer shennanigans, but the Seaflower Institute still has normal work to do.

Well, comparatively normal, I mean. Like, going to check up on an ancient dragon. That kind of normal.

The village of Lyminster in West Sussex is home to Knucker Hole, a supposedly bottomless blue pool. It was in this pool, the legend goes, that the Knucker lived; a fearsome dragon that tormented the local villages, until it was eventually slain- either by a knight in the traditional fashion, or a cunning baker via a poisoned pie.

Lyminster Church stained glass window depiction the slaying of the Knucker Hole monster

More likely, the dragon activity subsided due to the dragons hibernation cycle, which typically involves napping for a few hundred years.

Aerial view of the hole- thanks google!

We like to keep an eye on the Knucker, so every five years or so, someone goes to check its still alive- and this time it was me and Jesper’s turn. So, armed with dragon repellent and welly boots, we ventured to sussex.

The farmers whose livestock graze in the surrounding fields are certainly taking no chances- as Jesper found out when he accidentally touched the stock fencing.

The pool is pretty secure behind a high gate and barbed wire-topped fence. We were let in, and stood at the edge of the water like two clueless kids on the doorstep of an ancient monster.

One living dragon? Check. Lets not do that again.

Fl#04: Mushroom Men

Beware you mushroom gatherers

Whose food in woodland grows

Beware the fungus watchers

When crossing rotten groves

 

 

The mushroom men have seen you

That fact you must assume

So take your feast and quickly leave

The watchers in the gloom

And draw across your curtains

When you are home tonight

Don’t look outside until the dawn-

For mushrooms fear the light.

Jesper’s note: So says the poem- and the mushroom men have been known to follow home those who harvest the fungi they watch over in woodland areas. However, there is no evidence that they ‘fear the light’- they are simply nocturnal.

F#23: Wyrm Hatchlings

Wyrm Hatchlings (Northen European Wyrm) 

Dragon species

When we got the call about an ‘infestation of worms’, we might have reacted a mite too hastily with our stock (polite!) ‘we are a research institute, not Revery Pest Control’ response.

After the miscommunication was cleared up, we arrived at a small garden in the suburbs- only to find these week-old specimens of the European small wyrm causing havoc and destruction in their pursuit of a Sunday dinner.

These dragons are rarely found in built up areas (and almost never in the south of England) and there was no sign of the parent wyrm, who normally feeds young in the nest until they are a month old. It seemed as if the babies had been fending for themselves for a few days- feeding on insects and tearing up the garden in the process.

After a short (but chaotic) pursuit, Evelyn and I caught all three at the same time and took them back to the institute.

They have settled down in the break room in Keeley’s hat, whilst we contact the South West Dragon Centre to see if they have a spare pen…

F#22: Hearth Sprite

Hearth Sprite

Chaotic Elemental

The hearth sprite is a familiar and well-loved figure, present in many homes. Drawn in the flickering of a fire, the warmth of a stove or just a trace of coal dust; the sprite is easy to attract.

Having done so, many people follow the tradition of bottling a sprite, and keeping it on the mantle for good luck and prosperity.

As long as you feed it with a pinch of coal dust every day, the sprite seems content to live in the jar. (Should its glow start to dim, it should be released immediately.)

Archive19: Blood Donation

A photo diary entry by Thursday Madaki

So, when I joined the SFI no one mentioned the ritual blood-letting. And, since then, it’s only been mentioned in passing- until the other day, when Evelyn said it was time to renew the Whistman contract.

Bartholomew groaned.

‘I’d send someone else,’ Evelyn said, looking unusually sly, ‘but you haven’t left the archives for days and you need the exercise.’

‘Also the guardian will only deal with me.’

‘That too.’

I interrupted then-

‘What contract?’

Instead of answering my question, Evelyn spoke to Bartholomew.

‘You should take her along.’

I hate it when they do that, like I’m the kid in a group of adults. I mean- I am, technically. But I hate being talked about like I’m not there.

Bartholomew was pulling a face like he was going to say no, so I spoke before he could.

‘I’d love to go!’

 

If only someone had mentioned it would involve hiking, and creepy blood drinking goat fairies.

 

Wistmans wood is only half an hour of walking from the main road, but that’s half an hour too much for my liking. I’m not really the biggest fan of the great outdoors, although I can appreciate Dartmoor’s weird brand of bleak beauty.

The drive to get there had been long, made longer by the fact that Jesper listens to recordings of scientific lectures whilst he drives.

Bartholomew and I played i-spy, but he said I cheated when ‘something beginning with A. M.’ turned out to be ‘abject misery’ because it was on HIS face and therefore he couldn’t spy it.

The reason we were driving all this way, then walking over uneven, ankle-twisting moorland, was because in the in the middle of nowhere is the kind of place you find a faerie who goes on vicious murdering rampages if you don’t check in on him every once in awhile.

The first contract was made in 2001, after a farmer who walked in the wood came home to find his sheep gone without a trace. Hikers were poked with invisible pins, and a young couple who carved their names into a tree drowned mysteriously in a shallow pool.

Evelyn, just starting out at Seaflower back then, tracked down the creature responsible, and made a deal. A deal that we were now heading out to reinforce.

The woods were beautiful and completely surreal. The entire floor was made up of huge rocks you had to climb and hop between, the trees were dripping with garlands of moss and lichen.

I barked my shins several times as Jesper led the scramble to the far side of the woods, where we stopped before a small cave formed under rocks and tree roots.

Bartholomew took something from his bag, unwrapping it and lying it on the ground. It was a athame- a ritual knife used in witchcraft.

‘I know you’re there,’ Bartholomew said.

I saw something move in the depths of the dark crevice. Light glinted on a pair of eyes, staring straight back at us.

To be continued in Sunday’s creature post! Please don’t hate me.

F#18: Lanternhead

Lanternhead

Also known as: Old Man of the Swamp

Homunculus

In the dark of a summer night, you spot a light that seems to hover half a foot off the ground. Then another light pops into existence.

Then another.

You have come across a rare occurence: a ‘Moot’ of Lanternheads.

This pale skinned, furry-bodied homunculus is normally a solitary creature, wandering large swathes of woodland, moorland or marsh. However, during the summer months it seems that several will congregate in one area- and no one knows why.

There is no visible interaction between the creatures at the moot. They stand several feet away from each other, and appear to gaze skywards. Are they communicating in some internal fashion? Or are they waiting for something?

We may never know.

Entry compiled by: Bartholomew Moon

F#17: Seafoam Dragon

Seafoam dragon (Draconis Nausicaa)

Aquatic fauna

 

The seafoam dragon is native to the Mediterranean sea, but this one showed up in Revery Harbour after a massive storm- she must have been blown off course.

This small aquatic dragon has long webbed forefingers, perfect for breaking open tightly closed shellfish and mollusks. They breathe both underwater and out of it, and lay their eggs in the sand like turtles. A clutch normally consists of five, one to three of which are expected to hatch. Once all the surviving eggs hatch, the parent leads the hatchlings to the water, and they stay in the sandy shallows for a few days before venturing further out.

Entry compiled by: Jesper Beattie

 

Archive16: Owlmen

What- or who- is The Owl With Tongues?

By B. Moon

The temporary office Elion Okar has set up in the break-room of the Seaflower Institute is a mess, although its creator insists to me it’s a complex system.

‘Each station is a potential connection,’ he says, gesturing to the coffee table as an example. ‘And is broken down into piles- evidence for, evidence against, and what a positive connection would imply.’

He is searching for links in the puzzle of the ‘Owl With Two Tongues’- a mystery that has dogged him since he was an undergrad.

A mysterious amulet found alongside evidence of an ancient sacrificial ritual, dedicated to a being otherwise unheard of, lost to time.

Or is it?

Elion has three favourite possibilities amongst the sea of papers decorating my breakroom floor.

 

Connection Number One: Medieval ‘Owl-faced mad-man’ (Coffee Table)

This woodcut illustration is from the bottom of a page of a 14C manuscript documenting the daily work of a popular bishop.

The accompanying entry recounts the story of a man: ‘for whom his good wife sought help, for he had torn apart his son’s dog, and it he then devoured there upon the ground’.

His wife, understandably concerned, went immediately to the house of the bishop; who accompanied her (along with several strong men recruited from nearby fields).

On their arrival, the party were alarmed at the man’s condition:

“we looked upon an owlfaced mad-man, naked and scrabbling in the fresh turned sod for worms, which he consumed with vigor’.

The man reportedly died after spending several days restrained. The bishop eventually came to a conclusion in his writings as to the cause of the man’s affliction:

‘punishment for a meddling in the occult… serving idols and false gods that are not Him… and bargaining with fairies and devils for knowledge his mind could not hold.’

 

Connection Number Two: Scottish ‘Lightning King’ (Counter next to the sink)

Found in a sealed off cave system, the Lightning King has always been overshadowed by the other paintings in the Blue Worm Cavern. The bold blue dragons distracted from the cracked stick man and his faded throne of skulls.

Its debated what of this mysterious figure is the original etching and what is cracks in the dry rock face- but there is an undeniable resemblance to the symbol involved in the recent Revery necromancer activity.

 

Connection Number Three: The Owlman of Mawnan (Floor to the left of the door)

1976 drawing of the first owlman sighting

(the-line-up.com)

This connection has the least evidence to connect it, but it’s my favourite because i have a fondness for cryptids.

The Owlman is a folkloric creature sighted in Cornwall in 1976, around a church built on prehistoric earthworks. Reportedly (from several different accounts) the owlman is a feathered birdman with huge eyes, pointed ears, and pincer hands (see Morgawr: The Monster of Falmouth Bay by Anthony Mawnan-Peller).

 

Will we ever find out about this ancient being? Part of me hopes not; but I fear that the Owl With Tongues is not done with this world yet.

Jesper’s moth subjects continue to grow. Ugh.

Archive15: Open Day Part 2

(Warning: This post contains horror elelments)

Bartholomew was showing a disinterested audience how to feed a mottled bee-eater, and getting progressively more irritable about it.

‘Eat the nice, crunchy bluebottle please!’ he said through a forced smile, waving said snack, dead and impaled on a cocktail stick, under the bee-eater’s nose. The creature was far more interested in escape, or maybe rifling through the visitors’ bags to see if they had any actual bees.

‘I guess she’s not hungry!’ he said, trying to be heard over the chattering group. ‘I’ll put her back in the cage and… ‘

Honestly, why were they even here if they didn’t want to listen? He rubbed his brow, trying to banish the beginnings of a headache.

‘Okay, come on,’ he said, when the noise just increased. ‘Chanting, really? Is now the time—‘

Okay, in hindsight?  Perhaps he should have been a bit more alarmed by the chanting.

He caught a brief glimpse of the chanter before everything went to hell: young man, gaunt, sickly looking, eyes bloodshot, black sweater with a red decal on the front.

Their eyes made contact. Bartholomew was going to say something witty about not needing a note to leave his class.

But instead the guy’s chest burst open and a swarm of moths emerged, which changed the mood considerably.

The sheer force and volume of the moths knocked everyone off their feet. He could see nothing but a whirl of bloody wings, soft fluttering bodies knocking against him all over. His mouth and nose burned with a smell he couldn’t begin to identify.

He hardly noticed the bee-eater claw herself from his hand and, with a delighted shriek and a gaping mouth, dive into the fray.

Bartholomew covered his face with his arms, and tried to move to where the door should be. Maybe. He thought? He tripped on something- on someone, nearly losing his balance.

A man stared up at him, a cut on his forehead and unfocused eyes, wheezing for breath against the godawful stink. His hand grasped at his shirt pocket. Probably where he kept his soul, Bartholomew thought, coughing as he hauled the man up onto his feet. Protecting their soul was normally the first instinct in a situation like this.

Bartholomew touched the locket hanging against his chest beneath his shirt. It was little comfort.

Bartholomew shoved the man in front of him, hoping he was steering in the right direction. The moths made it hard to tell what way was up, even, with all their swirling and diving and black spots yawning like mouths coming to eat…

Hmm, no. That part was probably him losing consciousness? And that would explain why the floor was suddenly under his back instead of his feet. It helped with the spinning for a moment, but then he realised the moths were landing on him, on his face and his mouth and the smell, the smell…