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Thanks to Eva Davis from Librivox for the recording, which is from her version of Elizabethan Demonology. Statistics eventually. Spenser has clothed with horror this conception of the appearance of a fiend, just as he has enshrined in beauty the belief in the guardian angel. It is worthy of remark that he describes the devil…

Games From Folktales has been working its way through the early stories from Lord Dunsany for several years now. Due to the vagaries of US copyright law “The King of Elfland’s Daughter“, his masterpiece, only became available to us this year. I was planning to record it myself, but one of the other Librivoxians beat…

Another poem by Walter de La Mare. This time it is a location. This episode went live early and will be replaced. I think the WDLM episodes are too short, so I’ll be beefing them up. There was nought in the ValleyBut a Tower of Ivory,Its base enwreathed with redFlowers that at eveningCaught the sun’s…

Another faerie creature or nypholeptic human from the poetry of Walter De La Mare. Statistics eventually. Thanks again to Amy Koenig and the gang at Librivox. Down by the waters of the sea,Reigns the King of Never-to-be.His palace walls are black with night;His torches star and moonès light,And for his timepiece deep and graveBeats on…

We’ve previously visited the poetry of Walter de La Mare on Games From Folktales, with his most famous work, The Listeners, in episode 115. For the next few months, we will be going through his early works, grabbing anything which might be an Ars Magica faerie or magical location. Let’s start with this. I met…

In the early days of the republic, women followed the Byzantine custom, which was to be veiled outside the house and remain in a male free-space much of the time. This is not still followed in 1220, but there are remnant practices which we can use for plot hooks. The altanes, for example, which we…

Time for a final visit to Kunz’s “Curious Lore of Precious Stones”. Initially I’d cut this into two episodes, because I thought sapphires would have so much material attached to them that they could stand alone. I’d expected them to be everywhere, because they are common in fantasy stories. Also, I come from central Queensland,…

In this next little section, Edgecumb Stanley talks about the arrival of the relics of Saint Mark in Venice. The shrine of Saint Mark is important to player characters, because it’s the strongest Dominion Aura in the City of Venice and also, unfortunately, its where a lot of government ritual is solemnised by blessings of…

A brief episode this week, returning to Kunz’s “The Curious Lore of Precious Stones”. Rock crystal The popular belief in his time as to the origin of rock-crystal is voiced by St. Jerome, when, using the words of Pliny, although not citing his authority, he says that it was formed by the congelation of water…

In this extract for the biography of the dogaressas of Venice, Edgecumb Stanley describes how the city was made. It suggests terrible powers for Herbam wizards, and it gives us a reason why the Cult of Diana we have seen in glimpses so far through the book has taken on a strange, urban form. In…