Games From Folktales

This Samhain night, a little poem. You may be thinking “Timothy, it is April.” but I remind you, dear listener, that I am in the Southern Hemisphere. Thanks to Roslyn Carlisle for her recording which was released via Librivox. Where mandrakes, crying from the moonless fen,Told how a witch, with eyes of owl or bat,Found,…

There’s one device that seems like spy gear that I’ve not been able to include in Magonomia, and that’s King Henry VIII’s walking stick. True walking sticks don’t develop as a British fashion accessory until the reign of one of the later Edwards, where their function is basically to hit muggers. This differentiations them from…

Let me take you to the Victorian musical hall, gentle reader. Let us look upon the work of W.S Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. I’ve been trying to show how stage magic might work in Magonomia for some time, and so here is a look at how it was satirized in a later period.…

Over to Dale Grothman for the preparation of stewed eels. Thanks to Dale and Librivox. *** In camp Stewed Eels are rather a luxury, not only because they need a little cooking but they need a little catching. The difficulty with an eel is that it is rather a disagreeable thing to handle, though to…

When I first read this story, I thought: “That’s an odd one from you, Doc.” E. E. “Doc” Smith was a popular early science fiction author. He wrote the Lensman series, which predates and is very reminiscent of Star Wars. The thin I didn’t know is that there were two writers going by E. E.…

A quick return to Cellini, where he almost changes the course of Magonomia history. *** I SHALL skip over some intervening circumstances, and tell how Pope Clement, wishing to save the tiaras and the whole collection of the great jewels of the Apostolic Camera, had me called, and shut himself up together with me and…

In early Elizabeth’s England, if you want to make a fast getaway, you use a horse, except if you are in London, where you slope down to the river and embark surreptitiously, with the help of a convenient waterman. You don’t, surprisingly, use a carriage. That being said, at the end I’ll discuss some ways…