andave's place

I got a book by Brian Froud at the suggestion of Niamh, called The Goblin Companion and just loved the dry humour in it! Here are some excerpts I wanted to share.

Now it so happened that, as well as being a piscepodiatrist(a foot doctor who specializes in the treatment of fish) Froud was also an eminent goblinologist. He therefore rightly guessed that he was holding in his hands the most important communication between the goblin world and ours to be found in this millennium.
Imagine then, his excitement as he hurried back to his clapboard room in the Ushirombo Hilton. His fingers were shaking as he opened the sealed urn (the natural consequence of five bottles of Pouilly Fuisse the night before). He lifted off the ancient pottery lid and felt inside for the contents...There was a click and a snap, and Froud screamed with horror as a 60-million-year-old mousetrap clamped itself onto his fingers! Yes! It was a typical goblin practical joke, and one which had caught out the eminent goblinologist perfectly. The foregoblin who has det it must have laughed himself silly, seeing in advace (as he would have done) the expression that convulsed Froud's face as he wrenched the contraption off his bleeding fingers. Furious, Froud seized up the pot and was just about to smash it against the wall when he realized it was not empty! There was something else in the very bottom. Eagerly he reached in and...yes! It was another mousetrap! The foregoblin who set it would have collapsed in a helpless, gibbering heap at this point, whilst without more ado, Froud smashed the pot against the wall. It was only then that he noticed the incriptions on the underside of each mousetrap! Peering through a haze of freshly drunk Puligny-Montrachet, he deciphered the following messages. On the first trap he read:

you would know of the Labyrinth, Old Man of the Crater.

and on the second:

Stranger! If the Goblins seek the Ngorongoro

The next section of the book talks about different goblins. Here are some:

Extinct Mammal

The small mammal pictured at the bottom of plate 18 is actually extinct, although no one has yet had the heart to tell it. It still lives amongst the Rubbish Mounds of Yore and eats anything that can answer the three simple questions it puts to it. A curious beast.

Bec & Caul

The Labyrinth has produced surprisingly few philosophers of any note. Perhaps the best known was the Wise One of the Plains, whose chief contribution to knowledge was the theory that the length of time spent thinking about any one subject was in inverse proportion to the number of eggs you could eat. The philosopher Bec later elaborated this theory by pointing out that the number of eggs you could eat varied according to the size of each egg, and that a Twark's egg (for Twark, see page 54) was much smaller than the egg of a Klutton (see fig. 129d on page 81). However, it was not until another great goblin thinker by the name of Caul developed both ideas that the pattern of Goblin Philosophy was set for future generations. Caul pointed out that neither the Twark's egg nor the Klutton's egg are particularly nice to eat (the Twark's egg tastes of corduroy trousers while the Klutton's has more of a worsted flavour). Thus it could be induced that thinking about anything for any period was a complete waste of time. This theory became immediately popular with all goblins, and Bec and Caul were able to devote their declining years to knitting and harrassing the small extinct mammal pictured on page 46.

Hope you enjoy! I'm off to read Countess' story!