The Zankiwank and The Bletherwitch: An Original Fantastic Fairy Extravaganza

Imagination is always the ruling and divine power, and the rest of the man is only the instrument which it sounds, or the tablet on which it writes.
John Ruskin.


By the Queen-Moon's mystic light, By the hush of holy night, By the woodland deep and green, By the starlight's silver sheen, By the zephyr's whispered spell, Brooding Powers Invisible, Faerie Court and Elfin Throng, Unto whom the groves belong, And by Laws of ancient date, Found in Scrolls of Faerie Fate, Stream and fount are dedicate. Whereso'er your feet to-day Far from haunts of men may stray, We adjure you stay no more Exiles on an alien shore, But with spells of magic birth Once again make glad the earth.
Philip Dayre.
Well, said the Zankiwank as he swallowed another jam tart, I think we had better start on our travels at once.
They were all standing under the clock at Charing Cross Station when the station was closed and everybody else had departed, except the train which the Zankiwank had himself chartered. It was all so odd and strange, and the gathering was so very motley, that if it had been to-morrow morning instead of last night, Willie and Maude would certainly have said they had both been dreaming. But, of course, they were not dreaming because they were wide-awake and dressed. Besides, they remembered Charing Cross Station quite well, having started therefrom with their father and mother only last summer when they went to the sea-side for their holidays—and what jolly times they had on the sands! So Maude said promptly, It is not Night-mare or Dreams or Anything. We don't know what it is, but we must not go to sleep, Willie, in case anything should happen.

Willie replied that he did not want to go to sleep any more. I believe it's a show, he added, and somebody's run away with us. How lovely! I'm glad we are lost. Let us go and ask that tall gentleman, who looks like the parlour-tongs in a bathing-suit, to give us some more buns. For, being a boy, he could always eat buns, or an abundance of them, only I hope you won't tell the nursery governess I told you.