A Wizard of Dreams (Myrddin's Heir Book 1)

by Robin Chambers

  Richard of York gave battle in vain. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. That is called a “mnemonic”: “a device which assists in remembering something” OED. That word came into English via medieval Latin from Greek mnēmonikos, from mnēmōn ‘mindful’.

  She ... was so beautiful that just to look at her took Gordon’s breath away. Of course, it could be argued that Gordon had not yet reached an age when his judgement on such matters could be relied upon. Do remember, however, that (a) he was very advanced for his age, and (b) most really good fairy stories have in them an astonishingly beautiful female, whether human or fairy, rich or poor, princess or servant.

  Intervening adj: “being situated between things” OED. From Latin intervenire, from inter- ‘between’ and venire ‘to come’.

  Chapter 12

  He could have put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes. The fairy Puck says he can do this in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 2, scene 1)

  Thor is the God of Thunder in Scandinavian mythology. (“Thursday” is named after him.)

  Mr. Benn is a character created by David McKee. He appears in several children's books, and an animated television series of the same name transmitted by the BBC in 1971 and 1972.” ISOTI

  Chapter 13

  You sort him! Here, when Zack says “I know just what to do with HIM”, I think Gordon thought of Leslie Phillips saying: “I know just what to do with YOU!” as the voice of The Sorting Hat in the first Harry Potter film.

  straddled the narrow ground like a Colossus. A Colossus is something which is colossal, huge. The original Colossus of Rhodes was one of the Seven Wonders of the Classical World: “a huge bronze statue of the Sun God Helios - built c.292-280 BCE; it stood beside the harbour entrance at Rhodes for about fifty years” OED.

  In Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Cassius says of Caesar: “he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus” (Act 1 scene 2).

  Shall we receive the praises of the king, and fly in triumph over Fairyland? I think Zack must have been with Christopher Marlowe when he wrote in his play Tamburlaine the Great (first published in 1590): “Is it not passing great to be a king, and ride in triumph through Persepolis?”

  steeping in forgetfulness.

  “… O gentle sleep,

  Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

  That thou wilt no more lay my eyelids down

  And steep my senses in forgetfulness;”

  William Shakespeare, Henry 1V Part 2, 111 i

  Chapter 15

  Zack on rear-view recce. ‘Recce’ is a British informal term for reconnaissance, a term adopted in the Second World War. It’s a French word, formed from re- ‘again’ and connaître (old spelling connoître) ‘to know’. Hence the use of the different vowel in 'reconnoitre'.

  B-over-H is short for ‘bottom over head’. Adults use a similar expression to describe the same manoeuvre.

  Chapter 17

  “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 251-3. Gordon asks Zack whether that’s true. What do you think?

  Chapter 19

  You’re a mammal! Female mammals (typically) bear live young, and secrete milk for their nourishment.

  “The universe-before-Gordon stretched a long time …” Astronomers’ latest estimate of the age of the universe is fourteen billion years. It is thought to be accurate to + or - 0.11 billion years.

  passing through nature to eternity. This is from Hamlet, Act 1 scene 2. Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, says to him: “Thou know’st ‘tis common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.”

  “It has a verb, you see.” If you didn’t know this already, it’s a useful thing to know. Take the sentence: “The lady, feeling herself insulted, left the room in a rage and a strikingly red hat.” The main clause is “The lady left the room”. “feeling herself insulted” is a subordinate clause (because “feeling” is used as a verb here), and “in a rage and a strikingly red hat” is an adverbial phrase, because there is no verb in it.

  “Always had a way with words, did Will”. The incomparable William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was one of the greatest writers who ever lived.

  Chapter 20

  Top Gear. Notice the “double-entendre” in the title of this show. “Top gear” means the highest gear in a car and also absolutely the best equipment money can buy. “Double-entendre” is a French expression, meaning ‘having two meanings’ (literally ‘double-understanding’).

  The Bugatti Veyron 16.4: top speed of 253 mph; 0-60 in 2.6 secs, and equipped with 1001 hp. In 2009, its base price was $1,500,000.” ISOTI

  The 4D Vision Space Shuttle 1:72 Scale Model Kit. If you type that into your browser, you can see a picture of the very one.

  Chapter 21

  within reasonable distance of St Austell, which is 9.5 kilometres (6 miles) from the Eden Project.

  wattle-and-daub walls. “Wattle and daub (or wattle-and-daub) is a building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw.

  Wattle and daub has been used for at least 6,000 years, and is still an important construction material in many parts of the world. Many historic buildings include wattle and daub construction, and the technique is becoming popular again in more developed areas as a low-impact, sustainable building technique.” ISOTI (Wikipedia)

  mod cons: modern conveniences. Such abbreviations are very commonly used in property advertisements.

  Chapter 22

  his local zoo: Chester Zoo. There’s a lot of interesting stuff about it on the net.

  a third of all animal and plant species face extinction in this century. What percentage of all species that have ever existed on this planet are now extinct? (You can find the answer at the end of the notes to chapter 23)

  What’s an acre? The word “acre” comes from a root that is at least 5,000 years old. We know that because it is found in the Indian as well as the European branches of Indo-European, the early language from which many of the current languages in Europe and India have developed. It was spoken in Southern Europe around 5,000 years ago. Old English æcer is related to Dutch akker and German Acker ‘field’, Sanskrit ajra ‘field’, Latin ager and Greek agros (whence agriculture).

  a great view of onagers. The Onager is “an animal of the race of the Asian wild ass native to Northern Iran” OED. The name comes from the Greek word onagros (a combination of onos ‘ass’ + agrios ‘wild’): so the '–ager' bit is from the same root as the word ‘acre’. Now isn’t that interesting?

  His current fascinations were big cats and primates. The big cats have long fascinated us humans. They are so beautiful and yet so deadly. In 1794 the poet William Blake published the poem “Tyger Tyger” in a collection he called Songs of Experience. The first verse is very famous:

  “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright

  In the forests of the night,

  What immortal hand or eye

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

  Later in the poem he asks two MORE questions:

  “When the stars threw down their spears

  And water'd heaven with their tears,

  Did He smile his work to see?

  Did He who made the Lamb make thee?”

  Those are three important questions.

  Primate noun: “a mammal of an order that includes the lemurs, bushbabies, tarsiers, marmosets, monkeys, apes and humans. They are distinguished by having hands, hand-like feet, and forward facing eyes, and are typically agile tree-dwellers” OED. From Latin primas, primat- ‘of the first rank’.

  Do you like climbing trees?

  Baleful adj: “menacing, threatening serious harm” OED.

  plans for a spectacular new bio-dome.

  “The Heart of Africa biodome is planned to open in 2014 and the current time
table for the full masterplan is 2024. The biodome will be a third larger in size than the Eden tropical dome, 180 metres long by 90 metres wide and 34m tall at its highest point, and have one mile of footpaths. It will incorporate a river ride that will provide unique internal and external views of the rainforest and the animal exhibits, plus seating and refreshments.

  Prof Reid said: “Heart of Africa will be a world-class, unique animal exhibit that through horticulture, temperatures and humidity will re-create a Congo Rainforest environment.”

  Chester Zoo plans to immerse critically endangered species such as the gorilla into the zoo. It will house a large number of mixed species animal exhibits linked to the Congo, including gorillas, chimpanzee, okapi, mandrill, red river hog, pygmy hippo, as well as free-flying birds with internal and external paddocks representing the very best in animal welfare. It will be the first time people in the UK will be able to see gorillas in their natural context.” ISOTI (from an article by Barry Ellams, published January 20th 2010 in The Ellesmere Port Pioneer.)

  Chapter 23

  Quizzical adj: “indicating mild or amused puzzlement” OED.

  He only had a vague idea what DNA was. “Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms (with the exception of RNA viruses).

  The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints, like a recipe or a code, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information.” ISOTI (Wikipedia)

  They had a big silverback called Guy. He was gorgeous. Have a look at him on Google Images. My wife and I took our son Toby to London Zoo when he was about 4 (he’s 47 now). It was a sunny spring day, and we saw a tiger take a sparrow out of the air. We also saw Guy make contact with the little girl. It still makes me cry when I think of that day.

  he must have weighed about 500 lbs. That’s 226.8 kilos, if you’re more used to kilos. I weigh 69 kilos.

  [What percentage of all species that have ever existed on this planet are now extinct? The current estimate is 99.9%]

  Chapter 24

  Washoe. Go on Google Images and pay your respects to her. She died in 2007, aged 42. A human named Roger, who had worked with her and who knew her well, gave the eulogy at her funeral.

  Washoe gave her the cold shoulder. When one person deliberately turns away when another approaches, that is called “giving someone the cold shoulder.”

  Chapter 26

  through a wormhole. “A wormhole is a hypothetical ‘shortcut’ through time and space. [It] is much like a tunnel with each of its ends at separate points in spacetime.” ISOTI. You see an artist’s impression of one at the start of every Dr Who episode.

  “’The proof of the pudding ...’” The full expression, of course, is “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” In other words, you don’t know what something is like until you’ve tried it.

  “The Oort cloud is an immense spherical cloud surrounding the planetary system and extending approximately 3 light years - about 30 trillion kilometres - from the sun. This vast distance is considered the edge of the Sun's orb of physical, gravitational, or dynamic influence.” ISOTI

  Generic adj: “characteristic of or relating to a class or group of things” OED. From Latin genus, gener- ‘stock, race’.

  Fourteen billion light years. This is astronomers’ latest estimate of the age of the universe. It is thought to be accurate to + or - 0.11 billion years. This information also appeared in a note to Chapter 19.

  ‘Space is very aptly named’. This is a quotation from Bill Bryson’s book “A Short History of Almost Everything.” I recommend that you read it, whenever you feel ready.

  it will still take us 93.4 minutes. The sun, as I am sure you know, is approximately 93,000,000 miles from Earth. It takes light, travelling at 186,000 miles per second, around 8 minutes 20 seconds to get from the sun to the earth. The next nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 4.24 light years away. It is for good reason that very large numbers are described as “astronomical”.

  Incidentally, did you know that the sun is more than a million times bigger than the Earth?

  the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth. Please type ‘Beethoven’s fifth symphony’ into your internet search engine and listen to a bit of it on YouTube.

  “His eyes are open, but their sense is shut.” Zack had once quoted this line to Gordon, though of course it was her eyes (Lady Macbeth’s). It is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act V, scene 1: the famous sleep-walking scene.

  a similar distance as the sun was to Earth. This, of course, was no remote coincidence. There are billions of galaxies in the Universe containing trillions of stars, many of which are likely to be orbited by a system of planets. There must be billions of planets out there of similar mass to Earth, made up of the same elements.

  Not only is it likely, it is almost certain that the laws of physics controlling the motion of planets around their stars dictate that a planet of the constituency and mass of Earth will orbit a sun of similar energy output as our own at a very similar distance as does the Earth its sun, and that the conditions on that planet will be similar in most respects to those that exist on Earth.

  pinko-grey colour. It was the English novelist and essayist E. M. Forster (1879–1970) who first pointed out that “The so-called white races are really pinko-grey”. The only really black people are the Ethiopians. The so-called black races are almost always differing shades of brown. This white/black nonsense is a very good example of how prejudice often impregnates language.

  Myriad adj: “Countless, or extremely great in number” OED. Ultimately from Greek murias, muriad-, from murioi ‘10,000’.

  The findings seemed momentarily to have surprised him out of role. An emotional reaction would not normally be expected from a Vulcan science officer, even one with an earthling for a mother. Zack’s parentage is still a matter of conjecture.

  massive, brilliant white teeth. The gorillas on this planet have dental hygiene off to a fine art.

  Captain Gordon E. Bennett. The E stands for Edmund. This middle name of Gordon’s is significant, as you find out later in the story.

  a close encounter of the third kind. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (sometimes abbreviated to CE3K and often referred to as just Close Encounters) is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The “third kind” is an actual face-to-face encounter with an alien.

  Chapter 27

  Consternation noun: “anxiety or dismay causing mental confusion” OED.

  the Vulcan greeting. The Vulcan salute is a hand gesture consisting of a raised hand, palm forward with the fingers parted between the middle and ring finger, and the thumb extended. ISOTI (Answers.com)

  some kind of hologram. A hologram is “a three-dimensional image formed by the interference of light beams from a laser or other coherent light source” OED.

  Namaste: “a respectful greeting said when giving a namaskar” OED. Via Hindi from Sanskrit namas ‘bowing’ + te ‘to you’. Sanskrit and Hindi are Indo-European languages. Gordon understood that a greeting that used gesture rather than just sound was more likely to be understood.

  Put 'Namaste' into the Google Images searchbox if you would like to see images of people performing this simple but eloquent gesture. Try using it when you next meet a person from the Asian sub-continent and see what effect this simple demonstration of respect for their culture can have.

  polluting it in the name of progress and the pursuit of profit. From a very early age, Gordon showed concern about climate change. He has discussed the possible effects of global warming with Zack on several occasions. Zack, it must be admitted, leans to the left in
his political views, and thoroughly approves of Greenpeace.

  put her little hand against it. It was at this precise point that Gordon knew with absolute certainty that the infant gorilla on the other side of the glass was female.

  Chapter 28

  a lush delta. A “delta” is “a triangular tract of sediment deposited at the mouth of a river, typically where it diverges into several outlets” OED. From the shape of the Greek letter: DELTA (Δ).

  an equal opportunities planet. Zack had raised Gordon’s consciousness on this issue at a very early age.

  The lead female placed her nose on the clear plate in the middle of the panel. “The shape and wrinkles of a mountain gorilla’s nose are as distinct and as individual as human fingerprints.” ISOTI

  hieroglyphic notes. A hieroglyph is “a stylized picture of an object representing a word, syllable or sound” OED. From Greek hieros ‘sacred’ and gluphé ‘carving’.

  “Nil desperandum…” is a Latin expression (taught to Gordon by Zack) which means, literally, ‘No need to despair. Don’t let anything put you off.’ It comes from an Ode by the Roman poet Horace: nil desperandum Teucro duce ‘no need to despair with Teucer as your leader’ (Odes 1.vii.27).