by Tod Davies
An Incomplete List of Publications by Arcadian Scholars
(published by Otterbridge University Press, unless otherwise noted)
year 14, An Elegant Theory of the Contiguity of Theater Arts and Neurobiology , Prof. Chloe Watson.
year 17, History or Physics: A False Dichotomy, Prof. Joyanna Bender Boyce-Flood.
year 22, Folk Tales of Megalopolis and Arcadia: A Comparative Study, Prof. Devindra Vale.
year 25, Journey to the Center of an Illusion, Prof. Joyanna Bender Boyce-Flood.
year 26, A Short History of the Fairy Tale (with excerpts from the Legendus Snottianicus), Prof. Devindra Vale.
year 34, Legendus Snottianicus: translations of fragments of an Arcadian folk tale. Translated by Prof. Joyanna Bender Boyce-Flood, with notes by Prof. Devindra Vale.
year 41, Twelve Points Against the Existence of Unity, Prof. Aspern Grayling.
year 43, The Siegfried Cycle, edited by Prof. Aspern Grayling. New Power Press.
year 52, Dominance and Hierarchy: First Principle Among Worlds, Prof. Aspern Grayling. New Power Press.
year 54, The Legendus Snottianicus: The More We Know the Less We Understand, Prof. Devindra Vale.
year 59, Connection: A Personal Journey of Discovery, Loss, and Love, Dr. Malcolm Sivia.
year 61, On the Discovery of Biological Truths in Fairy Tales, Dr. Alan Fallaize, with foreword by Prof. Devindra Vale.
year 62, Storyland: Storehouse in the Ether?, Prof. Joyanna Bender Boyce-Flood.
year 76, Catalog of the ANALECTA ARCADIA and the ACTA ARCADIA, compiled by Prof. Joyanna Bender Boyce-Flood.
year 83, The Annotated SNOTTYSAVESTHEDAY, foreword and notes by Prof. Devindra Vale, edited by Dr. Alan Fallaize.
Praise for Dr. Alan Fallaize’s
ON THE DISCOVERY OF BIOLOGICAL TRUTHS IN FAIRY TALES...
“Dr. Fallaize tells us in simple, clear language what most of us knew in our hearts: our stories tell us who we are...”
—The Arcadian Journal
of Teaching, Cooking,
& Engineering
“...a modern classic...almost a detective story of a great scientific discovery...”
—The Wrykyn Review
“Brilliantly conceived, eminently readable, an achievement by a great scholar. Three cheers for Fallaize!”
—Physics Today
Excerpts from Dr. Alan Fallaize’s classic work,
ON THE DISCOVERY OF BIOLOGICAL TRUTH IN FAIRY TALES...
A man in a church sees a pink and gold animal resembling a boar, with violets and roses growing out of its tusks. Does he really see this? Does it really exist?
A mathematician sees a white rabbit run across a field holding a pocket watch. Is the rabbit really there? And what time is it anyway?
A woman praying in a chapel in the far off world of Spain levitates above the ground, annoying her fellow worshippers with an excess of piety. Did she really rise up? Is it a mass hallucination? And why do they all dislike her so much?
These are the kinds of questions that we, the adherents of the New Science, began to ask ourselves. In many ways, they are a sign of both how lost we were, and how determined we were not to follow the error filled paths of the past.
And the answers, doggedly arrived at, surprised us.
Available at finer booksellers from
OTTERBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TOD DAVIES, founder of EXTERMINATING ANGEL PRESS,
firmly believes in the truth of fairy tales,
and that if you know who you are,
(and what made you that way),
you can change your world, too.
1 Proven conclusively to exist (see Prof. Joyanna Bender Boyce-Flood, Journey to the Center of an Illusion, Otterbridge University Press, year 25, chapters 7 and 12). Work still needs to be done on their origins or function. Professor Aspern Grayling’s speculation that Angels are a parallel but useless life form is of great interest as a leaping off point for more study, and can be said to be at the heart of the differences between his Neofundamentalist school and that of the New Subjectivity. (See Grayling, Twelve Points Against the Existence of Unity, Otterbridge University Press, year 41.) As often noted before, the differences between the folk tales of the imperial Megalopolis that surrounds us and our own Arcadian ones are relevant to this question. Angels are almost unknown in Megalopolitan tales, with the exception of the folk tale “Why the Angels Left”; they are common, however, in those of Arcadia. (See Prof. Devindra Vale, Folk Tales of Megalopolis and Arcadia: A Comparative Study, Otterbridge University Press, year 22.)
2 Prof. Grayling’s point that no Enemy can or could exist is instructive in this context. Dr. Malcolm Sivia posits that physical nature must possess an evil force working within it, but whether this force is personified or merely symbolic has yet to be determined. (See Sivia, Connection: A Personal Journey of Discovery, Loss, and Love, Otterbridge University Press, year 59.) The views of the late Queen Sophia that this force is personified and active in Arcadian conflicts are well known.
3 See Prof. Joyanna Bender Boyce-Flood, History or Physics: A False Dichotomy, Otterbridge University Press, year 17, for discussion of the Law of the Small. Her discovery that at the end of every great historical cycle a renewal must take place that begins in the most apparently useless part of the system involved shows a remarkable similarity to this stated “Law of Everywhere.”
4 Despite much archival research in search of such a neighborhood in the history of Megalopolis, no record has been found to date. The description fits folk tales that place the Arcadian village of Cockaigne, childhood home of Lily the Silent, inside Megalopolis. See “The Three Tailors,” an Arcadian folk tale of three small businessmen in Cockaigne who meet and beat a Megalopolitan devil, using nothing but their wits and a small hand puppet.
5 See above, footnote 3, re: the Law of the Small. Snotty is the most insignificant and contemptible figure in all Arcadian mythology. An unlikely hero.
6 The motif of beer coming from the nose is a common one in folk tales, both Arcadian and Megalopolitan. See particularly “How Beer Was Invented,” and that favorite of naughty Arcadian children “Who Will Find a Pot to Piss In?” (See Vale, year 22.)
7 The Teddy Bear is an important motif in Arcadian fairy tales. See my A Short History of the Fairy Tale (with excerpts from the Legendus Snottianicus), Otterbridge University Press, year 26. Teddy Bears have long held a strange fascination for Arcadians, a fact noted, not without contempt, by Professor Aspern Grayling. (See Grayling, year 41.) Grayling refers specifically to “the essential inferiority of the provincial Arcadian mind to the imperial Megalopolitan: its childish love of play, its obsession with festival, its affection for toys and pets of all kinds.” Grayling contrasts this to the Megalopolitan “aestheticism, use of food and drink for ceremonial rather than festive purposes, as well as its manly love of sport.”
8 Note the traditional motif of Rejected One Who Sets Out Into the World (see Vale, year 26). This appears most notably in the Cockaigne Idiot Cycle: “The Idiot Goes Up the Mountains,” “The Idiot Goes Down to the Marsh,” and the most popular of the stories, “The Idiot Flies to the Moon.” All these classic Arcadian tales tell the story of a girl supposed to be an Idiot, though the action of each story shows, of course, that she is anything but. These were the favorite tales of our second queen, Sophia the Wise. I have had the personal experience of hearing her spirited renditions of these tales to a group of Arcadian children (including my own great-granddaughter), which our queen would always conclude by saying, “And who was the REAL idiot?” to the children’s great delight.
9 Prof. Grayling has noted, in earlier private conversation, that this is often the ‘description of the imaginary Enemy.’ I am indebted to him for the insight, though our disagreement about the scientific meaning of the word ‘imaginary’ continues, even as we face each other from opposite sides of the present civil war.
10 This is, in fact, an accurate depiction
of the work force that historically has formed the Megalopolitan police, now known as the National Peace Force. It is instructive to note its place in this Arcadian Fairy Tale, since the actual Megalopolitan Peace Force has a history of occupying Arcadia when it can. The Peace Force is presently advising the Neofundamentalist side of our civil war. Professor Grayling has made no secret of his admiration for its structure, function, and effectiveness.
11 See note 6 above.
12 I myself can assert, from personal childhood experience, that this is an accurate depiction of a typical lower class neighborhood in Megalopolis. But no record exists of Hamercy Street, which must be assumed to be fictional.
13 Alan is an uncommon given name in Megalopolis—I’ve been unable to find records of more than three there over the last eighty years. But it is a common one in Arcadia, where it was the name of the famous freedom fighter and father-by-adoption of our first queen, Lily the Silent.
14 The motif of a small child selling drugs to earn money and prestige is a common one in Megalopolitan folk tales. (See Vale, year 22.) In Megalopolitan folk tales, the hero—for it is always a hero, never a heroine, who figures in this motif—goes on from a start as a drug peddler to become a celebrity of some kind: a politician, a successful businessman, or a media magnate. Such a motif is unknown in Arcadian folk/fairy tales, with the single exception of Snotty Saves the Day.
15 Central New York, as we all know, does, in fact, exist as a neighborhood in Megalopolis. Or rather, it did in the days before the Great Flood and Great Migration, when so many of us living in Megalopolis emigrated over the mountains to Arcadia. Central New York was, in fact, the home of the father of Queen Sophia the Wise.
16 Again, the Small Child as Criminal Mastermind is a common motif in Megalopolitan folk tales. See “Rudyard the Magician,” where the hero begins as a con artist and goes on to world-wide fame as a conjuror. Or “Anthony Saves the World,” in which the plagiarist hero ends by patriotically killing the enemies of Megalopolis with his dark skills. Or “The Jesting Pilates,” where the hero, drug dealer turned physician, saves an entire continent from a dread disease. Megalopolis, of course, has no known fairy tales: by which I mean tales that include any world other than Megalopolis. Its oral tradition is entirely confined, imaginatively speaking, within its own borders, and the borders of those lands that it has invaded.
17 Here is another of those differences of which I spoke. No Megalopolitan tale of any kind indicates sympathy with the idea of ‘changing the world.’ Whether there is a difference between Megalopolitan biology and Arcadian, or this is simply an example of determined censorship through the ages, I leave for future scholarship to determine.
18 A common motif in folk, fairy, and all other kinds of tales in all languages, in all worlds. No reference needed
19 Another common motif in Megalopolitan folk tales, though rare in those of Arcadia. See note 16.
20 Good smells are a common Arcadian motif, though rare in Megalopolitan tales. (See Vale, year 26.) See, for example, “The Baker’s Stone,” where, at the request of his mother, a kindly baker is granted the magic ability to make as much delicious bread as is needed for a wedding party that has run out; “Calendula the Cat,” where a cat and a dog are shown by an angel why they were given different senses of smell; and “The Kith of the Fairy Forest,” where a starving child obtains wonderful food by singing to wake his fairy protectors from sleep.
21 Bad smells are a common Megalopolitan motif, but rare in Arcadian tales. The examples are too numerous to mention here.
22 Common Arcadian motif. See above, note 20.
23 This, I believe, is still true. It certainly was in my childhood.
24 Dogs frequently figure as saviors/messengers in Arcadian stories. (See Bender Boyce-Flood, year 25.) However, this is an uncommon motif in Megalopolitan tales. Prof. Bender Boyce-Flood has pointed out that many of the formerly autonomous communities swallowed up by Megalopolis have a tradition of stories of dogs acting as saviors from an oppressor. This is true of Arcadian tales as well. The most famous of these, of course, is “Dandy Drives the Devil Out,” also the basis of a popular children’s game, where a noble black dog can smell the Devil anywhere in Arcadia, and, finding him, jumps up, licking his face and pawing his fine clothes, smearing them with mud, until he retreats over the mountains back to Megalopolis. Professor Grayling has singled out the Dandy stories in his recent Censorship Edict affecting all Arcadian libraries.
25 I can attest to this being a common feeling among Megalopolitan students, at least in my youth! In science classes held at Megalopolis’s Technical Academy for the Betterment of Mankind, where I studied classical Megalopolitan physics, it was uncommon to study directly from nature. Abstract/generated models were thought tobebe more accurate. I now believe this to have been the result of Megalopolitan environmental degradation, which had made nature more difficult to study in its true form.
26 All creatures recently proven to exist, though much still needs to be done to determine where and how. (See Dr. Alan Fallaize, On the Discovery of Biological Truths in Fairy Tales, Otterbridge University Press, year 61.) Even Professor Grayling agrees, though he and the Neofundamentalists are violently opposed to allowing any of these creatures into Councils of Arcadian State. One of the causes of the present civil war was our late queen’s wish that an Angel be installed as a minister. This suggestion was met by an immediate outbreak of arbitrary violence meant to stop the program of reform started by Lily the Silent, and continued by Sophia the Wise. Her ministers, of which I am one, struggled against the escalation of these terrorist attacks into a full civil war. But in vain.
27 It was this section describing the lawn and its composition that was one of the missing chapters of the Legendus Snottianicus, only to be discovered when the copy of Snotty Saves the Day was found in Queen Sophia’s library after her death. As such, it deserves much closer study. (See Vale, The Legendus Snottianicus: The More We Know, the Less We Understand, Otterbridge University Press, year 54, for this history.) It is worth noting that the only form of nature valued in Megalopolis is the lawn.
28 See above notes on motif of smells, good and bad.
29 The motif of the hero mutilating him/herself for illusory advantage is a common one in Arcadian fairy tales. It is also common in Megalopolitan folk tales, though here the hero is considered to have behaved in a manly, as opposed to the Arcadian naïve, fashion. The difference is salutary.
30 Treasure turning to trash is so common a motif in Arcadian folk tales that any Arcadian child could name you twenty stories revolving around the transformation. There are no known instances of the same transformation in any Megalopolitan stories that I can find. (See Vale, year 22; Vale, year 26.) The most common Arcadian motif involves three sisters, one after another going over the mountains in search of a husband. Halfway there, and offered a choice between a mansion filled with splendid clothes, or a half-starved dog, the first two sisters choose the mansion only to be left with a small pile of brown pellets. The third sister, inevitably moved by compassion, chooses the dog, only to have him turn into a handsome prince. The famous Arcadian Maude stories also begin this way, with Maude marrying her dog husband before going on to further adventures.
31 The Sun God is an important motif in all worlds existing under suns. A fruitful area for study, especially since initial research proves that stories of a Sun God’s triumphs are common to dominator/hierarchical societies such as Megalopolis. This is the only known instance of a Sun God motif in all of Arcadian literature, with the exception of the fraudulent Siegfried Cycle, written anonymously by Professor Grayling as propaganda for what Neofundamentalists call “The New Man,” who (they claim) is the proper ruler of Arcadia. (See Prof. Aspern Grayling, editor, The Siegfried Cycle, New Power Press, year 43.)
32 The Great Man motif has been definitively analyzed by Dr. Malcolm Sivia in his classic Connection: A Personal Journey of Discovery, Loss, and Love, Otterbridge University Press, year
59. This work is an essential research tool for any student of Arcadian fairy and folk tales, as well as of physics and biology, and theorizes a difference between societies that admire single transcendent culture heroes, and those that have as models twins, brother/sister combinations, or married couples. Again, this marks a well-known split in Arcadian thought. See Grayling, year 43, for the single example in Arcadian literature of the Great Man saving society.
33 See Sivia, above note 32.
34 This motif of the missing finger is rare in Arcadian literature, but when found there indicates a chosen one of some kind. Our late queen, Lily the Silent, mother of Sophia the Wise, by coincidence, was missing just such a finger. I have had occasion to question her as to the circumstances in which she lost the digit, but in this, as in so much else, our dear queen lived up to her name.