Can one replicate the totem? A boggart (even a talking boggart) must surely not be smart enough to tell the difference. Perhaps even, a ruse, a replacement that seems shiny and looks to be a prize taken from the bird queen in revenge.

It seems for the boggarts at least, that this is an issue of pride.

It certainly would be helpful to know what appearance the totem took and what it was used for on either side. If only for the sociological knowledge of such a thing.

But suffice it to say, more information is needed. A replication might indeed work, but if it fails, I fear it may drive the boggarts into an even greater anger, one directed at your good self for attempting to deceive them.

Perhaps if they perceived themselves to have retaken the totem, instead of it given to them, it would restore a sense of their pride. After all, it is not the item itself they truly covet, but their pride in having taken such a thing.

I would also suggest a ruse to placate the boggarts if I thought such a ruse was possible. Both parties must describe the totem accurately for a duplicate to be made, and the Queen must comply with whatever plans you make. I fear this will not happen.

But to hear true polychoral speach! You have rendered it in such a way to make this missive readable, but I would dearly appreciate a full dictation from you in your–as the scallywags say–copious free time. Such speech is rare, as I am sure you know, and according to my source material (a one-time assistant to Thistledown–my famulus found the texts this morning and set a scrivener to record a readable manuscript) there is no evidence of control of syllabic emphasis, and the syllables are recited out of order at times.

Tell me, Dear Roundbottom, is this true?

It appears to me that a riddle is posed. I think a ruse to trick the boggarts will fail the test, for a test it seems. The birds have observed you often, and there is assuredly curiosity, intelligence, and mischief inherent in their glinting dark eyes.

Consider also that a totem need not be physical. Indeed certain distant aboriginal tribes such as the Noot’ka consider the raven itself to be a totem.

What might be considered a totem; certain legends posit that the item in question might be the sun or a moon! One legend has it that a raven, having stolen the sun, dropped it, and some of the broken shards ended up in the sky as the stars. Perhaps utilizing your apparatus to achieve a photonic capture of some significant celestial conjunction might fit the bill.

I entreat you approach this problem with care; unlike the earlier steam wraith, the Queen is all too able to manifest completely to the physical realm; this implies much.

Thank you everyone for your advice. I believe I will approach the Bird Queen via one of her agents to see if I might make some detailed captures of the totem, and to take those to a craftsman for copying. From there, a plan is developing slowly from your suggestions… I will let you know more soon.

Professor Atwater, to answer your direct question, syllabic emphasis was rare to my recollection. The overlap between “speakers” did leave me with the impression that the syllables were out of order sometimes. I hope to make a recording of the speech on my next visit for your detailed examination, assuming that the Queen allows it.

I must admit that the first thing to occur to me was also a duplicate, a doppelganger, a shadow. The more I think on this, the more caution arises. You have heard two sides to this, but beware: it is a temptation to trust the Bird Queen simply because she is, to us, the more intelligible party (and fascinatingly so; I share Dr. Atwater’s great interest in this phenomenon and look forward to your discoveries in that area!), but what do you know of her?

Therefore, while I echo your (communicants, no, correspondents, that is it) your correspondents’ suggestions to discover all you can of the totem itself (whether it be physical or ethereal), I urge you to learn what you can also of the Bird Queen herself. I am not familiar with your city or wondrous-seeming Park, but I suspect you will find some connection with the urchins there. Was she herself an urchin who stumbled on a way to compel the birds? Or was she the abandoned child of an urchin, raised among the very birds she now rules? The former, and she is a con artist deserving of whatever trickery you can devise; the latter, and she merits at least some trust, as well as much further study into the birds of your Park.

What either will mean for your looming war, I cannot say. But I wish you peace and further fascinating discoveries.

Monsieur del Alba makes a good accounting. I must admit to having been taken with the glamour of your P.C. of the Queen and thus swayed to take her at her word; on reflection it seems the birds themselves may not be innocent of motive; the urchin hypothesis is compelling.

Good Dr Roundbottom, I think you right about them Boggarts! You see, Dimbain the second has gone missing, and now I knows them Boggarts really can talk. Took days for Mam and I to discover little Dimbain’s vanishing, as our eleven other kidlings were pulling the wool so we wouldn’t be knowing it. We’re proud of them.

You see, a year ago this would have been impossible for the kidlings to do, cooperationing like that, for the wee womenfolk and the wee menfolk of our house were a feuding. Decapitated dolls, shaved heads in the middle of the night, human sized traps, and you should have seen what the boys did in turn. Well, Mam is blessed with ideas, so she told them this tale of Swamp Peter, a feral boy lost who becomed one with the swamp as the gater moss infected his very blood. Big sharp gater teeth, fuzzy green skin, reed-like spikes and claws, eyes on the sides of his head. “Hungry for children, he is,” she said. Well, in no time the household was united and the young Wiggins kidlings was building all kinds of horrible traps and weapons together like good kidlings should.

Only mistake was my convincing poor cousin Nedlington to dress as the Swamp Peter and scare the kidlings one night. We do hope he made it away.

Anyways, so this morn there’s this knock on the door. We look out the window and the porch is empty. Opening the door, we hear a little voice. It’s all funny, whistly and grunty, pronunciationing like someone not from around these parts, someone who is not good with English.

We looks down and there is this little Boggart fellow dressed is a fine little coat and top hat. I recognizes the outfit as the felt duds made by my daughter Judith for her Mr. Darcy doll.

“Dimbain is for dinner tonight,” the Boggart says. He tips his hat and hopps off the porch.

For dinner? Oh, dear, dinner! Yes, I am hungry. Must go see what Mam is cooking. Will continue in my next letter after I eat me some of her lovely crawdad and pickerelweed stew!

Dr. Roundbottom –

Your current situation and the conflicts surrounding it may flow in numerous directions. I applaud your newfound caution in approaching these matters. I offer a few meager thoughts:

As much as it pains me to admit this, you may need the assistance of the Heldesmen in this matter, based on their craftsmanship and knowledge in matters of Magik. At least in this case, you should be out of harm’s way if the charms associated with the copied totem are weak — and I think there must certainly be such charms, even if the boggarts make no use of them. If the totem is not a physical object as we understand it, as Nemo suggests, the Heldesmen will be of little use; their sorcery is tied inextricably to their craft, as I understand the matter.

What investigation have you done on possible perceptual differences between the two parties? Recent scientific research confirms that different species of birds whose plumage looks identical to the human eye shows marked differences when viewed along the infrared (or is it ultraviolet?) part of the spectrum. Be sure to understand what the totem “looks like” to you and both of the other parties.

On a more positive note, if the fey queen’s interest in the totem be merely functional, and the boggarts’ interests limited to racial pride, it may be that a fabrication need only perform as the original did to satisfy the fey queen. As pointed out by Mortlewood, the boggarts’ gifts do not lie in the realm of the intellect.

I take no comfort in the admission that the Bird Queen has long observed your activities. Based on my own sad experience with the fey, she has only refrained from mischief — or outright malice — because she sees your research as beneficial to her realm, by which I mean the Park. The moment this changes, you must guard yourself.

I must report, in addition to the addled musings of Dimbain (I say, Roundbottom, can you not more selectively screen contributors?) that the back wall of a local aviary, some 20 kilometers closer to the City, was torn apart yesterday night — all birds in the adjacent enclosure slaughtered … for your sake and the welfare of your miraculous Park, I wish you luck.

Sincerely,

– M. Van Allen

Dr Roundbottom, if you’re ever in our parts, you must come by for some of Mam’s crawdad and pickerelweed stew! Been feating since yesterday, and now I’m a feelin like a goose stuffed for Christmas dinner. So, where were we? Ah, yes!

Young Kipper, third youngest of the boyfolk, has been taken with building devices, like myself. Previously he constructed a listening device, one that can be tuned to particular frequencies. Made it from a large conch shell we collected on holiday by the sea. By holding it to your ear, ya can hear frequencies only emitted by Boggarts. Senator Kelliwammer was quite impressed and offered Kipper a nice “Certificate of Good Citizenship” for turning the plans over to his office.

So, listening device in hand, we gathered the kidlings, armed ourselves, and started off in search of Dimbain the second. Following the distant sound of Boggart rumble and squeal, we soon found ourselves walking beneath a long tunnel of swamp-hut trees, their trunks suspended above us by their arching roots. At the end of this tunnel was a dark cavern under a moss covered hill. Luckily, I had been thinking to take my newly constructed zink sufide lamp. Walls began to glow. Etched in the moss were pictures. Boggarts mostly. For some Mam and I had to cover the eyes of the young womenfolk as we passed. But one particular area caught me like a deer in torchlight, for inside were pictures drawn on the walls of Boggarts riding on the backs of birds. The Boggarts were armed with spears and attacking some sort of hog-like beasties with big teeth. Can’t say I’ve ever seen such a beast in these part, but it’s possible these pictures explains why, as they were quite detailed in showin the insides of those hoggies in terrible detail. Is it possible the Boggarts and the birdfolk, like my kidlings, once teamed up to defeat a foe, but this has now been long forgotten?

Well, I didn’t look long, as we soon heard a roar of Boggart sounds and young Dimbain screaming, or so we thought. Rushing in, we realized it was not a scream, but guffaw. Boggarts have the most confounding voices. Don’t know how Dimbain the second can understand them, but as I said, he has a talent for language. He was just sitting there, criss-cross-applesauce, surrounded by those little Boggarts. He had a plate of mealworms it looked, untouched in front of him. He looked up.

“Didn’t Kralywaggenshenerdlehof tell you I’d be staying for dinner?” he asked, the name being my best figuring of the grunting and gargle sounds he made.

“What you discussin?” I ask.

“Tellin them the one about the drunk and the naked pixie who walk into the pub…”

Oh, dear, are there any members of the fair sex who might come upon these textygraphs? This one does so make Mam chortle, but then she always has to smack the kidlings and send them off to bed without dinner. Propriety, you know. Even in our parts there is civility.

As soon as Mam stepped his way, well, young Dimbain took off running, just like cousin Nedlington did when dressed as Swamp Peter. Dimbain is still young, you see, and doesn’t quite understand how good menfolk stand and take their punishment. He will learn.

So, those were my adventurings, and I thought you should be knowing we be fine. The Boggarts seem to be packing up and traveling somewheres. They still shout a lot, like on them voicygraphs of yours, but without Dimbain the second I can’t be understanding them. The only thing that’s a worrying me is my finding some of Dimbains toys in their cave. Seems young Dimbain gave them his doll sized trebuchets, ballistas, and crossbows. Fully functional, you know. Pollyanna made them for his birthday. Don’t know where them Boggarts are a marching, but it seems to be Northward.

Perhaps it is not from the birds that one should gain information. Ask the bogarts what was taken, what it looks like. If they are the ones who must be fooled, then surely it is from their descriptions that you must work. Even if it is something nobody else would consider to be the same, it is their perceptions, not ours, that must be fooled.

That is assuming you decide to go the duplication route… you might try another form of subterfuge. The Bird Queen seems as though she wishes to avoid this war. Perhaps she would be willing to help.

If it were to be let known to the bogarts that the Queen had something she fancied above this Totem, and that it was to be guarded at such and such a place… and the bogarts were then convinced that it was their own idea to “take it”, especially if the birds were to make regular showings of “trying to take it back”, maybe even succeeding sometimes, but never for long, perhaps that would ease the Bogart pride? Especially if you could convince the birds that it was a game to be played. But the birds must never think they really /want/ it back, for that would simply start the war all over.

It is merely an idea. One that needs fleshing out, of course. There is so much data needed for accurate planning.

I hope this is helpful. Or at least not a hindrance.

Teres D.,

Thank you for your thoughts. The difficulty with speaking with the boggarts lies in that they have become entirely too aggressive to have civil conversation with as of late. Their “battle rage” causes them to lose what little intelligence they possessed in the first place. As I write this, I am receiving reports of wounded birds turning up all around the fringes of the Park. The birds, for the most part, seem to be fighting in defense, partly due to our discussions with the Queen.

You have raised a very good point in that we seem to be favoring the Bird Queen in this matter, and perhaps it is a bias I should explore further. We naturalists prize our scientific impartiality, so I do not wish to give even the appearance of favor in this matter. We have struck upon this duplication plan because it seems the quickest way to put an end to the conflict, providing both sides what they want.

Speaking with Dr. Welterschmidt, however, I believe we have new insight into the nature of the “totem” and the Bird Queen herself. More on this when we have explored his hypothesis further.