The Chapter Poem

Lafferty structures the novel's sixteen chapter titles as a single Bagarthach-style poem, a prophecy of violence and transformation.

Analysis

The sixteen titles can be read as a Bagarthach-like prophecy. They move from the children’s murderous purpose through their difficulty fitting Earth and their affinity with the dead to a battle whose announced alternatives are an altered world or a dead Dulanty.

Structural Notes

The poem consists of four ABAB quatrains: Land/Band and Roastie/Ghostie, for example, form the first alternating set. Its last two lines do not form a rhyming couplet. The closing line names the two possible outcomes.

The Heroic Chantey

Chapter 14's title, "Fit Subject For Heroic Chantey," promises that Henry's death will be commemorated in song. The chapter delivers, with Latin and English verse fragments appearing as section headers, culminating in the epitaph: "Nil de Monstris Nisi Bonum" ("Nothing about monsters except good").

Click any line above to navigate to that chapter.

Synopsis

The children’s campaign and the adults’ persecution cross through an axe, a set of hired captors, and a final hunt. All page references are to the 1968 Berkley text.

Two Families in Lost Haven

Henry and Witchy Dulanty are parents of Elizabeth, Charles, and Helen. Frank and Veronica are parents of Peter, Dorothy, John, and the already dead Bad John. The two brothers married two sisters. Sent to Earth more than ten years earlier, the adults have failed to establish accord with its people. Their six-week residence in Lost Haven ends in catastrophe.

The children’s customary ghost stories open the book. Chapter 2 then gives the family’s arrival and decline: Helen curses Crocker, Peter curses Stutgard, and the adults suffer Earth Allergy. Veronica dies two days before Henry’s arrest. Witchy is confined, and Frank’s grief and drinking give way to an illness that can resemble drunkenness even when he is sober.

The Axe and the Raft

The children decide to kill everyone else, though Elizabeth and Charles initially favour a shorter list. Their attempt to burn the adults with a Bagarthach is countered. John reaches Stutgard’s room to murder him and finds Crocker has already done it. John takes Crocker’s bloody axe; Elizabeth later hides it. Henry is arrested for the murder.

From Fulbert, held in the flimsy Lost Haven jail, the children obtain the Île de France. They attack the Stinkers, Stutgard Landing, and Fiddler’s Landing, then encounter Phoebe Jane’s hospitality and raid the Fabers. Gunfire, attempted drownings, and arson make their intent real, though their targets escape.

Parallel Struggles

Frank evades a lynch mob and humiliates Crocker with its noose. Witchy recites her Devil verses in the institution at Vinita. The children find a home among the dead of Misu Mound, where the history of the burials is disputed; Peter suffers a disturbing passion of Earth Sickness. Henry’s confession overwhelms an old priest, whose death a month later is attributed to it by the narrator.

Crocker hires Baxter Bushyhead, Little Sad Sam Jones, and Harold Harvestman to capture the children. Charles marches them into the woods and returns with ears. The narrator’s confirmation of a silencer, together with Dorothy’s later completed accusation, is strong evidence of killings offstage. Pandemonium John brings news from the parents and leads a great concert, mixing delight, cruelty, and musical invention.

Marshall’s interview with Henry exposes both racial hatred and the fraud supporting Lost Haven: bogus relief checks and crop claims, with Marshall expecting to inherit Stutgard’s business. The lawyer’s visit brings out the axe evidence, but Henry mistakes approaching help for danger and escapes at 8:55 p.m. in Chapter 12. Marshall turns the escape into a murderous public spectacle.

The Hunt and the Bog

John Loose Screw and Sammy Bluefield help Henry. After a roadblock and crash, Henry reaches Thomas Butterfield’s farm. Butterfield phones the authorities despite Henry’s warnings. Marshall shoots Henry in the shoulder from behind, then in the groin and gut; Crocker fires the fatal shot into his face. Marshall kills Butterfield to remove the witness.

Crocker hunts Bad John through the bogs as his dogs desert him in groups. Frank catches him with the noose. Frank intends afterward to urge the children toward gentleness, but Marshall strikes him from behind before he can speak to them. The rope slips and Crocker sinks. Marshall rolls Frank into the bog. Charles runs up firing; Phoebe Jane’s hidden shot kills Marshall. Charles believes he did it and rolls Marshall’s body in.

Names and Departure

That afternoon the children intuit their Puca names. Bad John has already been absent for hours. After they cast off, Witchy joins them through Phoebe’s aid and explains that Bad John has gone with Frank. Witchy revises the extermination plan toward control and alteration, still permitting killing and losing her thought about responsibility. She releases the Dragons’ Seed, continues through her last joke about dying, and receives Elizabeth’s answer. Six young pairs of eyes shine beside the older pair fading in death.

Chapters

Detailed analysis of each of the novel's sixteen chapters. Select a chapter from the sidebar to view its full entry.

Chapter 1

To Slay the Folks and Cleanse the Land

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 7–14]

The Dulanty children tell ghost stories in the Big Shanty, exorcising the bleakness of Earth through whistling in the dark.

Summary

The novel opens with an introduction to the Dulanty family: Puca aliens living in the Big Shanty in Lost Haven, Oklahoma. The six children (or seven, if you count Bad John) gather at night to tell ghost stories, their way of defying the "meanest world in all the universes."

The six tales vary in their dealings with death. Elizabeth’s concerns Albert and his unnamed wife, whose verse releases a murderous dog from a picture. Charles tells of a hotel man found dead; Helen of the still-whittling Silly Jimmy; Peter of Alice, Clarissa, and the guard from Hell; Dorothy of a train passing through the shanty; and John of William’s terrible return to Polly. [1968, pp. 7–14]

Bad John, the ghost child, cannot participate in the ritual: "he could only tell people stories, and nobody cares about them." He has no bed in the loft where the other children sleep. When the lights go out, nobody knows where he goes. He "couldn't whistle" in the dark.

Key Events

• Introduction of all seven children and their relationships
• Establishment of the Aorach story form
• First description of the Puca appearance (goblin vs. human-looking)
• Introduction of the green glowing eyes motif
• Establishment of Bad John's nature as a ghost child

Characters Introduced

Aorach Stories Told

Puca Lore Introduced

• Aorach: a Puca story art, including these ghost tales but also Veronica’s story of the sisters’ births. [1968, pp. 7–14, 18–19]
• Bagarthach verse: Rhymed verses with magical power; Earth things "are so dumb that they don't know when to obey a Bagarthach and when not to"
• Puca appearance: Some look human, others are "potato-faced goblins, like real Pucas." Elizabeth, Charles, and Helen can pass as Earth children; Peter, Dorothy, John, and Bad John have the true goblin look. Witchy "said that they had planned it that way, that some of the children should look like children of this place, and some of them should look like the children back home."
• Green eyes: "Look at them straight, and you'd hardly notice a thing. But look at them sideways... they'd scare the liver out of you." Eyes that "glowed like green coals."

Notable Quotations

Chapter 2

And Leave the World a Reeking Roastie

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 15–23]

The Dulantys arrive in Lost Haven, where hostility greets them, and Helen kills a man with a verse before he knows he's dead.

Summary

This chapter provides the backstory: how the Dulanty families came to Lost Haven six weeks before the main action. They traveled in two station wagons and two trucks: Veronica drove one wagon with all the children, Witchy drove the other "loaded with everything in the world," Henry drove the sideboard truck with the furniture, and Frank drove the van carrying "the tools and shops of the several professions of the two brothers."

They stopped for lunch in what appeared to be a weed patch. A hostile man appeared, barking at them: "We won't have our town dirtied up by strangers. You're the strangest clutch I ever saw." Henry demanded: "Where's any town?" The man replied: "You're standing in the middle of Lost Haven", the town so overgrown it was invisible. This was Crocker. Helen killed him with a Bagarthach verse, though it would take weeks for him to realize he was dead.

Half an hour later, a bigger man arrived: Coalfactor Stutgard, owner of the town. "I don't know what you are," he said, "but you don't belong anywhere on God's green Earth." Peter whispered to the children, "Let me kill this one," and growled his own killing verse. A furtive local then told them Stutgard lied: one house wasn't his: the Big Shanty, owned by an Indian lady in Catoosa.

The chapter also reveals the Puca mission: sent to Earth as "picked young couples" to achieve accord with humanity, or failing that, to "do something about the planet." Ten years in, they have achieved neither.

Veronica, "the real center of the two families," mother to some children and aunt to the rest, dies suddenly of Earth Allergy. Frank takes her death "all wrong," his merriment at the wake forced, his Bagarthach verses falling short. Watching their children play, Henry observes: "They can't really adapt to Earth, I see it now. The question then becomes: Can the Earth adapt to them?" The chapter ends with Henry raising his head, listening "as to the sounding of a horn off Earth."

Key Events

• Arrival in Lost Haven six weeks prior
• First confrontation with Crocker → Helen's killing verse
• Confrontation with Coalfactor Stutgard → Peter's killing verse
• Move into the Big Shanty (owned by an Indian lady in Catoosa)
• Background on the Puca mission to Earth
• Veronica's death from Earth Allergy
• Witchy's descent into madness
• Frank begins drinking heavily
• Children sing a crow down from the sky to eat

Characters Introduced

Bagarthach Verses

"It's funny that when you kill a man, he's often the last one to know about it."

Elizabeth calls to Helen: "Sing us a bird!... A big one with black juice in it!" Helen enters "a sly ecstasy" and sings the verse. A crow jerks down from the sky "as though caught in a wire loop." Charles and Peter catch it at their fingertips and tear it apart, "gulping the black-red blood that tasted of hot salt and iron." They prefer crow to "white-meat barnyard peckers."

Puca Lore

• Earth Allergy: Fatal to adult Puca; attacks liver and kidneys (seat of good humor); taints one with the "Earth outlook"
• The mission: achieve accord with Earth and consider whether something could be done with the planet. [1968, p. 20]
• The Four Worlds: Earth belongs to a group the novel does not fully identify; Mercator, Astrobe, and Camiroi appear elsewhere. [1968, pp. 20–21, 73]
• Indian Affinity: Puca were told they'd be "in rapport with the Indian population" but found them a "vanishing minority"; their information was "centuries out of date"
• The Hive Ghost: Frank’s account of humanity’s alarming communal instinct. His claim that Earth people act without thinking is a Puca judgment. [1968, p. 21]

Deaths

The Aorach of Veronica's Conception

Veronica tells her characteristic Aorach story explaining how she and Witchy were "twins" born eleven months apart, conceived the same night but by separate acts, when their mother briefly went to bed at one minute before 4 a.m. (when Papa had to light the furnace at the brickyard). "An Earth doctor... told Veronica that such a thing was impossible... Imagine an Earth doctor trying to tell a mistress of the Aorach about something as fundamental as that."

Notable Quotations

Chapter 3

High Purpose of the Gallant Band

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 24–32]

The children conceive their great plan: kill everyone in the world except the six of them (or seven, if you count Bad John).

Summary

The chapter opens with the children's logical conclusion: "If there were only six persons in the world (or seven, if you count Bad John), the Earth would be a much better place." Their plan is simple: kill everyone. Elizabeth dissents, willing to kill only specific targets: "the first man to bark at them" (Crocker), Mrs. Cowper with "eyes like a little pig," Mr. Cranker with "hairs in his ears." Charles adds the Bacons, Lanyards, Kirbys, Fabers, plus Elwood Elgin, Rex Remagen, Barney Bottleby, and Sheriff Train, but thinks "that was almost enough." Helen overrules them: "The whole thing becomes silly unless you kill everybody." She hints that Elizabeth, at nine, might be "borderline" herself.

Dorothy sings a Bagarthach verse to burn down the Big Shanty with the adults inside. The children spend the afternoon swimming: Elizabeth the strongest swimmer, Helen the fastest and slipperiest, Charles diving from the very tops of the tall sycamores. While drying on branches, four tell parabolic stories about recent traumas: Elizabeth's of finding Witchy mad; Peter's of Frank's drinking; John's of burying Veronica; Helen's prophetic dream of her father in jail.

That night John draws the task of killing Stutgard. Bad John goes ahead but is a poor lookout because darkness means nothing to him. He reports that another man has already killed Stutgard. Peter resents this intrusion upon the children’s intended victims, and they proceed to the house. [1968, pp. 30–31]

They proceed anyway, forming a human tower: Peter on Elizabeth's shoulders, Helen on Peter's, Dorothy on Helen's, Charles on Dorothy's. John climbs the swaying tower with his small axe "as sharp as a corn knife." But when he emerges, he carries a different axe: larger, heavier, a man's axe, bloody. Helen insists he killed Stutgard: "People who don't love blood don't love anything." But John admits Bad John was right. The Bagarthach to burn the shanty also fails. They return home confused, leave the bloody axe on the back porch, and go to bed under the same roof as Henry and Frank, their next intended victims.

Key Events

• Decision to kill everyone in the world (Helen overrules Elizabeth and Charles's partial genocide)
• Dorothy's Bagarthach to burn the Big Shanty (fails; countered by adults)
• Swimming shows extraordinary speed and endurance underwater, with limits made explicit in Peter’s later distress. [1968, pp. 26, 69–70]
• Four parabolic stories told while drying on sycamore branches
• Night mission: human tower formed to reach Stutgard's window
• Bad John reports Stutgard already dead; children proceed anyway
• John finds Stutgard murdered, retrieves Crocker's bloody axe
• Big Shanty did not burn; the verse failed against the Kindred
• Children leave axe on porch, sleep under same roof as their next targets

Characters Mentioned

Bagarthach Verses

Frank explains the failure by the adults’ counterverse and says the spell cannot be used against Kindred. Elizabeth’s earlier tale also has a Puca husband dying through a verse. Dorothy has also included the already dead Veronica. [1968, pp. 8–9, 24, 35]

The Parabolic Stories

Deaths

Puca Lore

• Kindred: Frank attributes the failure to a successful counterverse. [1968, p. 35]
• Bad John's nature: Can pass through walls, unlatch windows from inside, be in multiple places, but "didn't know what it meant to be dark"
• Swimming: the children stay below the surface far longer than humans. Peter nevertheless reaches the limit of even Puca lungs in Chapter 8. [1968, pp. 26, 69–70]
• Love of blood: "People who don't love blood don't love anything"; the Puca have no squeamishness about violence

Notable Quotations

Chapter 4

And Six Were Kids, and One a Ghostie

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 33–39]

Henry is arrested for Stutgard's murder; the children acquire the Île de France and prepare to take to the waters.

Summary

Shortly after midnight, Sheriff Train arrives with five "hasty deputies" to arrest Henry Dulanty for Stutgard's murder. The sheriff explains: "You aren't liked by the people here. They say you are neither fish nor flesh." Henry asks: "Must I be one or the other?" He could fight: "Did you ever arrest a goblin or ogre who stood six feet four and was as heavy as a yearling ox?" But Earth Allergy has made him listless. "This is their hour," he tells Frank, "and the power of darkness."

Henry tells Frank to put away the bottle and care for the children: the household has lost three adults in three days, to death, derangement, and arrest with intent to lynch. After the arrest, Elizabeth retrieves the bloody axe and hides it. [1968, pp. 33–34]

In the morning, Frank warns the children to stay close to the house. Helen defies him: "A welfare lady will come and take us away. They'll put us in a home, and we'll get stubborn and we won't eat, and we'll all be dead within a week." She notes that their Bagarthach to kill the adults failed. Frank explains: "We shot your Bagarthach down with another one. You can't use them against the Kindred."

The children visit Fulbert Fronsac in the flimsy Lost Haven jail, entering through the roof as they always do. Fulbert greets them: "Misere! There are days when the Good God is not good." He's one of the few who can see Bad John, whom he calls "Ange-Jacques." They acquire a deed to the Île de France; Peter writes it "in a man's hand," joking about the Salic Law, in exchange for a stolen bottle of whisky. Bad John signs with "a different kind of pencil," making a mark invisible to outsiders. The chapter ends with the children sailing away "to be gone forever."

Key Events

• Henry arrested by Sheriff Train and five deputies; goes peacefully despite Earth Allergy
• Henry's parting: "three in three days—one dead, one demented, one arrested"
• Elizabeth hides the bloody axe that night
• Revelation that Frank and Henry countered Dorothy's Bagarthach: "You can't use them against the Kindred"
• Children visit Fulbert Fronsac in jail, entering through the roof
• Bad John identified as witness to Stutgard's murder, but can't testify
• Helen and John steal whisky as payment for the Île de France
• Peter writes the deed; Bad John signs with invisible mark
• Children set sail "to be gone forever"

Characters Introduced

Fulbert Fronsac

The Deed to the Île de France

Peter volunteers to write the deed: "I'll write it. It'll look better in a man's hand. Besides, I'm not sure whether the Salic Law obtains in Crow Creek Township."

Helen requires provisions for Catherine’s guest status and freedom to disembark. Charles has the deed witnessed and amended by those present. [1968, p. 38]

Bad John signs with "a different kind of pencil," making a strange mark. Fulbert mutters "something in a tongue older than French," frightened. The mark is invisible to outsiders, though obvious to the children.

Revelations About Bad John

• Bad John witnessed Crocker kill Stutgard
• His testimony cannot be used in court; he's invisible and inaudible to most
• Fulbert can see and hear him
• "Ange-Jacques could not testify in court. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to invisibility."

On Pucas, Indians, and Fulbert

Henry's Arrest

Henry allows himself to be arrested despite being able to handle "six shaking men with their rifles." Earth Allergy has made him listless. The men are terrified: "Did you ever arrest a goblin or ogre who stood six feet four and was as heavy as a yearling ox... who could rot the flesh off your bones by making a rime about you?" Yet Henry goes peacefully, "like a confused bull with a new ring in his nose."

When Frank offers to "settle these six quaking lawmen," Henry declines: "But this is their hour, and the power of darkness." Sheriff Train demands: "What kind of talk is that?" Henry answers: "From Luke. He was an Earth writer, but he could almost have made it as a Puca."

Before the arrest, Henry charges Frank with the children’s care and tells him to put the bottle away. He counts the three losses to the household in as many days. [1968, p. 33]

The Children's Plan to Kill Everyone

Their plan is temporarily set aside. As Fulbert asks when they'll need the raft:

Puca Lore

• Kindred: Frank explains that the adults countered Dorothy’s Bagarthach. [1968, p. 35]
• Bad John's invisibility: "There are advantages as well as disadvantages to invisibility. And invisibility combined with inaudibility is a combination hard to touch." His testimony cannot help in court.
• Fulbert’s affinity: he can see and hear Bad John. The narrator connects Pucas and Indians through their rapport with French drunks. [1968, p. 35]
• Drinking as medicine: Frank's heavy drinking since Veronica's death is described as "a Specific against Earth Allergy."

Notable Quotations

The Dulanty Children

Six living children, with Bad John still among them. Their Earth-born immunity is an early assurance, complicated by Peter’s later distress and renewed by Witchy at the end. [1968, pp. 20, 69–71, 142]

Elizabeth / Coisreacan-Dia

The eldest and most beautiful. Elizabeth has "the blackest hair and the whitest skin in the world." Unlike her siblings' "potato-faced goblin" appearance, she is "as beautiful as an Earth child," the best-looking of them all, distinguishable as Puca only by "the gleam in her eyes and the way she flicked her ears and crinkled her nose when she talked."

Character Arc

Elizabeth initially favours killing particular enemies rather than everyone. Helen presses her toward the larger scheme. Elizabeth leads the nighttime storytelling and hides the axe after Henry’s arrest; Charles later becomes the family’s acknowledged captain. [1968, pp. 7–9, 25, 34, 138–139]

Key Actions

• Tells the haunted-picture story of Albert and his unnamed wife (Chapter 1). [1968, pp. 7–9]
• Slaps fish innards to Stinker heads to fake ear removal (Chapter 5)
• Commands at Faber raid: "If people knew how much fun this was, everybody would be doing it all the time" (Chapter 6)
• Discovers Witchy's madness, tells it as "The Floozy" parable (Chapter 3)
• Hides Crocker’s murder axe after Henry’s arrest; its hiding place is disclosed in Chapter 12. [1968, pp. 34, 108]
• On Witchy's death: "It's all right, Mama, go ahead and do it" (Chapter 16)

Notable Quotations

Puca Name

Coisreacan-Dia: Assumed in Chapter 16. Irish elements suggesting "consecrated to God."

Charles / Laidir

The steady one who becomes patriarch. Charles belongs with Elizabeth and Helen among the children who look angelic or human; Peter, Dorothy, John, and Bad John have the more obviously goblin-like appearance. After Frank’s death, Charles assumes leadership at eight years old. [1968, pp. 12, 138]

Character Arc

Charles begins as a follower, deferring to Elizabeth and Helen. His mechanical partnership with Peter is established early. He "takes a major step" when he deals with the blackbirders: returning with three pairs of ears and assuming the title "Earl of the Ears." The deaths of the adults change him: he commands the final departure, examines Marshall's corpse "with great curiosity," and leads the family into their new future.

Key Actions

• Tells the story of the country hotel (Chapter 1)
• Takes the larger rifle after Peter first holds Jack Fiddler with the .22 (Chapter 5). [1968, pp. 45–46]
• Disarms blackbirders, returns with ears: "Earl of the Ears" (Chapter 9)
• Volunteers to build seagoing pandemonium (Chapter 10)
• Fires at Marshall after Frank's death (Chapter 15)
• Rolls Marshall’s body into the bog; Marshall has already rolled Frank in (Chapter 15). [1968, pp. 135–138]
• Commands casting off and the sounding of the horn at the final departure (Chapter 16). [1968, p. 140]

Notable Quotations

Puca Name

Laidir: Irish láidir, strong. See Name Translations. [1968, pp. 139–140]

Helen / Lochrann

The smallest of the children. Helen is six years old and "the smallest of them all," yet she dominates through force of personality and skill at Bagarthach. She's "the most intelligent of us" (by her own frequent assertion) and is navigator of the Île de France.

Character Arc

Helen is the ideological driver of the extermination plan. She brings Elizabeth and Charles around to killing "everybody in the world." Her Bagarthach verses are the most numerous and effective. She kills Crocker with an early curse. She's also the most theatrical: inventing pirate ships (Spanish Dancer, Vampire, Gigantis Transfixus), distracting the blackbirders with gruesome skull preparation stories, and insisting on social protocol ("In best society, one first speaks of everything else").

Key Actions

• Tells Silly Jimmy ghost story (Chapter 1)
• Makes bombs of "chicken dirt and cow dirt and dog dirt and people dirt" (Chapter 5)
• Tells a pirate adventure naming four ships, including a passing mention of the Flying Snake (Chapter 6). [1968, pp. 52–54]
• Distracts blackbirders with skull preparation story (Chapter 9)
• Scalds the lawyer with incandescent tea (Chapter 12)

Bagarthach Verses

Puca Name

Lochrann: Irish lóchrann, lamp or light. The name is linked to Helen’s navigation and intelligence. [1968, pp. 139–140]

Peter / Carraig

The best fabricator. Peter belongs to the goblin-appearing children and is mechanically gifted. He prepares the silencer used by Charles and plans the gears of a seagoing pandemonium. His violent experience of Earth Sickness complicates the children’s supposed immunity. [1968, pp. 12, 69–71, 80–81, 90]

Key Actions

• Tells the story of Alice and Clarissa, in which Clarissa is carried to Hell (Chapter 1). [1968, pp. 11–12]
• Sneaks to Lost Haven, builds gadget at shop truck (Chapter 9)
• Tries to sow discord among blackbirders: "If you knock Harold off in the water..." (Chapter 9)
• Violent Earth Sickness: slashes himself, plunges underwater (Chapter 8)
• Will design gears for seagoing pandemonium (Chapter 10)

Bagarthach Verse

Puca Name

Carraig: Irish carraig, rock. Peter intuits the name during the children’s afternoon revelation. [1968, pp. 139–140]

Dorothy / Feirin-De

The goblin girl who nearly burns down the boat. Dorothy is seven years old and goblin-appearing ("potato-faced goblins, like real Pucas"). She handles key moments, including the Bagarthach that was supposed to kill the adults (but failed because "You can't use them against the Kindred"). She falls asleep on watch when the blackbirders find them.

Key Moments

• Falls asleep on watch when blackbirders arrive (Chapter 9)
• Starts fire while heating water; nearly burns down the Île (Chapter 12)
• Defends John for bringing catfish instead of gun (Chapter 9)
• States that Charles killed the three missing boys and cut off their ears; Fulbert dismisses the complete accusation (Chapter 12). [1968, pp. 106–107]

Bagarthach Verse

Puca Name

Feirin-De: plausibly “gift of God”; Irish féirín is a gift or keepsake. [1968, pp. 139–140]

John / Dia-Ta-Caomh

Six years old, and often paired with his dead brother. John is goblin-appearing and draws the short straw to kill Stutgard. He climbs through the window only to find the man already dead, then takes Crocker’s bloody axe. Helen, also six, is the child the novel explicitly calls the youngest. [1968, pp. 12, 31–32, 55]

Key Moments

• Draws short straw, must kill Stutgard (Chapter 3)
• Finds Stutgard already dead, takes wrong axe (Chapter 3)
• Brings catfish instead of gun: "looks of pure hatred" (Chapter 9)
• Given the "gory things" (ears) to view by Charles (Chapter 9)

Puca Name

Dia-Ta-Caomh: a constructed name plausibly suggesting that God is kind or gracious. Irish caomh includes dear and gentle. [1968, pp. 139–140]

Bad John / Ionuin

The ghost child. Bad John died as an infant but stays with the family: invisible and inaudible to most people, translucent to those who can perceive him. He "couldn't tell ghost stories, he could only tell people stories, and nobody cares about them." His Puca name is Ionuin, meaning "beloved."

Nature

Bad John can pass into locked rooms and unlatch windows. He is an unreliable lookout because he cannot tell whether it is dark. His absence at the end is explained by Witchy: he has gone with his father Frank. [1968, pp. 30–31, 141]

Key Moments

• Witnesses Crocker murder Stutgard: Crocker drops axe in terror (Chapter 3)
• Unlatches door from inside during Faber raid (Chapter 6)
• Leads Crocker on fatal chase through bogs (Chapter 15)
• Departs to join Frank: "I believe he's gone for good" (Chapter 16)

Puca Name

Ionuin: Irish for "beloved." The name belongs to the ghost child who died as an infant. He is "gone for good" at the novel's end.

Chapter 5

A Child's a Monster Still Uncurled

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 40–46]

The campaign begins: the Stinkers, Stutgard Landing, and Fiddler’s Landing. The other two kingdoms follow in Chapter 6.

Summary

The Dulanty children launch their campaign of conquest in the strip pits: "a dozen square miles of mountains turned inside out, threaded by canals, and with bottomless chasms." The pits remind them of their home world, with its "land and water inextricably mixed" and endless underwater caves. They reason they cannot exterminate the rest of the world while leaving strongholds behind them.

This chapter covers three kingdoms: the Stinkers, Stutgard Landing, and Fiddler’s Landing. Helen’s fire bombs, Peter’s seizure of the .22, and Elizabeth’s use of fish innards make the attacks comic while the intent to kill is real. [1968, pp. 40–46]

The Stinkers survive in shallow water; Amada Stutgard escapes after giving a promise Peter foolishly trusts; Fiddler runs under gunfire. Their survival follows from circumstances and errors. Lanyard Landing and the Fabers belong to the next chapter. [1968, pp. 42–50]

Key Events

• Battle of Port Stinker: children capture the Sea Bear and a .22 rifle
• Burning of Stutgard Landing shack; Amada Stutgard escapes
• Peter pursues Amada but she tricks him and escapes
• Helen deceived by "Cherokee creeper pods" as ears
• Raid on Fiddler's Landing: capture whisky, choc beer, ham; Jack Fiddler escapes
• Next chapter: Lanyard Landing and Phoebe Jane’s hospitality (see Chapter 6). [1968, pp. 47–48]
• Next chapter: the raid on the Faber stronghold (see Chapter 6). [1968, pp. 49–51]

Characters Introduced

The Five Kingdoms

Bagarthach Verses

Phoebe Jane Lanyard

Forward reference to Chapter 6. Phoebe Jane is introduced as Shawnee, with a comic, expansive genealogy. Her many grandfathers are part of the novel’s tall-tale account. [1968, pp. 47–48]

She's "more Indian than the rest of her family" and has "a way of looking at the Dulantys and chuckling." She can "be as goblin as they could."

Notable Quotations

Puca Lore

• Home world: the children compare the pits’ mixture of land and water with the home world they have never seen. [1968, p. 40]
• Physical clarifications: The children don't hop like frogs but can "jump very high." They do eat raw catfish, though sometimes cook other fish. Swimming is easier "slithering." Their tails are "negligible."
• Catherine de Medici's knowledge: The goat has watched proper sail rigging countless times but, being a goat, cannot do or explain it. Charles figures it out himself.

Chapter 6

The World's a Trap, and None Can Quit It

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 47–56]

A magical night on Green River: ghost ships, pirate adventures, and Helen's tall tales.

Summary

Phoebe Jane’s hospitality frustrates the attack on Lanyard Landing. She warns that Crocker is behind efforts to have the children taken into care, barters for their whisky, and gives them supplies. The children still talk of killing her, but their inability to plunder such generosity makes this encounter different from the others. [1968, pp. 47–48]

They attack "the final principality," the Fabers, commercial fishermen rumored to use stray children as bait. Charles and Peter shoot up the privy ("If there's anybody in there, he's sure dead now"), then storm the shack. Peter cries "Hit the beach! Land ho!" Dorothy asks: "What's so funny about land?" They burn everything, dump hundreds of pounds of fish, slash nets. Elizabeth exults: "If people knew how much fun this was, everybody would be doing it all the time." They escape at sunset, passing the returning Fabers unseen; one oar even strikes the Île but no one notices.

Moored on Green River for "their first night at sea," six strange things happen overnight. Only Helen's story is told: pirate ships ascending the river: the Spanish Dancer, the Vampire, the Gigantis Transfixus. She claims she freed the giant serving as mainmast and sewed her own arms back on. The other children debate whether pirates were invented by Earth people or modeled on Pucas like Blackbeard.

They hide for a day, eating raw fish ("So the taunt of the Stinkers had been right!") and milking Catherine de Medici to mix goat milk with choc beer. Phoebe Jane appears at nightfall, unseen and unheard, scolds them to "stop burning down houses," reports "things look bad" for Frank, Henry, and Witchy, and pilots them to an inlet so dark that "a family lived here for three generations and they never did see the sun." She vanishes into the darkness, leaving only her voice behind.

Key Events

• Lanyard visit: Phoebe Jane barters whisky for supplies, warns of Crocker's plot
• Faber raid: privy shot up, shack burned, fish dumped, boathouse torched
• Escape past returning Fabers, undetected despite oar striking the Île
• First night moored on Green River: six strange events, only Helen's told
• Helen's account of the pirate ships (Spanish Dancer, Vampire, Gigantis Transfixus)
• Debate: pirates as Earth invention vs. Puca model (Blackbeard, Bartholomew Portuguese)
• Day of hiding: Fabers, Sheriff Train, Crocker with bloodhounds search in vain
• Raw fish confirms Stinkers' taunt; goat milk mixed with choc beer
• Phoebe Jane appears unseen, brings supplies, reports on family
• Phoebe moves them to a darker inlet, described through a tale of a family that lived there without seeing the sun. [1968, pp. 55–56]

The Faber Raid

Helen's Night: The Pirate Ships

The other children are skeptical. Elizabeth interrupts: "Pirates are perhaps the greatest invention of Earth people, and their pirate stories are wonderful entertainment for small children. We have to give Earth people credit for that." Peter counters with Uncle Henry's lore: "Earth people invented pirates, but they used Pucas for a model. Bartholomew Portuguese was a Puca, and so was Teach (Blackbeard)... But the second-rate pirates like Kidd were Earthmen." Helen's accounts grow contradictory. Dorothy asks: "How could you have sewed your right arm on first if you didn't have your left arm on to sew with?" Helen: "I just said that to see if you were paying attention."

Catherine de Medici's Intelligence

Charles fears Catherine’s noise will betray the hiding place, but the goat stays quiet because she would be put in the pot if captured. The children milk her and mix the milk with choc beer. [1968, p. 54]

Phoebe Jane's Supplies

• Honeycomb and Indian bread
• A peck of corn and pancake flour
• A frog fork and gunny sack
• Pepper and six eggs (she forgot one for Bad John: "I'll bring you two tomorrow night")
• Shot for the .22 and the .30
• A blacksnake to play with
• A bar of soap

Phoebe Jane's News

• Frank is all right: she told him the children are safe
• Henry is in jail: she talked to him today
• Witchy is in the hospital: she saw her "for a little while"
• "Things look bad for all three of them"

Notable Quotations

Puca Lore

• Goblin look: Even the human-looking Elizabeth, Charles, and Helen are "taking on the goblin hue" from their time in the pits. Peter: "We can look like regular people till we have to laugh."
• Puca pirates: Uncle Henry claims Bartholomew Portuguese and Blackbeard were Pucas: "Earth people invented pirates, but they used Pucas for a model." Only second-rate pirates like Kidd were Earthmen.
• Puca blood contract: The Vampire's crew won't drink Puca blood: "We got a contract with them."
• Helen as cook: Despite being "the youngest of them all" chronologically, Helen claims seniority in experience. Phoebe: "I forgot just what it is you do mean."

Chapter 7

The "Strife Dulanty" With the World

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 57–65]

Frank Dulanty learns of the coming lynch mob; the nature of the "Strife Dulanty" is revealed.

Summary

Frank Dulanty summons Little Jack Wilson using a Bagarthach "broadcast on the wind." Little Jack warns Frank that the town plans to hang him that very night; he should avoid the shanty at ten o'clock. Little Jack describes the Dulantys' impossible position: "You look almost like everyone else... But, Frank, you are different! And you devil us out of our minds with the difference."

When the mob arrives before ten, Frank slips out through a loosened plank "only he and little Helen knew about" and mingles with them unseen, mimicking their Lost Haven accents. Crocker orders the men to batter the door with a timber, then cunningly twists the knob so they crash inside face-first. Finding nothing, they head for Blind Ben's Bar. Frank re-enters the shanty and finds a noose on his bed with an obscene note from Crocker. His Earth Sickness recedes; Puca power surges. He heads to the bar.

Frank bursts in. Sad Sam Burns gasps: "Holy horse-hocks! It's The Dulanty!" Frank throws the noose over a rafter and captures Crocker, forcing him to eat the insulting note until he nearly strangles. He empties Crocker's billfold to pay for everyone's drinks ("Everybody drinks but Crocker") and then orders Crocker to leave with the noose still around his neck and the rope trailing behind him. Frank stays to entertain the men, but feels Earth Allergy creeping back.

Meanwhile, Phoebe Jane visits Witchy at the institution in Vinita. Witchy's eyes don't focus; the two sides of her face are different. She recites mocking verses about the Devil, Crocker, and Stutgard, breaks cups and spoons, and asks for Veronica to bring coffee, forgetting Veronica is dead. She begs Phoebe to contact "others of our sort": Willy McGilly, Diogenes Pontifex, John Pandemonium, Aloysius Shiplap. Then she seizes, foams, raves. Attendants restrain her. She never asks about the children.

Key Events

• Frank summons Little Jack Wilson via Bagarthach, learns of lynching plan
• Mob arrives before ten; Frank escapes through loose plank Helen knew about
• Frank mingles with mob unseen, mimicking Lost Haven accents
• Crocker's men batter the door; he tricks them into crashing inside
• Frank finds noose and obscene note on his bed; Puca power surges
• Showdown at Blind Ben's Bar: Frank captures Crocker with the noose
• Crocker forced to eat the note; billfold emptied for drinks
• Crocker sent away with noose trailing, publicly humiliated
• Phoebe Jane visits Witchy at Vinita institution
• Witchy recites Devil/Crocker/Stutgard verses, asks about "others of our sort"
• Witchy seizes and is restrained; never asks about the children

Characters Introduced

The Showdown at Blind Ben's Bar

The "Strife Dulanty"

Little Jack’s warning names the townspeople’s fear of the Dulantys’ difference. That fear operates alongside concrete hostility, the planned lynching, and the corrupt interests later disclosed by Marshall. [1968, pp. 57–58, 94–95]

Frank's Condition

The townspeople believe Frank is still drunk, but he's been sober for two days. His staggering is from Earth Allergy:

Bagarthach Summoning

First demonstration of using Bagarthach to summon a specific person:

On Puca and Death

Phoebe Jane Visits Witchy

At the institution in Vinita, Witchy's "eyes did not focus properly. The two sides of her face were different." She recites verses she claims are from Scripture but clearly invented. She breaks cups and bends spoons, demands coffee from Veronica (forgetting Veronica is dead), and begs Phoebe to help her escape "over the wall after dark."

Witchy asks Phoebe to find other Pucas, naming Willy McGilly, Diogenes Pontifex, John Pandemonium, and Aloysius Shiplap. Their contacts are informal and intuitive. She then suffers a fit and is restrained, without asking about the children. [1968, pp. 64–65]

Witchy's Devil Verses

Notable Quotations

Puca Lore

• Bagarthach summoning: "You slant your verse to the man you are calling, and it will bring him almost every time." First demonstration of using Bagarthach to summon a specific person.
• Puca mimicry: Frank mingles with the mob by perfectly imitating their Lost Haven accents; Puca can pass among humans when needed.
• Power surge: When Frank finds the noose and note, "Earth Sickness recedes; Puca power rises." The "mean crooked grin" surfaces, a dangerous aura that makes Crocker's dogs cower.
• Other Pucas: Witchy names several wandering contacts and asks Phoebe to find them through intuitive means. [1968, p. 65]

Chapter 8

Was Mostly That They Didn't Fit It

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 66–74]

The children explore Misu Mound and its ghostly inhabitants; Peter suffers Earth Sickness; a priest hears Henry's confession and dies.

Summary

Smoke from the dead’s chamber haunts the river bend. Helen and Peter dispute the meaning of left and right banks. Helen’s explanation is deliberately muddled; Peter answers with a joke about her brain. [1968, pp. 66–69]

Phoebe’s mound lore includes successive peoples and companion animals. Her uncle brings anomalous bones to university professors, whose explanation dismisses them as a composite hoax. The narrator mocks their confidence and unwillingness to excavate. [1968, pp. 66–68]

The children discover a secret room fifty feet below where the old dead gather to talk, crack bones for marrow, and smoke heavily (causing the fog). They befriend these Indian ghosts, learn Earth customs, and place two skulls on their raft prows. Meanwhile, Peter suffers violent Earth Sickness before dawn, a "passion" that drives him to slash himself on brush, plunge underwater until his lungs nearly burst, and swim for an hour. He notices Helen may share the same affliction; both are frightened by this.

An old Dutch priest finds Henry reading Job. Henry treats Earth scripture as comparative mythology and speaks of the Anointed, whom the Puca generally do not believe has yet been born. The priest wonders whether salvation extends to intelligent aliens. Henry’s confession overwhelms him: the narrator says it kills him, and reports his death in the Old Priests’ Home a month later. [1968, pp. 71–74]

Key Events

• Helen and Peter's left/right bank argument ("international covenant")
• Misu Mound lore: pre-Shawnee burials with companion animals
• Phoebe Jane's uncle's bones rejected by professors as a hoax
• Children discover secret room 50 feet below; befriend old Indian ghosts
• Dead smoke pipes constantly (causing the fog), crack bones, drink corn beer
• Two skulls placed on raft prows
• Peter's pre-dawn Earth Sickness: violent passion, self-harm, underwater submersion
• Helen may share the affliction; both are frightened
• Dutch priest visits Henry in jail; theological exchange about Puca origins
• Henry confesses; priest's mind destroyed; dies one month later

Characters Introduced

Misu Mound

Peter's Earth Sickness

Two hours before dawn, a violent "passion" rises from the ground or water: "too early, too green, too rank." Peter flees his sea-hammock trembling, crashes through thickets, slashes himself on brush, tastes his own blood. He plunges underwater, grabbing mud at the bottom, staying until "even Puca lungs were near to bursting." He swims for over an hour, trying to exhaust the sensation.

Afterward, he avoids physical closeness with Elizabeth and Helen. He observes his cousins: none show the passion except possibly Helen. When their eyes meet, both are frightened by what they recognize in each other.

Henry's Confession

Notable Quotations

Puca Lore

• Mound affinity: the children recall their mothers’ stories of mounds back home. The resemblance connects them with Misu Mound. [1968, pp. 68–69]
• Earth Sickness in youth: Peter’s violent passion troubles the early account of immunity. The narrative relates it to growth and Earth’s effect on the children; Witchy later offers a renewed assurance. [1968, pp. 69–71, 142]
• Puca confession: Pucas approaching death become "Bumptious Babblers" who confess to anyone: priest, dog, or stone. Their confessions hold "deeper and darker places" than human sins.
• Fear-ungadh-mac: the Anointed in Henry’s account of Puca teaching. His discussion with the priest tests the relation between that expectation and Christian salvation. [1968, pp. 71–73]
• Biblical giants: The priest asks if Pucas are the giants of Genesis. Henry agrees some Pucas have visited Earth across millennia.

The Dulanty Adults

Two brothers married two sisters: Henry and Witchy are parents of Elizabeth, Charles, and Helen; Frank and Veronica are parents of Peter, Dorothy, John, and Bad John. All four adults die by the end, though Henry and Frank are killed while suffering Earth Sickness. [1968, pp. 12, 17, 33, 126–144]

Henry Dulanty

The stronger brother, wrongly accused. Henry is the more vigorous of the two Dulanty men, though Earth Allergy has sapped his strength. He is arrested for Stutgard's murder (a crime actually committed by Crocker) and eventually murdered by Marshall and Crocker at the Butterfield farm.

Character Arc

Henry allows himself to be arrested despite being able to handle "six shaking men with their rifles." His listlessness comes from Earth Allergy. In jail, he has a pivotal confrontation with Marshall where he reveals Puca history and threatens the "dragons' eggs" they've planted. He escapes jail but is recaptured and killed.

Key Moments

• Tells Frank to "put the bottle away" before arrest (Chapter 4)
• Confronts Marshall in jail: physical fight (Chapter 11)
• Escapes at 8:55 p.m. using Frank’s key and a Bagarthach (Chapter 12). [1968, pp. 109–111]
• Aided by Indians at Lost Moon Bar (Chapter 13)
• Shot three times by Marshall; Crocker fires the fatal shot into his face at Butterfield’s farm (Chapter 14). [1968, pp. 126–127]

Bagarthach Verse

On Dragons' Eggs

Death

Shot repeatedly by Marshall in a prolonged, sadistic killing. Final shot to the face by Crocker. "The Dulantys could manage to look like regular people, till they had to laugh, or die."

Frank Dulanty

The grieving brother who finds his strength. Frank drinks after Veronica’s death, but his later drunken appearance is expressly attributed to Earth Allergy when he is sober. He humiliates Crocker with the noose, makes Henry’s escape key, and dies during the final confrontation. [1968, pp. 22, 58, 63, 109, 135]

Character Arc

Frank’s grief, drinking, illness, and force of will coexist. He summons Little Jack Wilson, confronts Crocker, and makes the key for Henry’s escape. Before his last confrontation, he intends to urge the children toward gentleness and a broader way of dealing with the world. He is killed before he can give that counsel. [1968, pp. 57–65, 109, 134–135]

Key Moments

• Counters Dorothy’s Bagarthach with Henry, as Frank explains in Chapter 4. [1968, p. 35]
• Summons Little Jack Wilson via Bagarthach (Chapter 7)
• Places the noose around Crocker’s neck at Blind Ben’s Bar (Chapter 7). [1968, pp. 61–63]
• Makes the key used in Henry’s escape (Chapter 12). [1968, p. 109]
• Hunts Crocker through the bogs (Chapter 15)

On His Condition

Death

Killed by Marshall from behind with "a terrific blow on the back of the head with his rifle butt" while attempting to hang Crocker. "The blow was one of the really colossal things."

Veronica

The center of the two families. Veronica is Frank’s wife, mother of Peter, Dorothy, John, and Bad John, and Witchy’s sister. Her death from Earth Allergy precipitates the household’s collapse. [1968, pp. 17–22, 33]

Character

Veronica is described as practical and central to family cohesion. She tells the characteristic Aorach story of how she and Witchy were "twins" born eleven months apart. Her death is the first major tragedy, leading to Frank's drinking and Witchy's madness.

The Aorach of Her Conception

Last Words

Death

Veronica dies two days before Henry’s arrest. The six-week interval refers to the families’ residence in Lost Haven, not the time since her death. [1968, pp. 15, 33]

Witchy / Briochtog

The unearthly beauty who goes mad. Witchy is the more ethereal of the two sisters, possessed of an "unearthly beauty" that marks her as distinctly Puca. After Veronica's death, she descends into madness and is hospitalized. She escapes to deliver her final charge to the children before dying aboard the Île de France.

Character Arc

Witchy's madness is discovered by Elizabeth in Chapter 3 (told parabolically as "The Floozy"). She is hospitalized, described as being in an asylum. In the final chapter, she boards the departing raft to deliver her charge to the children, then dies of Earth Allergy.

The Final Charge

On the Primitive Ethic

Puca Name

Briochtog: Dinneen’s briochtóg, witch or sorceress. [1968, p. 143]

Death

Dies aboard the Île de France after delivering her charge. "It's all right, Mama, go ahead and do it. Don't give it another thought." Her eyes fade to "a fainter green" alongside her children's glowing eyes in the final image.

Chapter 9

No Setting For the Gallant Brood

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 75–81]

The children accept their parents as "ancestors"; Crocker's blackbirders find them, but Charles handles it.

Summary

The children treat the parents as already passing into ancestry: Veronica is dead, Witchy confined, Henry threatened, and Frank ill. Their comparison with a Puca comedy of successive quicksand deaths anticipates the later bog sequence. [1968, p. 75]

Peter sneaks back to Lost Haven, disguised as a "blank-faced Earth kid," and builds a gadget at the Dulanty shop truck. He gives it to Charles. Meanwhile, Crocker, frustrated that Sheriff Train and his bloodhounds failed, hires local children as "blackbirders" at a dollar a day: Baxter Bushyhead and Little Sad Sam Jones ("really big boys with shotguns") plus middle-sized Harold Harvestman with a carbine.

The blackbirders catch the Dulantys sleeping; even their watch Dorothy has dozed off. "We got you cold!" But Helen distracts Baxter with gruesome talk of skull preparation: severing heads, removing ears for turtle bait, brains for catfish. When she tells John to "show them the big catfish we caught with those last brains," he brings out catfish instead of a gun, earning looks of "pure hatred" from his siblings. Peter elaborates: "Eyes are the best bait of all. We catch garfish with them." Charles, instructed to fetch "a three-foot-long garfish," returns with the .30 rifle and disarms the blackbirders.

Charles takes the captives into the woods and returns with money and three pairs of ears. He says he killed them with a silenced gun; the narrator confirms that Peter made a silencer. In Chapter 12, Dorothy explicitly says Charles killed them. Together these point to offstage killings that the narrator never shows. [1968, pp. 79–81, 106]

Key Events

• Children accept parents as effectively dead: "metamorphosis" into ancestors
• Peter sneaks to Lost Haven, builds gadget at shop truck
• Crocker hires blackbirders: Baxter Bushyhead, Little Sad Sam Jones, Harold Harvestman
• Blackbirders catch sleeping Dulantys; even Dorothy the watch dozed
• Helen's skull preparation distraction: ears, brains, eyes as bait
• John's error: brings catfish instead of gun: "looks of pure hatred"
• Charles disarms blackbirders with .30 rifle
• Charles marches captives into woods, returns with money and "three pairs" of ears
• Peter dubs Charles "Earl of the Ears"

Characters Introduced

The Blackbirders

Helen's Skull Distraction

Helen criticizes Baxter's skull shape: "What a pity you're imperfect." She claims they collect skulls from enemies and explains the gruesome preparation:

• Sever heads, remove ears (turtle bait)
• Remove brains (catfish bait)
• Remove eyes (garfish bait: "the best bait of all")
• Boil skulls, mount on raft prows

Peter elaborates: "You won't have anything left to see it with. We'll have your eyes in the eye jug, and you won't be in your skull anymore."

Notable Quotations

Puca Lore

• Puca comedy: The children compare their parents' fate to "old Puca comedies": one falls into quicksand and pulls others in after. Earth is replaying this scenario.
• Peter the fabricator: "Peter was a better fabricator than any of the rest of them"; he builds gadgets and devices while others search for them.
• Charles's transformation: "Charles had taken a major step. You can't remain a child forever." The severed ears mark his crossing a line.

Chapter 10

In Sacred Groves of Yew or Lindens

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 82–90]

Pandemonium John arrives with his rolling castle of instruments; the children learn their parents' fates and hold a grand "honkeroo."

Summary

The children wake to an inward horn, the sort Veronica associated with Bagarthachs from home. Birds and fish react to the approaching sound. Charles imagines burning horses and a ready meal; Helen recognizes music. Pandemonium John arrives amid the noise, singing the nine violent stanzas transcribed in the verse collection. [1968, pp. 82–85]

The children cry in unison: "Pandemonium John!" He is a high Eigeas-Amhranai, a legendary Puca singer surpassing "Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare combined." Too old and Earth-sick to disguise himself, he travels a nine-state area forcing towns to pay him to leave. His pandemonium is "a crazy cat-castle of shining silver and gold, or of brass and chrome," with a resonator that transmits messages to the home world.

John has exchanged Bagarthachs with the parents, including the recently dead Veronica. He brings their news himself: Frank’s race against sickness and enemies, Henry’s hopeless defiance, and Witchy’s likely death within about a week. Elizabeth accepts the news with relief. The news comes by Bagarthach; the resonator is a separate part of John’s apparatus. [1968, pp. 86–89]

They launch a grand "honkeroo": a wild jam session through afternoon and night. Pucas can play any instrument instinctively. They mix Earth songs ("Birmingham Jail Blues," "Shotgun Boogie," "Rang-Dang-Doo") with Puca music. Pandemonium John drinks half a barrel of choc beer. Charles volunteers to build a "seagoing pandemonium"; Peter will design gears that play "The Old Apple Tree in the Orchard" at normal speed and "Bell-Bottomed Trousers" when accelerated. Elizabeth and Helen trade murderous Bagarthach verses about each other.

Key Events

• Internal "horn off Earth" wakes children: crows and catfish react
• Pandemonium John arrives with his rolling castle of instruments
• Revealed as high Eigeas-Amhranai, legendary Puca singer
• Brings Bagarthach news: Frank dying, Henry doomed, Witchy insane, Veronica's final message
• Elizabeth: "That saves us the trouble"
• Grand "honkeroo": jam session through afternoon and night
• Charles volunteers to build seagoing pandemonium
• Elizabeth and Helen trade murderous verses about each other

Pandemonium John

Pandemonium John's Philosophy

Bagarthach Verses

Notable Quotations

Puca Lore

• Eigeas-Amhranai: John’s title as master of song. The narrator’s comparison draws on poets, musicians, and singers from many traditions and rejects a Cameroi critic’s dismissal. [1968, pp. 85–86]
• Instinctive music: "Pucas can play instinctively any instrument whether they have ever seen it before or not."
• Resonator: The pandemonium transmits to the home world, not electronically, but through some Puca mechanism.
• Bagarthach from the dead: Veronica, "dead and buried, but not so long dead she cannot receive and send back Bagarthachs."

Chapter 11

They Found a Hold More Near Their Blood

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 91–97]

Mandrake Marshall reveals his nature and his plans; the War of the Worlds begins.

Summary

Mandrake Marshall visits Henry Dulanty in the poorly-run jail. "I like to come to the point. You're a dead man, Dulanty. Man, Hell! I consider you an animal, and I'll kill you for one." Marshall demands to know Henry's species. Henry answers: "Homo Pucalis—Puca Man." Marshall recalls a museum prank two years ago when an unidentified specimen labeled "Puca Man" appeared in the Anthropological Museum. Henry confirms he placed his kinsman's body there: "We have more fun at our burials and disposals than you do."

Marshall reveals his backstory: illiterate miner at seventeen, sent to college by Stutgard to play football for eight years. He learned to read in a month, gained total recall, bullied the state legislature as house whip, then became prosecutor. He explains Lost Haven's corruption: Stutgard shrank the population to exploit relief checks and fake crop claims: "bogus relief checks might run around sixty thousand dollars a month."

Henry warns that the Pucas have left dragons’ eggs on Earth. He argues that a people so few in number must become a dominant elite or perish. Marshall refuses that prospect. Henry’s Bagarthach anticipates a rifle message entering Marshall’s head. [1968, pp. 92–95]

Marshall attacks Henry with a sap. Henry drives him from the cell after a fight the narrator calls a war of the Worlds. Marshall is badly beaten but leaves laughing, confident that he has other ways to defeat Henry. [1968, pp. 96–97]

Key Events

• Marshall visits Henry: "I consider you an animal, and I'll kill you for one"
• Henry identifies as "Homo Pucalis—Puca Man"
• Museum prank revealed: Henry placed kinsman's body in Anthropological Museum
• Marshall's backstory: illiterate miner → 8 years football → state legislator → prosecutor
• Lost Haven corruption explained: relief check fraud, "dead souls" scheme
• Henry warns of "dragons' eggs": young Pucas hatching
• Henry recites Bagarthach curse: "Oh Mandrake man, of giants bred..."
• Physical fight: Henry defeats Marshall but lets him live
• Marshall leaves the lost fight still confident of other means of victory. [1968, p. 97]

Mandrake Marshall's Backstory

The Puca Specimen in the Museum

Henry explains the museum prank: his dead kinsman had been displayed as Puca Man beyond Modern Man in the sequence. The claim to be last and highest makes the evolutionary joke an assertion of Puca supremacy. [1968, p. 91]

Dragons' Eggs

Henry's Bagarthach Curse on Marshall

This verse will be fulfilled in Chapter 15 when Marshall is shot.

The Fight

Notable Quotations

Puca Lore

• Homo Pucalis: Henry’s species-name joke, printed with a P. [1968, p. 91]
• Neanderthal connection: Henry proposes that Pucas may have been the original Neanderthals; his statement is conjecture. [1968, p. 91]
• Dominance imperative: "We are small in numbers even on our home world; there are never more than a few hundred of us on any world we control. It is therefore necessary that we become the dominant elite, or perish."
• Fluidity: "We are the more fluid, and therefore we dominate. If we have to alter the world to our way, we will do it."
• Bagarthach as weapon: Henry claims his Bagarthach can "milk a cow, charge a battery, or kill a man."

Chapter 12

A Mountainful of Murdered Indians

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 98–111]

Fulbert and a lawyer visit the children; evidence emerges that could save Henry.

Summary

Fulbert Fronsac brings a T-Town lawyer to the children's hiding place. Helen and Peter spot them from afar and taunt Fulbert: "You'll never get the Île back!" The lawyer seeks testimony about Stutgard's murder. Helen insists on protocol: "In the best society, one first speaks at length of everything else." She estimates Misu Mound contains thirty thousand murdered Indians and claims they've talked with some inside.

Dorothy’s fire and Helen’s shouted directions interrupt the visit. Helen later serves painfully hot tea to Fulbert and the lawyer and enjoys their mistake in taking the glasses. [1968, pp. 101–104]

The lawyer sees the children’s speech and lip movements come apart and catches strange shapes at the edge of his vision. Charles urges him to proceed with the questions while Helen is away. [1968, pp. 102–105]

The lawyer learns that John brought away Crocker’s large axe, marked with a C, and that Elizabeth hid it. Dorothy separately says Charles marched the missing boys into the woods, killed them, and cut off their ears. Fulbert dismisses her after the completed statement, not after an interruption. [1968, pp. 106–108]

The guard’s hint that Henry may soon be released is mistaken for a warning of lynchers. Henry prepares a noisy disturbance, then uses Frank’s key and his verse to escape at five minutes before nine in the evening. He leaves the jailer unconscious. [1968, pp. 109–111]

Key Events

• Fulbert and unnamed T-Town lawyer arrive seeking testimony
• Helen insists on social protocol; discusses Misu Mound's "thirty thousand murdered Indians"
• Dorothy starts a fire heating water; Helen gives instructions via shouting
• Helen serves scalding tea, burns the lawyer and Fulbert's hands
• Lawyer notices telepathic speech, glimpses gargoyle shapes at vision's edge
• Revelation: John took Crocker's bloody axe by mistake; Elizabeth hid it
• Dorothy explicitly accuses Charles of killing the three missing boys; Fulbert dismisses her account. [1968, pp. 106–107]
• Lawyer and Fulbert depart with the murder weapon
• Henry misunderstands guard's hint: breaks out of jail thinking lynch mob coming

Misu Mound

The Evidence

• John's small axe was left at the scene (too small for the wounds)
• Crocker's axe was taken by John: bloody, with Crocker's prints
• The axe has "the big C burned into the haft"
• Bad John witnessed Crocker kill Stutgard
• Crocker dropped the axe when he saw Bad John (visible and transparent simultaneously)

The Lawyer's "Waking Dream"

The lawyer experiences something uncanny while with the children:

He also sees "a veritable gargoyle" in his peripheral vision: the children's true appearance glimpsed sideways.

Helen's Tea Ceremony

Helen insists on elaborate protocol: "In the best society, one first speaks at length of everything else except the subject directly on the mind." The lawyer and Fulbert are burned when Helen serves tea in glasses "so hot as to be almost incandescent": "I always wanted to find someone dumb enough to do that to."

Three Missing Boys

The lawyer asks about three missing boys. Dorothy says Charles marched them into the woods, killed them, and cut off their ears. Fulbert dismisses the accusation as fantasy after she completes it. The real ears and the narrator’s account of Peter’s silencer in Chapter 9 bear on her statement. [1968, pp. 79–81, 106–107]

Notable Quotations

Antagonists

The Earth people who would destroy the Dulantys. By the novel's end, all the major antagonists are dead, killed by Bagarthach, by each other, or by Phoebe Jane's rifle.

Mandrake Marshall

The self-made monster. Marshall is the novel's primary human villain, a former illiterate miner who educated himself into becoming a ruthless prosecutor. He orchestrates Henry's persecution, murders both Henry and Thomas Butterfield, and kills Frank before being shot by Phoebe Jane.

Backstory

At seventeen, Marshall was "a powerful boy, a complete illiterate" working in Stutgard's strip mines. Stutgard sponsored his education. Eight years of reading gave him "total recall": "There is very little about History or Philosophy or Philology or Economics or the Beautiful Letters that I do not know."

He became house whip in the state legislature "by terrorizing fellow members." As prosecutor, he intends to build his career on the "monster-kill": prosecuting Henry as an inhuman creature.

On the Dulantys

Key Actions

• Confronts Henry in jail: beaten in fight (Chapter 11)
• Leads the manhunt for escaped Henry (Chapter 13)
• Murders Henry at Butterfield's farm (Chapter 14)
• Murders Thomas Butterfield as witness (Chapter 14)
• Kills Frank from behind (Chapter 15)

Death

Shot by Phoebe Jane Lanyard while hunting Charles through the bogs. Henry's Bagarthach is fulfilled: "A message from a talking rifle." Charles rolls his body into the quicksand alongside Crocker and Frank.

Crocker

The first to bark at the Dulantys. Crocker is the actual murderer of Coalfactor Stutgard, though Henry is blamed. He becomes the chief hound in Marshall's pack, tracking the Dulantys with his seven great dogs. Helen's Bagarthach curse follows him to his death.

Character

Crocker is described as a bully and a follower; he barks at the Dulantys on their arrival but serves Marshall's purposes. He kills Stutgard with an axe (witnessed by Bad John) and lets Henry take the blame. The rope Frank places around his neck haunts him until his death.

The Noose

Frank puts the noose around Crocker’s neck at Blind Ben’s Bar in Chapter 7. He orders him to wear it home, keep it handy, and await being sent for. Later it hangs from Crocker’s bedpost and torments him. [1968, pp. 63, 129–130]

The Seven Hounds

Death

Frank catches Crocker and forces him into the quicksand with the noose around his neck. When Marshall kills Frank, Crocker sinks completely. Helen's verse is fulfilled: "On else than gallows be you hanged! / In else than water be you drownded!"

Coalfactor Stutgard

The man who sponsored Marshall. Stutgard is the richest man in Lost Haven, owner of the strip mines where Marshall once worked. He confronts the Dulantys on their arrival and is cursed by Peter. He is murdered by Crocker before the children can kill him.

Character

Stutgard’s power rests partly on fraud: relief checks for dead, departed, or fictitious residents, false crop histories, and payments connected with mined land. Marshall and Crocker have shared the proceeds; Marshall expects to inherit the operation. Crocker kills Stutgard; the novel does not fully explain his motive. [1968, pp. 94–95, 108]

Death

Killed by Crocker with an axe. Bad John witnesses the murder. Peter's Bagarthach is fulfilled: "Beware of jackals bearing axes!" The children arrive to kill him and find he's already dead.

Sheriff Train

The lawman bullied by Marshall. Sheriff Train is the nominal law in Lost Haven but is completely dominated by Marshall. He arrests Henry with five deputies ("six shaking men") and participates in the manhunt, but is pushed aside by Marshall at every turn.

Character

Train is portrayed as weak rather than evil. He enforces the law as he understands it but lacks the will to stand against Marshall. When Marshall takes over the manhunt broadcast, Train can only protest feebly. He survives the novel.

Thomas Butterfield

The man who trusted Marshall. Butterfield is a local farmer, "middling good, hard to scare, and a little stupid." He makes a citizen's arrest of Henry despite Henry's warnings that Marshall will kill them both.

Death

Marshall shoots Butterfield to eliminate the witness to Henry’s murder. Butterfield appeals to his former vote for Marshall; his confidence in the elected official is fatal. [1968, pp. 127–128]

Chapter 13

In Brazen Clash of Helm and Greave

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 112–120]

Henry is already out of jail when Marshall arrives; the manhunt begins.

Summary

Marshall and Sheriff Train arrive after Henry’s escape. Marshall takes command of the broadcast, presents Henry as an armed killer, strikes Train when he raises the case against Crocker, and makes the jailer act near death. [1968, pp. 112–114]

Marshall picks up Crocker. They discuss their plans with relish. Marshall wants to shoot Henry multiple times in nonfatal areas: "I'll make him howl." Crocker wants his dogs to do the killing: "They had him half eaten before we got to him. They tore four- and six-pound hunks of meat right out of him... A man is mighty loud when you do that to him. I like a man to scream that way."

John Lewis Grew, called John Loose Screw, leads Henry to the Lost Moon Bar. The men recognize Pucas from inherited stories of help in establishing a system. Sammy Bluefield drives Henry through a roadblock in his modified car. The crash breaks Sammy’s collarbone; Henry continues on foot. [1968, pp. 116–120]

Key Events

• Marshall arrives too late; Henry already escaped
• Marshall strikes Sheriff Train, forces jailer to feign dying
• Broadcasts lies: "Mad Killer" armed and dangerous
• Marshall and Crocker discuss torture plans: shooting, dogs eating alive
• Henry meets John Loose Screw in the woods, led to Lost Moon Bar
• "Big Indians" recognize Henry from grandmother stories
• Sammy Bluefield smashes roadblock at high speed; the car flips
• Sammy breaks collarbone; Henry continues on foot
• Next chapter: Henry reaches the Butterfield farm after escaping the roadblock. [1968, pp. 121–123]
• Next chapter: Butterfield arrests Henry and telephones the authorities. [1968, pp. 123–124]

Characters Introduced

Henry's Escape

Previously, in Chapter 12: Frank’s key and Henry’s verse open the way out. Henry subdues the jailer and escapes at five minutes before nine in the evening. Chapter 13 opens with Marshall and Train arriving too late. [1968, pp. 109–112]

Marshall's Manhunt

Marshall takes control, ordering Sheriff Train around and threatening violence. He broadcasts lies: that Henry took the jailer's gun (he didn't), that he left the jailer "dying" (he's fine), that the "Mad Brother" Frank is also armed and dangerous.

Crocker's Dogs

The Indians' Aid

The Lost Moon Bar offers recognition through inherited stories and practical aid. John Loose Screw guides Henry; Sammy Bluefield risks the roadblock with him. [1968, pp. 116–120]

Sammy's car has "a chrome-plated dozer blade on the front... and a vertical slicer. It's the sportiest-looking front in the world, and it'll kindle any block."

Thomas Butterfield

Forward reference to Chapter 14. Butterfield arrests Henry and calls the authorities. He trusts Marshall despite Henry’s warning that the prosecutor will kill them both. [1968, pp. 123–128]

Notable Quotations

Chapter 14

Fit Subject For Heroic Chantey

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 121–128]

The murder of Henry Dulanty, fit subject for heroic chantey.

Summary

Henry selects a farmhouse by its dog ("a finely bred, strongly built, slightly stupid dog"), reasoning the master will be "middling good, hard to scare, and a little stupid." He enters the dark house and is blinded by Thomas Butterfield's flashlight. Butterfield holds a .45, demanding the jailer's gun. Henry has none: "If you believe I had a gun, then you believe it to your death."

Butterfield telephones the authorities. Henry asks him to have the sheriff contacted by telephone so Marshall and Crocker will not hear a broadcast. The message is nevertheless to be relayed by radio to whichever officer is nearest. Butterfield’s trust in that process defeats Henry’s attempt to control who arrives. [1968, pp. 124–125]

Marshall’s first shot strikes Henry high in the shoulder from behind. He shoots him again in the groin and gut while taunting him to rise. Crocker then shoots Henry in the face and kills him. The narration insists that Henry’s altered face in death is not less than human. [1968, pp. 126–127]

Butterfield finally realizes that he too will be killed. Marshall changes to the jailer’s handgun, laughs at Butterfield’s appeal, and shoots him. [1968, pp. 127–128]

Key Events

• Marshall arrives before Henry can escape
• Henry is shot multiple times while Marshall taunts him
• Crocker delivers the killing shot to the face
• Marshall kills Butterfield to eliminate the witness
• Both deaths staged to blame Henry

Deaths

The Heroic Chantey

Throughout the chapter, Latin and English phrases appear as section breaks, fragments of a heroic verse about Henry's death:

Marshall's Sadism

The Puca Face in Death

Notable Quotations

Chapter 15

The Battle Joined That Could But Leave

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 129–138]

The outre scene: Frank hunts Crocker; Marshall hunts Frank; Phoebe Jane watches them all.

Summary

Crocker cannot sleep, haunted by the transparent boy who watched him murder Stutgard, by Henry's dying words ("You haven't seen the last of me"), by the noose on his bedpost. At dawn he gathers his seven dogs, a rifle, a noose, and a bottle of "Spirits of Panther." He will kill the ghost child so he can sleep again.

From Misu Mound, Fulbert and an old dead Indian watch the drama unfold. The Indian counts the hunters: "Crocker hunts his prey. Another hunts Crocker. Another follows the man who follows Crocker. And a fourth hunter waits in ambush for the third." Fulbert has missed one person entirely.

Crocker follows Bad John into the bog. Barnabas departs, then the other three hounds, then Book and Bell; Candle stays. After dozing and dreaming of Stutgard, Crocker wakes with Frank’s noose around his neck. [1968, pp. 133–134]

Frank forces Crocker into the bog with the noose looped over a sycamore branch. "You killed Stutgard and, more important, you killed my brother." Crocker protests that Marshall killed Henry and he only watched. Before Frank can finish, Marshall arrives silently and strikes Frank from behind with a rifle butt: "one of the really colossal things." Crocker sinks into the quicksand as the rope slips from Frank's hand.

Marshall rolls Frank into the bog after striking him. Charles runs toward Marshall, firing; Marshall prepares to shoot the child. Phoebe Jane’s concealed shot kills Marshall. Charles thinks his own shot succeeded, examines the body, and rolls Marshall into the bog. [1968, pp. 135–138]

Key Events

• Crocker sets out at dawn with seven dogs, rifle, noose, whiskey
• Hunts Bad John through the bog; trail crosses impassable ground
• Barnabas departs, followed by the other three hounds, then Book and Bell; Candle stays. [1968, pp. 133–134]
• Crocker dreams of Stutgard attacking him; wakes with noose around neck
• Frank forces Crocker into the bog at rope's end
• Marshall kills Frank from behind with rifle butt
• Crocker sinks into quicksand as rope slips
• Charles arrives running, firing at Marshall
• Phoebe Jane shoots Marshall from ambush: "a message from a talking rifle"
• Marshall rolls Frank into the bog; Charles later rolls Marshall in. [1968, pp. 136–138]

Crocker's Dogs

Deaths

The Outre Scene

Crocker's Delirium

Before his death, Crocker is haunted by visions: Bad John (transparent and floating), the noose on his bedpost, dreams of Marshall coming to kill him. He hunts Bad John but cannot catch him: "He is quite a small boy... but not that small. He cannot be weightless."

Charles as Patriarch

Charles’s attempt to kill Marshall is earnest. He comes away believing he succeeded, although the narrator gives the effective shot to Phoebe Jane. [1968, pp. 136–139]

Fulbert's Observation

From atop Misu Mound, Fulbert watches the drama unfold with an old dead Indian. The Indian notes there are four hunters: Crocker hunting Bad John, Frank hunting Crocker, Marshall hunting Frank, and a fourth "waiting in ambush for the third", Phoebe Jane.

Notable Quotations

Chapter 16

Or Altered World or Dead Dulanty

Copy-text: [1968, pp. 139–144]

The children depart at moonrise; Witchy delivers her final charge; the Dragons' Seed is loosed upon the world.

Summary

Late that afternoon, Charles announces: "We will cast off at moonrise, or at another rising a few seconds later." He has matured in one afternoon. Elizabeth and Peter are first and second mates; Helen is navigator. "Charles was captain. He had matured in one afternoon. Elizabeth and Peter and Helen were showier, but Charles became the steady one."

They spend the afternoon "celebrating all the accumulated deaths", composing Bagarthach verses "with the very blood dripping out of them" and drinking choc beer until "tipsy as a lilt of larks." Then comes the peculiar rite: they shed their Earth names and assume their Puca identities. Elizabeth becomes Coisreacan-Dia; Charles becomes Laidir; Peter becomes Carraig; Dorothy becomes Feirin-De; Helen becomes Lochrann; John becomes Dia-Ta-Caomh; Bad John becomes Ionuin.

Bad John has been absent for hours when the children acknowledge his departure. After dark Phoebe promises to have Witchy nearby to join them as they cast off. The naming has already happened in the afternoon. [1968, pp. 139–140]

Charles watches the rising moon and another faint body from a high tree, then dives down and orders the departure and horn signal. Witchy steps aboard as the raft passes the mound. [1968, pp. 140–141]

Witchy arrives to give her parting admonition. Her charge shifts from killing everybody toward controlling and altering the world, though she still permits killing. After releasing her Dragons’ Seed she continues speaking, jokes about going to die, and takes the joke literally; Elizabeth answers her. [1968, pp. 141–144]

Six pairs of goblin eyes glowing green in the dark, and a seventh, older pair fading. "And opposed to them, only the defenseless World!"

Key Events

• Charles announces departure at moonrise: "or at another rising"
• Afternoon celebration: Bagarthach verses, choc beer until tipsy
• Peculiar rite: children shed Earth names, assume Puca identities
• Ionuin (Bad John) discovered missing: "gone for good"
• Phoebe Jane delivers provisions: "Leave at moonrise"
• Laidir Charles keeps moon-vigil, sees "another rising"
• Charles orders the casting off and horn signal. [1968, p. 140]
• Witchy boards the Île "as weightless as a ghost"
• Witchy explains: Ionuin "gone with his father Frank"
• Witchy's primitive ethic: "Be swift, and be sudden!"
• The charge: "Break it."
• "I break the egg! I turn you loose! Oh, my own Dragons' Seed!"
• Witchy dies; six pairs of green eyes oppose the defenseless World

The Name Translations

Ionuin's Final Departure

When Helen asks about Bad John, Witchy explains: "Oh, he's gone with his father Frank. With us, small children are allowed to linger for a few years after they have died; but it isn't the custom on Earth. He was looking bad; I don't believe that the atmosphere here is very nourishing; now he'll be all right."

The River Journey

As they travel Green River, Witchy describes the way toward the Arkansas and Mississippi, then tangles the Nile with Little Egypt and Paducah. Helen challenges her geography. Witchy jokingly appeals to her recent classification as a filbert. [1968, p. 142]

Witchy predicts ten nights of moonlight. The departure releases a threat and a possibility into the world; the novel does not show what the children make of it. [1968, pp. 142–144]

Deaths

Witchy's Final Charge

She tells of a Puca cousin who followed the Earth ethic literally ("If your right hand offend you, hack it off") until "there was nothing left of him but the torso."

Dragons' Seed

The Final Image

Notable Quotations

Allies & Others

The few who showed kindness to the Puca strangers, and the minor characters who populate Lost Haven and the strip pits.

Fulbert Fronsac

The town drunk who is also the lost Dauphin. Fulbert is "an old French bum who was also the lost Dauphin. And, if not he, then he was the son of the Dauphin, or the grandson, sometimes the one, sometimes the other." He gives the children the Île de France and Catherine de Medici.

Character

Fulbert is one of the few who can see Bad John, whom he calls "Ange-Jacques." He represents the dispossessed royalty of an older world, French nobility reduced to Oklahoma vagrancy. He keeps his dignity and his claim to royal blood.

Key Actions

• Gives the children the Île de France (Chapter 4)
• Provides Catherine de Medici (Chapter 4)
• Brings the lawyer to the children (Chapter 12)
• Watches the outre scene from Misu Mound (Chapter 15)

On the Dulantys

Phoebe Jane Lanyard

The Shawnee woman who saves the children and kills Marshall. Phoebe Jane runs Lanyard Landing in the strip pits. She's the only kingdom ruler the children cannot bring themselves to attack: "It is hard to plunder a people who will willingly give you anything they have."

Heritage

Phoebe Jane claims many grandfathers: Jean Chouteau, Charles Goodnight, Jesse Chisholm, both Jesse and Frank James, Charles Curtis, Chief Crazy Horse, David Payne, and Sequoyah. "The reason she had so many grandfathers was that she came from a big family."

She's "more Indian than the rest of her family" and has "a way of looking at the Dulantys and chuckling." She can "be as goblin as they could."

Key Actions

• Trades provisions for the captured whisky (Chapter 6). [1968, pp. 47–48]
• Brings supplies and news nightly (Chapter 6)
• Promises to watch over the family (Chapter 6)
• Pilots them to a better hiding spot (Chapter 6)
• Shoots Marshall dead (Chapter 15)

On Finding the Children

Her Farewell

The Killing of Marshall

Charles fires at Marshall and believes he has killed him. The narrator identifies Phoebe Jane’s effective rifle shot, whose calibre differs from Charles’s weapon. [1968, pp. 136–138]

Catherine de Medici

A she-goat of royal blood. The narrator gives Catherine de Medici her royal ancestry in the novel’s tall-tale register. Catherine travels with the children under the deed’s guest provisions. [1968, pp. 36–38]

Legal Status

Helen added clauses to the Île de France deed specifying Catherine's "guest status" and "disembarkation rights." The goat stays with the children aboard the raft.

Pandemonium John

The aged Puca musician. Pandemonium John travels with an elaborate wheeled apparatus. The forty or fifty instruments belong to the smaller machine he proposes for Charles. [1968, pp. 82–89]

Character

John has worked a nine-state circuit for decades, which makes the timetable of fatal Earth Allergy uncertain. He brings news of the parents, leads the honkeroo, and encourages Charles to build a smaller seagoing pandemonium with Peter’s mechanical help. [1968, pp. 86–90]

Little Jack Wilson

The man who warns Frank. Little Jack is a poor man of Lost Haven, summoned by Frank's Bagarthach to warn him of the planned lynching. He likes the Dulantys despite being scared of them.

The Five Kingdoms

The Stinkers

Three older boys (Elwood is 11) who rule "Port Stinker." Defeated in naval battle by the Dulantys. Their shack is burned, their raft (the Sea Bear) captured, and they are "drowned" but reach shallow water.

Amada Stutgard

Coalfactor Stutgard's daughter, now orphaned. Peter is sent to kill her but she gives her word to walk into the quicksand, then breaks it and escapes. "Earth people will lie to save their lives."

Jack Fiddler

Jack Fiddler makes whisky and choc beer. Peter first holds him with the captured .22; Charles takes the larger rifle. Fiddler escapes, and the children fail to find his reserve stock and house. [1968, pp. 45–46]

The Fabers

The Fabers run commercial fishing operations and are rumored to be "not above killing a stray child who came their way and chopping him up for bait." Their stronghold is destroyed but they escape and continue hunting the children.

Indian Allies

John Loose Screw

Guides Henry at the Lost Moon Bar during his escape. The Indians were told the Puca "would be along" to help set up a system; their information was "centuries out of date," but they still feel kinship.

Sammy Bluefield

A young Indian with an incredibly fast car featuring "a chrome-plated dozer blade on the front... and a vertical slicer." He drives Henry through a roadblock at high speed. The car crashes but Sammy survives.

Lost Haven

Lost Haven is so shabby and overgrown that the arriving Dulantys fail to recognize the town. [1968, p. 15]

The Big Shanty

The Dulanty home. A large, dilapidated structure built over old railroad tracks. The children tell their Aorach stories here in Chapter 1. Dorothy's ghost story references an old track running beneath the shanty where a ghost train passes.

Features

• Built over abandoned railroad tracks
• Houses four adults and six living children, with Bad John also present. [1968, pp. 12–15]
• Rented from an Indian lady in Catoosa
• Threatened during the planned lynching described in Chapter 7. [1968, pp. 57–63]
• Dorothy's Bagarthach to burn it fails (Chapter 3)

The Two Jails

Lost Haven jail is the flimsy tin structure where Fulbert is held and the children enter through the roof. The county-seat jail is the stronger building to which Henry is taken. [1968, pp. 33, 35]

Key Events

• Lost Haven jail: the children visit Fulbert and obtain the raft deed (Chapter 4). [1968, pp. 35–39]
• County-seat jail: Henry is held for Stutgard’s murder (Chapter 4). [1968, p. 33]
• County-seat jail: Marshall confronts Henry (Chapter 11). [1968, pp. 91–97]
• County-seat jail: Henry escapes in the evening (Chapter 12). [1968, pp. 109–111]

Lost Moon Bar

Henry finds refuge at the Lost Moon Bar. The men there recognize his kind from grandmother stories, then provide help through John Loose Screw and Sammy Bluefield. [1968, pp. 116–120]

Stutgard House

Where Stutgard is murdered. The home of Lost Haven's richest man. John climbs through the window intending to kill Stutgard but finds him already dead, killed by Crocker. Bad John witnesses the murder and terrifies Crocker into dropping his axe.

Butterfield Farm

Where Henry and Butterfield die. Thomas Butterfield's farm, where Henry attempts to hide after his escape. Butterfield makes a citizen's arrest and calls the authorities. Marshall arrives first and murders them both.

The Murders

Marshall shoots Henry in the shoulder from behind, then in the groin and gut. Crocker fires the fatal shot into Henry’s face. Marshall then kills Butterfield and arranges to blame Henry for the farmer’s death. [1968, pp. 126–128]

The Hospital / Asylum

Where Witchy is taken. After Witchy goes mad following Veronica's death, she is hospitalized. Phoebe Jane visits her "for a little while" and reports that "things look bad." Witchy escapes to deliver her final charge to the children in Chapter 16.

The Strip Pits

"A dozen square miles of mountains turned inside out, threaded by canals, and with bottomless chasms", the children's domain and battlefield.

The Waterways

Green River

Green River is part of the novel’s water route toward the sea. The children spend their first night at sea there, and Helen tells her pirate saga. The novel gives it as narrative geography, not a surveyed route. [1968, pp. 30, 51–54]

The Canal System

A maze of interconnected waterways created by strip mining. The children navigate these in the Île de France, using the complexity to evade pursuit. Key features include:

• Hidden inlets and mooring spots
• Connections between different pit lakes
• Shallow areas and quicksand bogs
• The "bottomless chasms" of the deepest excavations

The Quicksand Bogs

The quicksand is both a threat and the site of the final deaths. Crocker sinks when Marshall’s blow makes Frank release the rope. Marshall rolls Frank in; Charles subsequently rolls Marshall in. [1968, pp. 134–138]

The Five Kingdoms

1. Port Stinker (Kingdom of the Stinkers)

First to fall. Three older boys rule this domain. The Dulantys attack in a naval battle, using Helen's Greek fire (burning paper sacks filled with glass, thumbtacks, cockleburs, and cactus). The children capture the Sea Bear and a .22 rifle. The Stinkers are "drowned" but reach shallow water.

Spoils

• The Sea Bear (raft)
• .22 rifle
• Territory cursed with salt

2. Stutgard Landing

Nearly abandoned after Coalfactor's death. The strip pit outpost of the Stutgard family. The shack is burned. Peter is sent to kill Amada, but she gives her word to walk to the quicksand, then breaks it and escapes.

3. Fiddler's Landing

Fiddler’s domain yields whisky, choc beer, and weapons. Peter first covers Fiddler with the .22; Charles then takes the larger rifle. Fiddler escapes. [1968, pp. 45–46]

Spoils

• Barrel of corn whisky
• Barrel of choc beer
• Tub of mash
• A ham

Note: Fiddler's main reserve stock and house are never found.

4. Lanyard Landing

The kingdom of kindness. The children cannot bring themselves to attack Lanyard Landing. "It is hard to plunder a people who will willingly give you anything they have." Phoebe Jane barters for the captured whisky and becomes the children's primary ally.

Trade Received

• Pecans
• Grape juice
• Hominy grits
• News of the family
• Ongoing supply runs

5. Faber Stronghold

The fishermen rumored to use children for bait. Commercial fishermen with a sinister reputation: "not above killing a stray child who came their way and chopping him up for bait." The children destroy their shack and boat, release hundreds of pounds of fish, and slash their nets.

Spoils

• Two trotlines
• Fish knives

The Fabers return to find ruin and continue hunting the children throughout the novel.

Misu Mound

Helen estimates about thirty thousand dead in Misu Mound. The number is her own calculation, not a census. The mound's layers and disputed accounts reach across different peoples, creatures, and ages. [1968, pp. 66–69, 100]

Significance

The mound gives the children a place of kinship among the Indigenous dead. The novel also gives competing stories of the mound, and the Puca have ambitions to rule. In Chapter 15, Helen trades a buffalo thighbone for an old dead woman’s own bone, which she wants for an artifact. [1968, pp. 66–69, 92, 100, 132–133]

Fulbert and an old dead Indian watch the outre scene from atop Misu Mound. Helen claims to have talked to old dead Indians inside the mound.

Vessels

The Dulanty navy: rafts, captured craft, and the flagship Île de France.

Île de France

The Dulanty flagship. Fulbert’s fishing raft, with its boathouse and equipment, is exchanged for a stolen bottle of whisky. The grand French name suits Fulbert’s royal pretensions; a possible allusion to the ocean liner is unconfirmed. [1968, pp. 35–39]

Acquisition

The children visit Fulbert in jail and negotiate for the raft. Peter writes the deed; Helen adds amendments regarding Catherine de Medici's guest status. See Chapter 4.

The Deed

Equipment & Accessories

• Boathouse (cabin structure)
• Blanket
• Lantern
• Automobile horn
• Box of snuff
• Frying pan
• Coffee pot
• Catherine de Medici (she-goat, with guest rights)

Role in the Novel

The Île de France is the children's home, transport, and base of operations throughout their strip pit campaign. They sleep aboard, cook aboard, and flee aboard. In the final chapter, they cast off at moonrise to "be gone forever," with Witchy boarding to deliver her final charge before dying.

Crew Positions

• Navigator: Helen
• Mechanic: Peter (with Charles)
• Cook: Dorothy (in training; prone to fires)
• Lookout: Bad John

Sea Bear

Prize of the Battle of Port Stinker. The Stinkers' raft, captured during the naval battle in Chapter 5. Towed behind the Île de France as a secondary vessel.

Capture

The Sea Bear is taken after the children defeat the Stinkers with Helen's Greek fire bombs. The three Stinker boys are "drowned" (they reach shallow water) and their territory salted. Along with the Sea Bear, the children capture a .22 rifle.

Jack Fiddler's Boat

Jack Fiddler's vessel, sunk during the raid on Fiddler's Landing. Not captured; destroyed to deny the whisky maker transport.

The Faber Boat

The Fabers' commercial fishing boat, burned during the raid on their stronghold. The destruction of their vessel, along with their nets and stored fish, is a major economic blow to the Faber operation.

The Ghost Ships (Helen's Account)

In Chapter 6, Helen describes visits to three pirate ships on Green River and briefly names a fourth, the Flying Snake:

The Spanish Dancer

"It has the blankest pirates of all on it, except for the Flying Snake." Helen claims they made her captain after recognizing her worth.

The Vampire

"Whose crewmen are served every night a cup of blood with their scuttle of rum." They tested Peter's blood but released him when they discovered he was Puca: "We can't be drinking Puca blood; we got a contract with them."

The Gigantis Transfixus

In Helen’s saga, the giant has been spiked as the ship’s mast for thirty years. The term has already expired; an old calendar has deceived him. Helen says she frees him and survives the destruction. [1968, pp. 52–54]

The other children are skeptical of Helen's accounts. "Pirates are perhaps the greatest invention of Earth people," Elizabeth says loftily.

Bagarthach Verses

The printed four-line verses, followed by the interleaved Heroic Chantey. The separate chapter-title poem is available in the overview.

The Heroic Chantey

The fragments occur between passages of prose. The opening line appears twice and is retained twice here.

Aorach Stories

"It was their way of defying that tricky place Earth... They whistled in the dark."

The Chapter 1 Stories

In Chapter 1, each of the six living children tells an Aorach story. Bad John cannot tell proper ghost stories: "he could only tell people stories, and nobody cares about them."

Elizabeth's Story: The Haunted Picture

Charles's Story: The Country Hotel

Helen's Story: Silly Jimmy

Peter's Story: Alice and Clarissa

Dorothy's Story: The Ghost Train

John's Story: William and Polly

Bad John's Problem

As a ghost himself, Bad John cannot tell proper ghost stories; he lacks the necessary distance from the subject. His "people stories" are dismissed by the other children.

The Parabolic Stories (Chapter 3)

In Chapter 3, four children tell stories while drying on tree branches after swimming. These are not traditional Aorach but parabolic accounts of recent traumas, told in oblique third person.

Elizabeth's Story: The Floozy

A thinly veiled account of finding Witchy gone mad. A little girl follows her mother's perfume through dark streets and finds "a crazy floozy." The floozy turns and says "My God, Elizabeth! That you should see me like this."

Reality: Elizabeth discovered Witchy's madness the night before.

Peter's Story: The Brown Bottle

A boy watches his father drink from a brown bottle. With each glass, the father changes: "like the man in the story that changed into a frog." His eyes go gray and glazed, his face reddens.

Connection: Peter’s story responds to Frank’s drinking and frightening transformation after Veronica’s death. [1968, pp. 27–28]

John's Story: The Onion and the Crate

A boy and his mother have only one onion to eat, eating one layer each night. When it's gone, the mother dies. The boy brings another onion, but she's been put in a crate. Her cold-iron grip catches his hand. Unable to decide whether to get in or get out, they push him into the crate and bury him with his mother.

Reality: Veronica's death and burial.

Helen's Story: Papa in Jail

Helen’s prison story anticipates Henry’s arrest and the children’s flight by boat. Her verse fails; she says Bagarthach often fails in a dream. [1968, pp. 29–30]

Reality: Foreshadows Henry's arrest and the children's departure on the Île de France.

Veronica's Characteristic Aorach

Referenced in Chapter 2, Veronica's signature story explains how she and Witchy were "twins" born eleven months apart:

The narrator sides with Veronica’s mastery against the doctor’s objection. [1968, pp. 18–19]

Puca Nature

Biology, abilities, appearance, and the fatal curse of Earth Allergy.

Appearance

The Dual Aspect

Puca can appear either human or goblin, and the Dulanty parents deliberately bred for both:

Human-Appearing ("Like Angels")

• Elizabeth: "The blackest hair and the whitest skin in the world." Beautiful as an Earth child.
• Charles: Looks "like an angel."
• Helen: Pretty, distinguishable only by gleaming eyes and ear-flicking.

Goblin-Appearing ("Like Real Pucas")

• Peter: one of the goblin-appearing children. [1968, p. 12]
• Dorothy: Goblin-appearing.
• John: The funniest-looking of all.
• Bad John: Translucent goblin.

The Sideways Glimpse

Even the human-appearing children reveal their true nature when glimpsed indirectly. The lawyer in Chapter 12 sees "a veritable gargoyle" in his peripheral vision.

The Green Eyes

All Puca have green eyes that glow in the dark, a recurring motif in the novel:

The Death Mask

In death, even human-appearing Puca reveal their alien nature:

Abilities

Bagarthach (Magical Verse)

See Bagarthach Verses for full treatment. Puca can kill, summon, curse, and transform through rhymed verse.

Physical Superiority

Henry defeats Marshall in hand-to-hand combat despite Earth Allergy. Frank moves with supernatural speed to catch Crocker. The children display abilities beyond Earth children.

Telepathic Speech

The lawyer observes in Chapter 12:

Aquatic Ability

In Chapter 3, the children swim in ways impossible for humans:

• Staying underwater for extended periods
• Swimming "like eels"
• Comfort in water matching their home world ("land and water inextricably mixed")

Instinctive Music

Puca can play any instrument instinctively, as demonstrated during the concert with Pandemonium John.

Earth Allergy

Symptoms

• Flushing and "hot eye" (resembles drunkenness)
• Wavering gait
• Progressive weakness
• Listlessness and loss of will
• Tainting with "Earth outlook"
• Death

Victims

• Veronica: Dies early in the novel's chronology
• Frank: Appears drunk but is suffering Earth Allergy; killed before it could claim him
• Henry: Weakened by Earth Allergy; allows arrest; killed before it could claim him
• Witchy: Dies of Earth Allergy in Chapter 16
• Pandemonium John: "Old and tired and racked with Earth Allergy" but still alive

Frank's Condition

Ghost Children

Puca children who die may persist as ghosts, as Bad John demonstrates:

• Translucent (visible and see-through simultaneously)
• Invisible/inaudible to most Earth people
• Can pass through walls and unlock doors
• Cannot write, though can make marks some people see
• Doesn't eat
• Can see other ghosts (and be punched by them)
• Eventually departs ("gone for good")

Puca and Indians

The Puca were told they would be "in rapport with the Indian population," but their information was "centuries out of date." Despite this, mutual recognition persists:

• Men at the Lost Moon Bar recognize Pucas through grandmother stories. [1968, p. 117]
• Phoebe Jane Lanyard can "be as goblin as they could"
• The children find kinship at Misu Mound ("a mountainful of murdered Indians")
• Indians and Puca share an expression "when they have just killed someone"

Puca and Dogs

The narrator first states a broad antipathy between Pucas and dogs, especially hounds. Henry’s search for a farm then distinguishes indifferent, frightened, hostile, and relatively reasonable dogs. [1968, pp. 115, 121–122]

Cosmology

The Four Worlds, the Hive Ghost, Dragons' Seed, and the theological underpinnings of Lafferty's vision.

The Four Worlds

The Mission

The adult Dulantys were sent to Earth by Puca "instructors" as "picked young couples" with a dual mandate:

1. Primary: "Achieve accord with Earth": integrate with humanity
2. Further task: consider whether something could be done with Earth, an ambition whose implications become increasingly coercive. [1968, pp. 20–21]

The mission has failed to secure accord. The children inherit both the ambition to alter Earth and the unresolved question of how to deal with its inhabitants; the final charge does not specify a second mission. [1968, pp. 20–23, 141–144]

The Hive Ghost

Properties

• Earth people act with "lightning instinct": faster than thought
• They possess "unity and communication of the hive"
• Frank describes a collective instinct that, to him, works faster than thought. [1968, p. 21]
• Individual Earth people are manageable; the collective is not

This explains how Lost Haven instinctively rejects the Dulantys: the townspeople sense the difference even when they cannot articulate it. "We sense you here as they wouldn't sense you in a larger or busier place."

Dragons' Seed

Interpretations

• Children and successors: Henry’s image suggests Puca continuance beyond the adults’ deaths. [1968, p. 92]
• Metaphorical: Ideas, arts, or cultural influences that will transform Earth
• The Children: The six Dulanty children themselves, released by Witchy's charge

Witchy's Release

In Chapter 16, Witchy explicitly names the children as Dragons' Seed:

The Primitive Ethic vs. Earth Ethics

The "Peculiar and Remarkable" Earth Ethic

Witchy describes an Earth ethic (implicitly Christian) that the Puca find both admirable and impossible:

She tells of a Puca cousin who followed it literally ("If your right hand offend you, hack it off") until "there was nothing left of him but the torso."

The Puca Primitive Ethic

Witchy offers the primitive ethic as the Pucas’ received rule while acknowledging the demands of another ethic. Her permission to kill and her preference for control and alteration are morally difficult, and Frank’s undelivered appeal to gentleness runs against them. [1968, pp. 134–135, 141–144]

The Haunted Planet

Earth is consistently portrayed as a haunted, hostile place: "the meanest world in all the universes." The Aorach stories of Chapter 1 establish Earth as a place where:

• Pictures come alive and kill
• Hotels vanish and identities blur
• The dead don't know they're dead
• Ghost trains run beneath houses
• Death cannot be escaped through promises

The Reefs of Earth

The novel's title comes from the Heroic Chantey in Chapter 14:

Earth is a reef, a hidden danger that wrecks travelers. The Dulantys are stranded on it, dying of Earth Allergy, persecuted by the natives, unable to return home.

Puca Origins

The Neanderthal Theory

Henry hints that the Puca may have been Earth's original intelligent species:

Henry’s Neanderthal suggestion is speculative. Marshall’s account of an ancient fight in an ice cave expresses his sense of primordial enmity. [1968, pp. 91, 94]

The Museum Hoax

Henry’s museum prank places a deceased kinsman, labeled Puca Man, beyond the representation of Modern Man. The joke asserts a superior place in the evolutionary display. [1968, p. 91]

Catholic Elements

Lafferty’s work engages Catholic questions. In this novel the theological claims are made by particular speakers:

Luke's Gospel

Henry quotes Luke 22:53 before his arrest:

The Giver

Witchy refers to "the Giver" as the source of the Puca's primitive ethic, a divine being who has given them a different moral law than Earth people received.

Apotheosis

Dorothy’s verse calls the proposed fiery deaths an Apotheosis. The grand word turns murder into mock glorification. [1968, p. 24]

Nil de Monstris Nisi Bonum

The Heroic Chantey's final line, "Nothing about monsters except good," parallels the Latin maxim nil de mortuis nisi bonum ("nothing about the dead except good"). It asks that only good be said of the Dulantys as monsters.

The Final Image

The ending places six living children and their dying mother against the world. The comic reversal draws sympathy to the Dulantys while the threat of their violence stays in view. [1968, p. 144]

Timeline

Firm anchors and relative sequence. The novel moves between recollection, simultaneous action, and later consequences; it gives no eleven-day calendar.

Death Log

Deaths, departures, and reported killings, with the narrative evidence for each. The register covers the principal cases.

Themes

Readings of the novel’s violence, comedy, art, and damaged world.

Glossary

Key terms, Puca vocabulary, regional language, and specialized concepts.

Puca Terms

Locations & Geography

Vessels

Characters & Nicknames

Regional & Historical Terms

Latin Phrases

Encyclopedia A-Z

An alphabetical reference to characters, vocabulary, places, and allusions in The Reefs of Earth.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Name Translations

The names as printed in Chapter 16, with dictionary senses separated from proposed meanings of Lafferty’s compounds.

[1968, pp. 139–140, 143]

Related Vocabulary

Henry, Frank, and Veronica receive no Puca names in the novel. Accents above belong to dictionary forms; the name column preserves the novel’s spelling. Dictionary links appear in Sources & Editorial Notes.

Quotations

Memorable lines from the novel, organized by theme.

On Earth and Its Horrors

On the Puca

On the Hive Ghost

On the Strife Dulanty

On Violence and Killing

On Death and Dying

On Dragons' Seed and the Future

On Bad John

Scripture and Literature

Phoebe Jane Lanyard

The Final Image

Sources & Editorial Notes

Notes on the edition, the evidence, and the apparatus. Revised 14 October 2026.

Allusions and Contextual Research

The contextual additions incorporate the supplied The Reefs of Earth — Sources and Relevance. Clear textual references, historical background, and proposed parallels are distinguished in the relevant chapter notes and encyclopedia entries. Dates and geographical identifications have been narrowed where the evidence does not support a firm conclusion.

Literary Texts

• Shakespeare, As You Like It 3.2.
• Virgil, Aeneid 2.49.
• Aesop, “Belling the Cat”.
• Geoffrey of Monmouth, Vita Merlini, trans. John Jay Parry.
• Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, ch. 19.
• Milton, Paradise Lost 1.756–57.
• Gogol, Dead Souls, part 1, ch. 11.
• Poe, “The Pit and the Pendulum”.
• Dante, Inferno 1.1–3, Carlyle translation as revised.
• Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.234–36.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses 3, Cadmus and the dragon’s teeth.
• Phaedrus, Fables 5.8, “Tempus”.

Scripture and Theology

• Luke 22:53.
• Judges 9:45.
• Job 30:28–31, Douay-Rheims.
• Matthew 5:13, 29–30, Douay-Rheims.
• Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Supplement, q. 8, a. 2.
• “Accident,” Catholic Encyclopedia.
• Aquinas, Super Ephesios, ch. 5, lect. 6.
• John A. Hardon, “Bell-Book-Candle,” Modern Catholic Dictionary.

Regional History and Institutions

• “Rogers County,” Oklahoma Historical Society.
• “Vinita,” Oklahoma Historical Society.
• “Spiro Mounds,” Oklahoma Historical Society.
• “Shawnee Tribe (Loyal Shawnee),” Oklahoma Historical Society.
• “Shawnee, Absentee,” Oklahoma Historical Society.
• USGS, Bird Creek locality at its Verdigris confluence.
• Oklahoma State University, 1957 name change.
• Alexander County, Illinois, history and geography.

Other Reference Sources

• Académie française, Jean-Jacques Lefranc de Pompignan.
• William James, The Principles of Psychology, ch. 9.
• “Chapter & Verse,” Harvard Magazine, July–August 2003.
• R. T. Ridley, “To Be Taken with a Pinch of Salt” (1986).
• “Frolic and detour,” Cornell Legal Information Institute.
• Tennessee Ernie Ford, official singles discography.
• SFWA, A Plague of Demons (1965).
• John Clute, “Lafferty, R A,” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
• Kirkus Reviews, Amazing Stories, ed. Kim Mohan (1995).

English and Folkloric Vocabulary

• Merriam-Webster, “coon song”.
• Merriam-Webster, “boondocks”.
• Merriam-Webster, “corbie”.
• Merriam-Webster, “binnacle”.
• Merriam-Webster, “davit”.
• Merriam-Webster, “scuttle”.
• Merriam-Webster, “abaft”.
• Merriam-Webster, “blackbird”.
• Merriam-Webster, “impress”.
• Merriam-Webster, “kobold”.
• Merriam-Webster, “durance”.

Additional biblical references: Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11; Matthew 14:8, 25:32, and 6:20; Luke 12:20; Genesis 6:4; 1 Corinthians 6:3; John 1:46; Micheas (Micah) 5:2; Psalm 129/130. These identify the passages the novel evokes.

The supplied notes also propose possible links to Big Shanty, Georgia; Cobina Wright; the ballplayer Sad Sam Jones; Piltdown; and the ocean liner Île de France. None is confirmed as a historical model.

The first-completed-novel description follows the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction; it states composition order for The Reefs of Earth, not publication order.

Sources: John Clute, “Lafferty, R A,” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.