Lionel Lark and Kingsley Mole

My People...

Kingsley Mole sat high on a windy knoll, his eyes consuming the silent midnight woods. He nuzzled his long moleish snout deep inside the heart of a marigold and let his moleish imagination skip to and fro over sunken galleons and pirate pictures of rusted doubloons and deep-water cabins stacked to the brim with musty muskets and goldfish gauntlets, once worn by Henry Morgan.

The lark awoke and doffed its plumed three cornered hat to its own sleepy-eyed reflection, then it hopped past the crested nest of the snoring cuckoo, and flew off into the Lionel Lark morning looking for friend Mole. Mole was on a marigold come down and sulkily scraped bluebeat rhythms with his ground-digging paw.

"Yes," he whispered, "Me and Li are going aquesting for the Lily Pond of Fox Necks."

"Li'll know all the mapping gen," so the Mole, kneeling on the soft soil, said a morning prayer to Ra, not even caring if he dirtied his yellow Rupert trousers because his moleish mind knew that praying was special.

Unicorn

Lionel Lark was an alchemist by profession but he loved to quest. Li and Mole were a romantic pair. Li, with his many-coloured zodiac coat flapping about as he rode the dawn wind. Rubbing his rimless spectacles, he lectured Mole in his larkish manner about the mythical Lily Pond and its latitude and longitude, and goofing sometimes, and mentioning the Hyperboreans, the frozen folk who lived behind the North Wind.

At eight o'clock he scribbled little spells and directions on a dried mushroom parchment and Moley got proudly into his pigs-bladder balloon. Lionel took off, at first a little shakily, but soon as swift as the lordly eagle, the Emperor of the Sky-Skinned Airships.

Bopping through the morning clouds, Kingsley rocked to and fro, now and again straightening his course by adjusting the misty spider's-web rope which was harnessed around Lionel's little puffed-out chest. They made a wonderful sight, these animal Wright brothers.

A lonely elf crunched the autumn leaves and solemnly dictated to his mouse scribe long, winding spirals of wonderful runes which, in our heavy translation would awaken Ra at midnight, or un-hibernate a legion of poley albino-eyed hedgehogs or even cause a chasm on the deeply swirl of Fox Necks to drown a blessed water lily. Pan be praised for elfish ability to know about wisdom and to use it wisely.

The elf's autumn feet hidden in rose-petal, pointed shoes walked into The Mighty Grove and his never-ending stream of merriment soared and gushed Niagarally through the Wonderful Kingdom. But even as quick as it came, it had ceased. His wise eyes became beacons of true light.

As the piggy bundle tumbled from the blessed heavens, the leaping elf hastily harnessed his beloved, tame nightingale and made for the point of ejection with a heart of many carats. Entangled in thorns and briars was Kingsley Mole, his snout sticking high in the splendoured air; tents of zodiac folds cascaded over Lionel's larkish dome. De-spectacled, he moaned into Kingsley Mole's eyes and cursed all flying machines doomed to rely on the ficklety of piggish bladders.

The two saddened creatures trundled from their rose-bush prison and lay scarlet and fatigued in the escaping afternoon. The handsome, elfin figure soared through dusking skies and upon landing, kissed the proud brow of his sky steed and called a greeting to Mole and Li.

After tea from acorn cups and slices of blueberry pie, the handsome elf told all the large legends that he knew about the perilous pond and its scaly protectors. Also of its healing ability and how one draught of pond dew could put forests of tangling tufts on the baldest badger or field mouse's heads.

After glow-worm talks and plans for the quest, the elf led the tired companions through the foreboding fairy wood until they reached a large, beautifully-worked leather fencing boot, which had a door in its heel.

"My great grandfather," the elf said, as Lionel commented about image engraved on the door knob.

"An alchemist you know," said the fairy one.

"Mmmmm," said Li suspiciously.

They were made very comfortable in beds of great expanse, spider web sheets, and towers of warm, woolly moss blankets and, as always in an elvish abode, dreams of the gentlest texture.

Marc Bolan
Note:
The above was kindly transcribed by my friends Julian Hawkins and Rita Serrano who were unaware of the identity of the author. I quote (with permission) from Julian's accompanying email:
Mark,
We did our best on this one, but the vocabulary was extremely challenging. I recommend that you compare it with the tape when you get back. The author clearly had an exceptional imagination, command of English and knowledge of English myth - but this did not make it easy to transcribe.

Cheers,

Julian