Background

Here in our offices at the British Museum (past the broom closet and turn left) we dedicate our lives (between tea breaks) to documenting the extraordinary events of the Year of Wonders.

How did it all start? Well, it was just before dawn on New Year’s Day, and a green comet appeared in the sky. Pretty soon after that, the most incredible stories started to appear in the newspaper.

“A courting couple walking down a country lane at dusk found a trapdoor in the ground.”

“The man lifted it and,seeing steps, descended.”

All over the world it was the same.

Yeti hides were traded, giant faces were seen in the Northern Lights, and men vanished after performing the Indian rope trick.

Nowadays these creatures are so much a part of life that you can walk down the Strand and not even blink at seeing a minotaur in a doorman’s uniform outside the Savoy, or a gang of goblins working on an extension to the underground.

“A man in Nuneaton found a packet of cabbage seeds inside an old vase.”

“Hearing whispers in the night, he found the seeds had grown into green brains that seized him with their intellect. They said they had come from the planet Pluto to conquer Earth.”

“But as the sun rose the brains cried out, ‘What is this ball of searing flame?’ and shrivelled up. ‘Which was strange,’ the man told our Daily Argus reporter, ‘as there was quite a frost that day. It’s what you’re used to, I suppose.’ “