The domestic bliss of the Dee household was being severely strained. Doctor John Dee, Court Astrologer and Advisor to Queen Elizabeth of England, had unwisely mentioned to his wife, Jane, that he intended setting off to the New World in search of a mysterious island; that was when the night-soil really hit the windmill.

“You’re clearing off for months on end, looking for some island?” she questioned. There was an edge to her voice that her husband recognised, and did not like one little bit.

“Where is it this time? High Brasil? Rocabarraigh? Tír na nÓg? Or maybe it’s the Isle of Maidens… oh yes, I bet it’s the Isle of bloody Maidens.”

“No, no,” protested her husband “it is none of those places, I assure you. As far as I know, it’s Hopeless.”

“I’ll say it’s hopeless,” retorted Jane, “leaving me here with eight children to bring up while you’re gallivanting off to Lord knows where.”

“I will make sure that you are well provided for, my sweet,” assured Doctor Dee, hurriedly retiring to his study.

Dee had married Jane Fromond in 1578, when he was fifty-one, and she was just twenty-three. Having previously been a widower twice over, and each marriage childless, he had seemingly made it his mission to make up for lost time with Jane, and within ten years they had produced eight children. In view of this, as a man now in his sixties, life was occasionally inclined to be somewhat more hectic than he would have liked. John Dee was definitely looking forward to this little excursion to The Americas.

In the relative peace of his study, Doctor Dee lit a candle and lifted his black, obsidian scrying bowl down from the shelf. To a casual onlooker the bowl would have appeared to be less than impressive, being decidedly shallow and having a diameter slightly shorter than the span of a man’s hand. When filled with water, however, and approached in the correct way, the scrying-bowl opened doors to the past, present and future of lands both near and far away. Its only drawback was that there was no way of telling exactly what, or indeed when, you were seeing.

With his mind clear and his breath measured, Dee watched the dark water gradually becoming cloudy. Eventually the mists dispersed, and, dimly, he could discern the figure of a man climbing out of a window. The picture grew sharper and, to the doctor’s surprise, he saw that it was Edward Kelley, his erstwhile associate and fellow alchemist, who had recently taken employment with Rudolf ll of Saxony. Dee chuckled to himself as he watched Kelley struggle out of the window and fall a dozen feet to the ground. (Maybe his mirth would have been slightly less had he known that his friend’s fall would result in a broken leg, contributing to his death soon after.)

 The picture grew misty once more until, from the depths, the vague shape of a worried looking woman appeared; she was standing next to a badly dented carriage at the side of a broad road. No, it was not a carriage, for there were no horses to be seen. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a rotund man with a mop of dark curly hair and a preposterously long waxed moustache, skipped nimbly into the scene. By the movement of his mouth and body he appeared to be singing, and the woman smiled. Trying to lip-read, Dee could, initially, only make out the word ‘Gocum’. Obviously the man was singing about the Hottentot Fig, Carpobrotus Edulis, commonly known as a gocum. Subsequent reading of the singer’s lips, however, indicated that he believed the plant to be a pear. Dee shook his head, incredulous at the man’s ignorance; surely, everyone knew that it was a gocum fig, not a gocum pear. Dee had no idea what relevance the episode held, but he was sure it had little to do with the New World.

Again the mists slid over the water. It took some time for Dee to realise exactly when they had cleared, for what was revealed was dense fog, and lots of it. Now and then he would glimpse a sight of land, albeit from a great height. Gradually, as if some great bird was winging its way to earth, the details of the terrain became clearer. Dee became excited, for it was suddenly obvious that he was looking at an island, wreathed in fog and lashed by wild ocean waves. Surely, this was the mysterious island that Saint Brendan had spoken of. He could see buildings. There was a tall stone tower overlooking the sea. More and more detail appeared, and the birds-eye view became a worms-eye view as the subterranean realms of the island were revealed. There was a broad chamber, with lit torches fastened to the wall. Shadows danced in the light of the flames. Dee strained to see who, or what was making those shadows, and then he spotted them. His mind and the scrying mirror were working in unison, zooming-in on three figures who walked with candle-lanterns held high, towards the mouth of a dark tunnel. It appeared to Dee that the party consisted of two men and a woman. While both men were of average appearance, notwithstanding their outrageous clothing, the woman immediately caught his eye. Even in the dim light of the candle-lantern, Dee, who had a definite eye for the ladies, could see that her hair and skin were extremely pale; she appeared to be almost albino.

“Damned fine looking woman, all the same,” he muttered to himself, smoothing his whiskers.

It was then that a fourth figure hove into view. Dee sat back in his chair with shock. This was a skeleton, apparently moving of its own volition. Incredibly the humans seemed unsurprised by its presence, and paid it little heed.  

“A Hell-Hound,” he said aloud, crossing himself and instinctively reaching for a rosary, having temporarily forgotten, in his shock, that he was no longer a Catholic.

The Hell-Hound must have sensed that an unseen eye was watching, for it loped back and filled the surface of the scrying-bowl with an inquisitive skull. Dee dropped back in horror when it appeared to sniff the water. The hound then turned around three times, languidly lifted a hind leg, and took a totally dry and ineffective pee. Doctor Dee crossed himself again and decided that he had seen enough for one day.  

Philomena Bucket, Norbert Gannicox and Bartholomew Middlestreet were completely unaware that their progress into the tunnel had been followed by a long-dead Elizabethan, although stranger things had happened on Hopeless.  The way before them was dark and narrow and their footsteps echoed ominously. Only Drury seemed to be at ease, especially now that the thing that had been watching them had gone away.

“It can’t be much further to the end of this tunnel,” said Norbert nervously. “After all, the island isn’t that big.”

“But if it leads to the mainland, as the legends say, we could have miles to go,” said Bartholomew, not sounding too pleased at the prospect.

Philomena was too busy watching Drury to comment. To the left of them the osseous hound had found another passageway. Philomena insisted on following, and the others promised to wait, begging her to shout if there was a problem. In the event, she was gone for less than a minute.

“There is a weird green light along there,” she said. “Drury didn’t like the look of it, and that’s good enough for me.”

Relieved, the others agreed that discretion was the better part of valour and moved on. Had they followed that tunnel they would have found themselves tumbling down into the mysterious sinkhole, the top of which sat innocently in the Night-Soil Man’s garden, two hundred feet above.  No one knew what depths and terrors lay beneath.

“Ten more minutes and then we go back,” said Bartholomew. “These lanterns are not going to burn forever.”

“We won’t need ten minutes,” said Philomena. “Look over there. There is another tunnel, branching off in the opposite direction. I can definitely see light, and it’s not green and it’s not ominous. Look! It’s filled with good old Hopeless fog!”

To be continued…