There was a story kicking about earlier this week about how scientists had 'solved' the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle - which is great. Another veiled attack by Science on the Magic of the World is just what we need around the place. Science is fantastic at things like finding cures for diseases that kill people, making whatever it is that's in plastic stick together so that we can watch TV on something that keeps its shape as a rectangle... those kinds of things.
But when it comes to the Magic of the World - of which there is precious little left - Science needs to back off.
Science wouldn't like it if Magic came along and pointed out that, despite their best laid plans and equations (which mean nothing if you're not a scientist) a TV retains its shape as a rectangle because those very same equations are actually a magical formula they have simply failed to recognise. Overnight, while they are at the Science Bar (kind of like a Sports Bar but they screen clips of 1970s Open University shows) perhaps Elves came along, saw what the Scientists were trying so hard to achieve and made it so.
They were helpful enough to the Shoemaker... why not the Scientists? It's crazy talk but no crazier than the crackpot idea that a black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it.
What?
Anyway, also earlier this week, it may even have been the same day, I came across a Gateway to the Underworld. I took Hector out for a long walk and during a sniffing session that went on far too long, this tree (below) shifted a little. Not much. If I hadn't been standing still next to it, soaking up and breathing in the atmosphere of the wood, I would have missed it.
The beauty of an Underworld Tree is its ability to be exactly like all of the other trees in the wood, but that's not the whole story. Over time - and this can be hundreds of years - if they happen to have grown over a Gateway, the laws of the woodland state they must leave access at all times and the tree will nudge itself around accordingly.
Having seen the tree shift, I got down on the ground for closer inspection and as suspected, in between the roots and the earth, I found an authentic Gateway To Another World. I've seen them hidden better than this before, but I've also seen a lot worse. It's not something the tree has a whole lot of control over which is where undergrowth and ivy come into play to back it up.
I took a couple of pictures to show you the Gateway here in close-up and I'll leave it at that. You don't need to know where it is - only that such things exist.
You can believe or not believe. Makes no difference to us in the slightest.