On Midsummer's Eve, as everybody knows, you should leave a bowl of milk
out for the fairies. Unfortunately--or fortunately--Fred Barber, an
American diplomat convalescing in Yorkshire, didn't take the obligation
with proper seriousness. He swapped the milk for a stiff dose of Scotch.
So he had only himself to blame if the fairies got a bit muddled. Barber
found himself in an Old English Fairyland. At the Court of King Oberon,
to be precise. The natural--or supernatural--laws there were, to say the
least of it, distinctly odd. Things kept changing. This made the mission
with which he was entrusted, as the price of his return to the normal
world, even harder than he expected. He had to penetrate the Kobold
Hills, where it was said that swords were being made, and discover if an
ancient enemy had returned. He was given a magic wand--but not told how
to use it. Through the fields and forests he went, meeting dryads and
sprites, ogres and two-headed eagles, on the way. Danger, seduction, and
magic lay all around him. And, as the adventure continued, somehow it
darkened and became more seriousness. At the end of Fred Barber's quest
lay a shattering revelation.
