Tales From Elliseran Hooded Bluff

By Ken Long

Tales from Elliseran told by Brogan Kragbeard of the Mountain Dwarfs.

Darid aed'k't,, darid r'du', piab emdikamsek
(Dwarven ‘Good friends, good books, is joy’)

Oh, I didn’t see you there. Hello and welcome to my library. My name is Brogan Kragbeard of the Mountain Dwarves.

You can follow Giggles on her first adventure on the island of Hooded Bluff as she tries to get the egg of the Shadowleaf bird. Only by stealing the egg from Gildryd The Jealous One can Giggles free her brother from his glass prison. That is if she can get past the talking pie and the Tils.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Long
• Release date: Dec 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463535004

Ken Long

Ken Long is a retired teacher. After retiring from teaching Ken worked as lead programmer on the two highly successful education programs, LessonMaker and the Primary Explorer Series. Both packages were used in primary schools in the UK and across forty countries worldwide. Ken now lives in France where he works on his creation, the fantasy land of Elliseran - Land of Five Islands. on which he bases his books as told by Brogan Kragbeard of the Mountain Dwarfs. Ken uses his skills in IT to enhanced the stories with 3-D character pictures unique to Elliseran. These same characters can be seen singing, dancing and moving around Elliseran on the Elliseran website. This multitasking has allowed Ken to produce and continue to produce a unique total book experience.

Book preview

Darid aed'k't,, darid r'du', piab emdikamsek

(Dwarven ‘Good friends, good books, is joy.’)

Oh, I didn’t see you there. Hello and welcome to my library. My name is Brogan Kragbeard of the Mountain Dwarves. As you can see, I have a lot of books in my library. Some I even wrote myself because you see, I collect stories and then write them down.

Now one of my favourite places for collecting stories is in the land of Elliseran.

Have you been to Elliseran? Maybe in your dreams?

It’s very easy to get there. All you need to do is turn right at the next dream and go straight on. In no time at all you will be there. It really is a wonderful place and full of all kinds of adventures and even a little magic. Actually, there is rather a lot of magic in Elliseran.

Anyway, I go there quite often as it is full of good stories as well as good friends. In fact, if you like I will tell you about an adventure a very good friend of mine had.

Did you say yes?

OK then. As I said this is a story set in the land of Elliseran, a land that I will describe before I introduce you to my friend that lives there.

Now you see Elliseran is also known as the Land of the Five Kingdoms. The nearest kingdom to you and me is in the south-east and is called Hooded Bluff. This is where we are now and a very nice green and sunny kingdom it is as well. The other four kingdoms are Hidden Gorge, Serpent Ravine, Fustrana Kingdom, and the largest, and the most, mysterious Crogalla Kingdom.

I have a map of Elliseran. Now where is it. I really must tidy up my library.

Ah, here it is.

As you can see from the map, Hooded Bluff is the smallest of the kingdoms. It is almost as far south-east as you can go in Elliseran before running into a dream and leaving. All the kingdoms are in fact islands.

Now, Hooded Bluff is very different from the other kingdoms. It is the only one that does not have a ruler and so is not really a kingdom. Because of its small size, none of the other kingdoms ever bother with it. So, the inhabitants of Hooded Bluff know little or nothing of the people and creatures that occupy the four kingdoms and these other people know little or nothing about Hooded Bluff.

Hooded Bluff is a wonderful island full of trees and hill paths. I really love wandering through the woods and coming upon one of the small villages of the Wood Halflings. They are very friendly folk and always invite visitors to join them for tea and cake.

I’ll tell you what, instead of us all standing here in my messy library; we can go upstairs to my sitting room. It will be much more comfortable. Come on then.

Watch that fourth step. It can be a bit difficult at times what with its creaking and moaning.

‘Who’s moaning?’

Oh, do be quiet step.

OK please sit down and I will get a nice warm drink for us. It’s a bit dark in here I know but you would not believe the price of candles these days.

Now before I get into our story, as I said an adventure in fact, I will tell you a little more about Hooded Bluff. You will learn more about the other kingdoms perhaps later if you read one of my other books.

Do you know why it is called Hooded Bluff?

Well the reason is very simple. In the north of the island there is a very rocky area with large cliffs. These are known as the Bluffs.

There is one part of this area that has a valley between the Bluffs and here one bluff is topped with an outcrop of rocks that look like a hood. So that is the Hooded Bluff that the island is named after.

This area is full of mystery with torches burning at the head of the valley day and night as well as in the hood of the Hooded Bluff. But do you know what? No-one ever placed those torches there and they seem to burn forever. I think they are enchanted torches.

No-one ever visits this area or has ever walked up the valley. No-one that is except my friend Giggles - but more of that later.

On the island three main people live: Ground Elves, Wood Halflings and the Bog Knolls. Here are some pictures of them.

Can you guess which is which?

There are in fact a few other creatures living on Hooded Bluff and very probably I will come to them later.

The Ground Elves, Wood Halflings and Bog Knolls don’t meet very much because they all live in very different parts of Hooded Bluff. But they do meet at big parties to celebrate certain days of the year and are very friendly to each other. Just try visiting a Wood Halfling without having to drink lots of tea and eat lots of lovely cake.

The Ground Elves live mainly underground whilst the Wood Halflings live on the surface of the island and mainly in its many woods, whilst the Bog Knolls live….

Well, where do you think they live?

Of course, it is in or at least very close to the bogs and the swamps.

Because they hardly ever meet there are very few arguments between them, and this makes Hooded Bluff a nice peaceful place to live. Apart from the parties, Ground Elves, Wood Halflings and Bog Knolls only come to meetings when any danger or big problem threatens Hooded Bluff.

The last time was fifty tunnels ago in Ground Elf time.

As it takes four of your years to dig a new tunnel how long in your years do you think that was?

Well I make it two-hundred years. So, you see there are very few times that danger threatens the island of Hooded Bluff.

My story takes us to one of those times of danger. But before that I should mention that there are other important, but never seen, residents on Hooded Bluff.

Meet Giggles

OK let’s get on with our story. Firstly, let me introduce you to my friend. Her name is Betsy Giggleglade and she is eleven of your years old. But she is not a girl like any of your friends. Betsy is a Ground Elf.

Now Ground Elves are a little different to the usual elves such as Wood Elves and Water Elves. Elves are usually small and slim and can flit from place to place in the most graceful manner. Wood Elves and Water Elves are related to Ground Elves, as all elves are, but are not too similar. In fact, one of Betsy’s cousins, a water elf, came to stay once but did not at all like living in a hole in the ground - no matter how big it was.

Ground Elves are, well, a bit bigger than their cousins. As they live and work mainly underground, they have a similar look to dwarves without the beards I think, but don’t tell anyone I said that. We Dwarves as we all know, work in the mountains of Elliseran creating large underground caverns in our search for our favourite thing; gold. I suppose I am a little different from most Dwarves as I like searching for good stories more than gold.

We do dig some magnificent tunnels and caverns. Many of my cousins have built the most wonderful halls and galleries under the mountains.

Anyway, Ground Elves like to be called Grelfs and they are not