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The Dark Portal
''The Dark Portal'' is a dark fantasy novel for children by British author Robin Jarvis. The first book in ''The Deptford Mice'' trilogy and Jarvis's debut novel, it follows the story of Audrey Brown, a mouse girl who is looking for her missing father. Her search takes her into the sewers of Deptford where, with the help of her friends and family, she must face an army of evil rats and their living god, a mysterious being known as Jupiter. The book was first published in the United Kingdom by Macdonald & Company in 1989, and was a runner-up for that year's Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In 2000, it was published by SeaStar Books in the United States and given the Booklist Editors' Choice designation. Plot A community of mice lives an idyllic existence in an old empty house in the London borough of Deptford. The only problem they have is a fear of the vicious rats in the sewers below who worship a mysterious living god called Jupiter. No one has ever seen Jupiter, not even his subje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Jarvis
Robin Jarvis (born 8 May 1963) is a British Young-Adult fiction (YA) and children's novelist, who writes dark fantasy, suspense and supernatural thrillers. His books for young adults have featured the inhabitants of a coastal town battling a monumental malevolence with the help of its last supernatural guardian (The Witching Legacy), a diminutive race of Werglers (shape shifters) pitched against the evil might of the faerie hordes (The Hagwood Trilogy), a sinister "world-switching" dystopian future, triggered by a sinister and hypnotic book (Dancing Jax), Norse Fates, Glastonbury crow-demons and a time travelling, wise-cracking teddy bear. (The Wyrd Museum series), dark powers, a forgotten race and ancient evils on the North Yorkshire coast (The Whitby Witches trilogy), epic medieval adventure (The Oaken Throne) and science-fiction dramatising the "nefarious intrigue" within an alternate Tudor realm, peopled by personalities of the time, automata servants and animals known as Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Man
The Green Man is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. The Green Man is most commonly depicted in a sculpture, or other representation of a face which is made of, or completely surrounded by, leaves. The Green Man motif has many variations. Branches or vines may sprout from the mouth, nostrils, or other parts of the face, and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit. Found in many cultures from many ages around the world, the Green Man is often related to natural vegetation deities. Often used as decorative architectural ornaments, Green Men are frequently found in carvings on both secular and ecclesiastical buildings. "The Green Man" is also a popular name for English public houses, and various interpretations of the name appear on inn signs, which sometimes show a full figure rather than just the face. Some speculate that the mythology of the Green Man developed independently in the tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Rat
The black rat (''Rattus rattus''), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus ''Rattus'', in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is now found worldwide. The black rat is black to light brown in colour with a lighter underside. It is a generalist omnivore and a serious pest to farmers because it feeds on a wide range of agricultural crops. It is sometimes kept as a pet. In parts of India, it is considered sacred and respected in the Karni Mata Temple in Deshnoke. Taxonomy ''Mus rattus'' was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the black rat. Three subspecies were once recognized, but today are considered invalid and are now known to be actually color morphs: *''Rattus rattus rattus'' – roof rat *''Rattus rattus alexandrinus'' – Alexandrine rat *''Rattus rattus frugivorus'' – fruit rat Characteristics A typical adult black rat is long, n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, with the River Tamar forming the border between them. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula of the island of Great Britain. The southwesternmost point is Land's End and the southernmost Lizard Point. Cornwall has a population of and an area of . The county has been administered since 2009 by the unitary authority, Cornwall Council. The ceremonial county of Cornwall also includes the Isles of Scilly, which are administered separately. The administrative centre of Cornwall is Truro, its only city. Cornwall was formerly a Brythonic kingdom and subsequently a royal duchy. It is the cultural and ethnic origin of the Cornish dias ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piebald
A piebald or pied animal is one that has a pattern of unpigmented spots (white) on a pigmented background of hair, feathers or scales. Thus a piebald black and white dog is a black dog with white spots. The animal's skin under the white background is not pigmented. Location of the unpigmented spots is dependent on the migration of melanoblasts (primordial pigment cells) from the neural crest to paired bilateral locations in the skin of the early embryo. The resulting pattern appears symmetrical only if melanoblasts migrate to both locations of a pair and proliferate to the same degree in both locations. The appearance of symmetry can be obliterated if the proliferation of the melanocytes (pigment cells) within the developing spots is so great that the sizes of the spots increase to the point that some of the spots merge, leaving only small areas of the white background among the spots and at the tips of the extremities. Animals with this pattern may include birds, cats, cattl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cutty Sark
''Cutty Sark'' is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Leven, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development for this type of vessel, which halted as steamships took over their routes. She was named after the apparel (short shirt) of the fictional witch in the Robert Burns poem: Tam o’ Shanter. After the big improvement in the fuel efficiency of steamships in 1866, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 gave them a shorter route to China, so ''Cutty Sark'' spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Continuing improvements in steam technology meant that gradually steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia, and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895 and renamed ''Fer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midshipman
A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. In the 17th century, a midshipman was a rating for an experienced seaman, and the word derives from the area aboard a ship, amidships, either where he worked on the ship, or where he was berthed. Beginning in the 18th century, a commissioned officer candidate was rated as a midshipman, and the seaman rating began to slowly die out. By the Napoleonic era (1793–1815), a midshipman was an apprentice officer who had previously served at least three years as a volunteer, officer's servant or able seaman, and was roughly equivalent to a present-day petty officer in rank and responsibilities. After serving at least three years as a midshipman or master's mate, he was eligible to take the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divining Rod
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Germany ''alone'' can generate a conservatively-estimated annual revenue of more than 100 million DM (US$50 million)"''GWUP-Psi-Tests 2004: Keine Million Dollar für PSI-Fähigkeiten'' (in German) an. gravesites, malign "earth vibrations" and many other objects and materials without the use of a scientific apparatus. It is also known as divining (especially in water divining), doodlebugging (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum or treasure) or (when searching for water) water finding, or water witching (in the United States). A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones—individually called a dowsing rod, divining rod (Latin: ''virgula divina'' or ''baculus divinatorius''), vining rod, or witching rod—are sometim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Mouse
The house mouse (''Mus musculus'') is a small mammal of the order Rodentia, characteristically having a pointed snout, large rounded ears, and a long and almost hairless tail. It is one of the most abundant species of the genus '' Mus''. Although a wild animal, the house mouse has benefited significantly from associating with human habitation to the point that truly wild populations are significantly less common than the semi-tame populations near human activity. The house mouse has been domesticated as the pet or fancy mouse, and as the laboratory mouse, which is one of the most important model organisms in biology and medicine. The complete mouse reference genome was sequenced in 2002. Characteristics House mice have an adult body length (nose to base of tail) of and a tail length of . The weight is typically . In the wild they vary in color from grey and light brown to black (individual hairs are actually agouti coloured), but domesticated fancy mice and laboratory mice ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or born within earshot of Bow Bells, although it most commonly refers to the broad variety of English native to London. Estuary English is an intermediate accent between Cockney and Received Pronunciation, also widely spoken in and around London, as well as in wider southeastern England. In multicultural areas of London, the Cockney dialect is, to an extent, being replaced by Multicultural London English—a new form of speech with significant Cockney influence. Words and phrases Etymology of Cockney The earliest recorded use of the term is 1362 in passus VI of William Langland's ''Piers Plowman'', where it is used to mean "a small, misshapen egg", from Middle English ''coken'' + ''ey'' ("a cock's egg"). Concurrently, the mythical land of l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis'' spread by fleas, but it can also take a secondary form where it is spread by person-to-person contact via aerosols causing septicaemic or pneumonic plagues. The Black Death was the beginning of the second plague pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history. The origin of the Black Death is disputed. The pandemic originated either in Central Asia or East Asia before spreading to Crimea with the Golden Horde army of Jani Beg as he was besieging the Genoese trading port of Kaffa in Crimea (1347). From Crimea, it was most likely carried ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dowsing Rod
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Germany ''alone'' can generate a conservatively-estimated annual revenue of more than 100 million DM (US$50 million)"''GWUP-Psi-Tests 2004: Keine Million Dollar für PSI-Fähigkeiten'' (in German) an. gravesites, malign "earth vibrations" and many other objects and materials without the use of a scientific apparatus. It is also known as divining (especially in water divining), doodlebugging (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum or treasure) or (when searching for water) water finding, or water witching (in the United States). A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones—individually called a dowsing rod, divining rod (Latin: ''virgula divina'' or ''baculus divinatorius''), vining rod, or witching rod—are sometim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_SLV_H91.250-164.jpg "Click for more on -> Cutty Sark")
