… New Readers Start Here
On a school trip, Rylan and his friends travel back to the nineteenth century where
they see the greedy Lord Allerton making a poor kitchen girl climb into an ancient
… tomb
But before we get to that you need to know that Lord Allerton has discovered an
…. old document telling him that the fabled Menlove treasure is hidden in
Wait, before that you need to know that the Menlove family were in the Civil War
… and that Lady Menlove
..… No, hang on let’s go back to the very beginning
3001 BC - in a Neolithic village an unusually large baby is born. He’s called Puck.
When he grows up other Neolithic people like to follow him around. He makes
them feel safe because he’s so tall. This makes Puck feel uncomfortable so he leaves
his village. Everyone loves him so much that they follow him. So begins “The Great
Walk”.
2978 BC - Puck keeps walking. Everyone else keeps following. He crosses the land
bridge from France to England and carrying on North. Puck’s friend - Little Foot tells everyone that Puck has a plan, that he is leading them to The Great Destination
where there is free food and the mammoths are careful where they tread. But Puck
just likes walking. He likes it so much that one day, worn out from walking and old
age (he’s 23 years old), he drops dead.
His followers are astounded. No one in the World has ever died of natural
causes before. They have seen people trodden on by mammoths, drowned in rivers,
and eaten by bears. Quite a few members of the group were burned to death when
Fat Flint - the official keeper of the flame - got confused about the rules for starting
fires inside huts. But no one has ever just dropped dead before.
They try to figure out what to do with the body. Fat Flint and Little Foot
devise a kind of stone house with a low door and an underground chamber - a place
where no clumsy mammoth could ever tread. Little Foot uses a stone chisel to
trace the outline of his own foot on one of the big stones - so that everyone will
know he did it. They also put King Puck’s favourite stuff - his comforting wolf skin,
his lucky bear tooth, a jar of his favourite barley wine, his Mum’s skull - in the tomb
with him so he can take them into the next life.
2900 BC - Passage tombs really catch on. Everyone wants one. From the West of
Ireland to the Ukraine, Passage Tombs are a big craze. It turns out that Fat Flint and
Little Foot were the Beatles of burial.
Meanwhile in the next life King Puck, though dead, is quite happy. He’s got his
lucky bear tooth and a nice drink. Because it turns out that you CAN take it with
you.
1900 BC A thousand years later everyone has forgotten who built the passage
tombs that are scattered all over the World. Or why they built them. Or who is
buried in them. But everyone still knows that they are special places. So every now
and then people go and put offerings of grain or wine or skins in the entrances. Or
just go and have picnics next to them and leave a bit of food behind.
The rules of the Next Life are - if there’s someone puts something in your
tomb, you get to keep it. So in the next life, King Puck has lots of grain, lots of skins,
quite a few old arrowheads and lots of bits of meat left over from bronze age picnics.
But is he happy? NO. The Next World is getting quite full now and some of the
people who are there have brought a lot more with them than Puck did. The
Pharaoh Khufu for instance has got golden chariots, a golden boat, servants, jars of
perfume and lots of lovely little lucky amulets. Does he want to share them with
King Puck? No. He just laughs at King Puck. King Puck had a little tiny passage grave
in Liverpool. Khufu has a massive pyramid in Cairo. The Next Life is so unfair. Every
now and then King Puck crawls back into his little passage tomb on the off chance
that someone might have left a golden chariot or similar. No one ever has. Until …
AD 1485 - The new king Henry VII gives the Menlove family some huntin gland near
the river Mersey. Strolling around it happily one morning Henry Menlove comes
across the passage tomb. His huntsman - who has grown up in the area - tells him
that the doorway of the tomb is the entrance to hell. Henry buries a little box in
the entrance containing a crucifix and the mummified hand of St. Igborth.
In the next world, King Puck is delighted. He learns a party trick with the
mummified hand and fools the Pharaoh Khufu into thinking that he has pulled Puck’s
hand off during an enthusiastic handshake. Khufu gives him a small gold chariot and
is very nice to him from then on.
The trick is discovered with St. Igborth comes to the Next Life and asks for
his hand back but by then Khufu and Puck are real friends.
AD 1642 - By now the Menloves are rich farmers. But Civil War breaks out. They
have to decide which side to fight on. In the end the eldest son - William - fights for
the Roundheads, and the second son - Tristram - for the cavaliers. Meanwhile Lady
Menlove - worried that marauding troops will steal them - hides her jewels and the
family silver inside the passage tomb along with a pretty little music box covered in
jewels. She thinks that the fear of ghosts and demons will stop people stealing it.
She’s right.
In the Next World King Puck struts around with Lady Melove’s tiara on his
head. It takes him months to learn how to play the music box but once he masters
it he plays it all day. He and the Pharaoh spend many a happy evening listening to its
pretty tune. They learn to whistle.
Meanwhile back in this life, William and Tristram however are both killed. Tristram is
shot during a slightly-too-exciting game of cards and William is accidentally behead
by the man who cleans the swords.
Lady Menlove runs away to the Caribbean and becomes a pirate. She famously
whistles the tune from the music box before shooting anyone.
AD 1809 - A slave trader and horse breeder named Barney Linnet donates a huge
amount of money to the Liberal Party in return for being made into a Lord. As Lord
Allerton he buys a big park near Liverpool. He builds a vast mansion there and fills it
with paintings, mostly of himself. He becomes very interested in the history of the
place and loves to look at old maps. He is delighted to discover that he has an
ancient passage tomb on his land but is disappointed when it turns out to be so
small. He was hoping for a big stone circle. He tells his chief steward that he is
going to move the stones and make them into a circle out on the lawn where people
can see them. “If we put them in a circle,” he says, “they’ll look more stone agey”.
The Steward is horrified. “Old tradition says they are the gates to hell,” he says,
“also they are haunted by Lady Menlove who forgot to come back for her treasure.
Sometimes you can hear her whistling the tune.”
Lord Allerton agrees not to move the stones but a plot is already forming in
his head. He determines to recover the lost treasure and builds a huge safe in his
house specially to keep it in. Afraid that if it might be true that the tomb is the gate
to hell, he decides to send a little girl down there instead of climbing in himself. So
he tricks the servant girl and some visiting farm workers into helping him move the
stones and steal their treasure.
The servant girls creeps in.
In the next life King Puck can hear someone scrabbling around in his tomb.
The next thing he knows, his favourite music box disappears. Furious he heads for
the tomb - the opening between This World and the Next World - determined to
get his revenge …