The glossary
Words the hollow uses, as far as you have read. The ledger keeps your place. It does not read ahead.
Showing words through Day 3.
No such word has been recorded.
- the Anunder
- The country beneath. Everything under the hedge and behind the wall and down between the mushrooms, from this hollow to Gnomesby and past it to places the ledger has heard of and not visited. Letters come by beetle in the Anunder. Names are held. Nobody comes in. First recorded on Day One
- grumlin
- A gnome, and a gnome, for anyone who has only seen the ones in gardens, is a person about the height of a good boot, built low and wide as if by someone who expected weather. Wears a hat; to be without one is nakedness. Holds that a thing belongs to whoever wrote it down, and keeps the records accordingly. First recorded on Day One Expanded after Day Two
- fliskie
- A winged person of the hedge, of a size from a thumb joint to three of anyone else, with ranks, a Court and a Table of Precedence. To be without wings is a funeral. Holds that a thing belongs to whoever is holding it. First recorded on Day One Expanded after Day Two
- hollowfolk
- The people of a hollow, of both peoples, taken together, which is not often. They regard the green much as sailors regard the sea and Gnomesby much as sailors regard the far shore. First recorded on Day One
- the hollow
- This one: the gate at the foot of the hedge, the path of flat stones, the mushroom patch, the compost heap, Wick's shed, the table where the ledger is kept, and the window above the gate where it is watched from. First recorded on Day One
- the Occupant
- What the ledger called the newcomer from the night she came through the gate. Not a title, and not to be mistaken for one. The ledger will call her something else when it has reason to, and not before, and it has said so. First recorded on Day One
- keeper
- The one who keeps a hollow, which takes three seals: the Gate, which is Mungo's word, and Mungo does not give his word; the Court, which is the seal of the Court of the Fliskies, a day's flight away; and the Ledger, which is a page in Grizel's book in your own hand, and nobody has ever written in Grizel's book but Grizel. A hollow with no keeper at first frost is, under Clause Seven, Unkept. First recorded on Day One
- the Above
- The people of the Stair, seen only as boots, hands, a torch and a watering can, and understood by the hollow as one enormous presence with many boots and a theology. Rain is it washing its boots. Every hollow has a theology of the Above and no two agree. First recorded on Day One
- the Stair
- The tall building of flats above the green, six floors of it, full of the Above in its many boots. Holds a meeting every spring about the hedge and cuts it never, on the grounds that it is always somebody else's turn. Notices things late. First recorded on Day One
- the green
- The stretch of grass beyond the gate, with the drying poles in it and the bins along the wall and Gnomesby at the far end. To the hollowfolk it is the sea, and is crossed by nobody who can help it. First recorded on Day One
- relocated
- Not stolen. Fliskies hold that a thing belongs to whoever is holding it, so nothing a fliskie takes is taken; it has been relocated, and there is usually a note saying so, in a hand the size of a seed. Bootlaces are relocated. First recorded on Day One Expanded after Day Two
- a Mungo
- A unit of time: the pause between being told nobody comes in and coming in. Agreed after the first such pause, which was considerable and for which no unit then existed. Wick built a device to measure it. The device is nearly ready. First recorded on Day One
- nearly ready
- Wick's description of the things he makes. His stool is nearly ready. His device to measure a Mungo is nearly ready. The ledger has recorded both statements. First recorded on Day One Expanded after Day Three
- tipped
- What one does for a beetle that has carried a letter, and what nobody did on the first day, partly because the newcomer had nothing to tip it with and partly because nobody told her. The beetle left with the air of a beetle who would be mentioning this. Of all the decisions made in the hollow that week, this was the one with the longest consequences, and nobody made it. First recorded on Day One
- Adequate
- A rank of the Court of the Fliskies, and Lady Pettigrew's, and to be addressed as Your Adequacy. Look it up. First recorded on Day Two
- the Table of Precedence
- The Court's order of rank. Kept, at the time the ledger first mentions it, in Grizel's book between a recipe for nettle soup and a grudge, where it had been since the first winter and where nobody had looked at it. First recorded on Day Two
- Clause Seven
- Of the Treaty of the Mushroom Patch: a hollow with no keeper at first frost reverts to Gnomesby, for safekeeping. The word safekeeping was doing a great deal of work in that sentence, and knew it, and had brought a chair. First recorded on Day One