Saturday, February the 11th, 2006
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The fact-packed sixteenth episode of The Immense Duckpond Pamphlet
Glagolitic script was invented in the latter half of the ninth century by the monk Cyril, who is better known for having devised the alphabet which bears his name, Cyrillic. Glagolitic was designed to provide a written rendering of Old Slavonic, the language spoken by the Moravians among whom Cyril and his brother Methodius were carrying out their holy work. The word glagol, or hlahol, cannot easily be translated into English. Its meaning involves the sound of bells and the call to the glory of God in worship.
Moop seems not to have considered such associations when one considers the subject-matter of her secretive Glagolitic scribblings. She was embroiled in the study of a fiendish species of flatworms known as planaria, which kill and feed on earthworms. The vile flatworms excrete an enzyme like a narcotic drug that paralyses an earthworm completely. Then they excrete another that dissolves the worm into a sort of soup. Then they suck it up. In the space of half an hour, all that remains is a trace of soil from the earthworm's stomach.
Planaria are successful because they have no known predators. Having no muscles, these hideous flatworms simply fall apart if any attempt is made to eat them. Like a vagabond horde, planaria are highly mobile, wiping out all the earthworms in one area before moving on relentlessly to another. It is not difficult to imagine what havoc Moop could wreak in Doctor Cack's potato-patches by introducing a gang of killer flatworms. Let us remember that the good Doctor had entitled a special issue of his Bulletin Let Us Now Sing The Praises Of The Humble Earthworm, so essential was its contribution to potato cultivation.