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The Book of Weird
Read The Book of Weird (originally published as The Glass Harmonica) and enter into the mysterious netherworld of the fantastical. Ever since its original publication over a quarter of a century ago, this book has delighted fans of arcana and the occult. Now, a new package will draw still another generation to its mysterious charms. With the help of this playful sourcebook, you can decide which sounds like the more attractive occupation--witch or sorceress (or warlock or wizard). Using the table of ancient remedies you can learn how to cure common afflictions--from epilepsy to warts--that have plagued human history from the dawn of time. And by reading this book, you will finally know the proper time for matins and vespers, and when to celebrate Candlemas, Beltane, and Michaelmas. The Book of Weird will take you through each of the deadly sins, and for good measure, each of the splendid virtues. You will learn how to avoid werewolves and vampires, and what to do to get rid of ghosts. It will teach you how to distinguish an incubus from a succubus in order to determine which you'd rather be visited by in the dark of night. Whether you are faced with gnome or dwarf, troll or ogre, elf or fairy, you will know the difference after browsing through this fun-filled, informative treasure chest of hidden knowledge.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
2 people are currently reading
207 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Ninde Byfield
22 books6 followersBarbara Ninde was the middle of three children of Harry Warrington Ninde, Jr. (1899-1980), who worked as the manager of a mortgage and loan company, and Elizabeth Rudisill, née Freeman (1899-1986), who were married in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on 14 November 1925. Barbara had an older sister and a younger brother.
Barbara attended the University of Wyoming for two years, 1947-49. She married Hugh W. Byfield (1922-1984) in Chicago on 19 April 1956. They had two daughters, but the marriage did not last long and they were divorced. Byfield signed all of her books as by Barbara Ninde Byfield. Through the 1960s-70s she lived in New York City.
Her first book, of several self-illustrated juveniles, was The Eating in Bed Cookbook (1962), and it was followed by a series comprising The Haunted Spy (1969), The Haunted Churchbell (1971), The Haunted Ghost (1973) and The Haunted Tower (1976). An unrelated self-illustrated book was Andrew and the Alchemist (1977; retitled The Man Who Made Gold, 1980). Byfield wrote the text for Smedley Hoover, His Day (1976), based around photographs by Sara Krulwich, and four adult mystery novels appeared as Solemn High Murder (co-written with Frank L. Tedeschi, 1975), Forever Wilt Thou Die (1976), A Harder Thing than Triumph (1977), and A Parcel of Their Fortunes (1979). These four novels center around an Episcopalian high churchman, the Reverend Dr. Simon Bede, and his friend, photographer Nancy Bullock. Byfield also illustrated a handful of works by other authors, and had a half-dozen contributions to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine between 1982 and 1986.
Byfield’s most significant publication relating to the fantasy genre is The Glass Harmonica: A Lexicon of the Fantastical (New York: Macmillan, 1967), which was retitled The Book of Weird when it was republished by Doubleday in 1973. It is a witty, illustrated compendium of just over one hundred alphabetical entries, on topics ranging from “Advisors” and “Alchemists”, on through “Castles and Palaces” and “Crones and Hags” to “Dragons”, “Dwarves” (spelt like, and similar to, the Tolkienian sort), “Kings”, “Queens”, “Serfs and Peasants”, “Vampires” and finally “Wizards”. There is a vein of humor to the entries, as in the one for “Mangel-Wurzel” which is defined as “a type of beet which should, like all beets, be used only to feed cattle. It is a crop which seldom fails and is much planted by Serfs and Peasants” (p. 98). And there is a lot of useful information for the deviser of quasi-medieval fantasy worlds, telling of the various landscapes (and what grows on them) as well as nice illustrations for various vessels like flagons, goblets, blackjacks, horns and tankards. It several ways in can be seen as a precursor to Diana Wynne Jones’s The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1996, revised 2006).
Barbara attended the University of Wyoming for two years, 1947-49. She married Hugh W. Byfield (1922-1984) in Chicago on 19 April 1956. They had two daughters, but the marriage did not last long and they were divorced. Byfield signed all of her books as by Barbara Ninde Byfield. Through the 1960s-70s she lived in New York City.
Her first book, of several self-illustrated juveniles, was The Eating in Bed Cookbook (1962), and it was followed by a series comprising The Haunted Spy (1969), The Haunted Churchbell (1971), The Haunted Ghost (1973) and The Haunted Tower (1976). An unrelated self-illustrated book was Andrew and the Alchemist (1977; retitled The Man Who Made Gold, 1980). Byfield wrote the text for Smedley Hoover, His Day (1976), based around photographs by Sara Krulwich, and four adult mystery novels appeared as Solemn High Murder (co-written with Frank L. Tedeschi, 1975), Forever Wilt Thou Die (1976), A Harder Thing than Triumph (1977), and A Parcel of Their Fortunes (1979). These four novels center around an Episcopalian high churchman, the Reverend Dr. Simon Bede, and his friend, photographer Nancy Bullock. Byfield also illustrated a handful of works by other authors, and had a half-dozen contributions to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine between 1982 and 1986.
Byfield’s most significant publication relating to the fantasy genre is The Glass Harmonica: A Lexicon of the Fantastical (New York: Macmillan, 1967), which was retitled The Book of Weird when it was republished by Doubleday in 1973. It is a witty, illustrated compendium of just over one hundred alphabetical entries, on topics ranging from “Advisors” and “Alchemists”, on through “Castles and Palaces” and “Crones and Hags” to “Dragons”, “Dwarves” (spelt like, and similar to, the Tolkienian sort), “Kings”, “Queens”, “Serfs and Peasants”, “Vampires” and finally “Wizards”. There is a vein of humor to the entries, as in the one for “Mangel-Wurzel” which is defined as “a type of beet which should, like all beets, be used only to feed cattle. It is a crop which seldom fails and is much planted by Serfs and Peasants” (p. 98). And there is a lot of useful information for the deviser of quasi-medieval fantasy worlds, telling of the various landscapes (and what grows on them) as well as nice illustrations for various vessels like flagons, goblets, blackjacks, horns and tankards. It several ways in can be seen as a precursor to Diana Wynne Jones’s The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1996, revised 2006).
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 1, 2009
My uncle had this big, weird, Book of Weird. My brother either gave it to him, or borrowed it, I can't remember now. But then I borrowed it, and my friend and I totally memorised the whole thing, pretty much. It was a great tool for our creative writing. And I had kept it for a long time, until my uncle asked for it back, and so back it went. Then he lost the summer house, where it was kept, to fire. And while we mourned our "camp" and all its lifelong family treasures, I remembered I had just given this book back and now it was gone, too. Then I went to university, and in the spring, I was in the uni book shop, and I came across this smaller book format, same book, same drawings, same everything. I had never seen it anywhere, other than the copy of my uncle's. And so I thought, well, that is very weird. I must buy it and give it back to him... again. So I did. And then, he decided to hand it back to me, as he felt I should have it. And so I have kept this Weird book, and have treasured it, and all it's little inside knowledge about castles and dungeons, ladies and lords, ghouls and fairy godmothers, bleeding, disguises, knaves, and vampires. It is essential reading for the complete lexicon of the fantastical and the mystical. And for anyone who might want to do some creative writing about the undead, or maybe mediaeval times, it is a great handbook.
October 27, 2008
Fun book! A thoroughly infirmative an silly dictionary of "ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night"! You will learn things you never knew and see things from an angle you never thoughy of when you read the entries in this book. I remember laughing out loud and crying tears of laughter when I first read this one. I have a large format edition that is falling apart (under another title, Glass Harmonica: A Lexicon of the Fantastic) and I have this new handy-sized printing.
This is a great book to have on Halloween or whenever you want a good chill and a laugh.
And things that go bump in the night"! You will learn things you never knew and see things from an angle you never thoughy of when you read the entries in this book. I remember laughing out loud and crying tears of laughter when I first read this one. I have a large format edition that is falling apart (under another title, Glass Harmonica: A Lexicon of the Fantastic) and I have this new handy-sized printing.
This is a great book to have on Halloween or whenever you want a good chill and a laugh.
August 11, 2008
Did you know that Garth Nix actually named a character after this author and her fascinating book? Whimsical, informational, and unforgettable, this is an essential book on any fantasy writer's bookshelf.
August 3, 2016
"Here shines the mysterious light."
July 18, 2019
This is a strange, beautiful and original work which Scrap sent to me and which I knew nothing about beforehand.
From the opening pages description;
"The Book of Weird
being a most Desirable Lexicon of the Fantastical Wherein Kings and Dragons, Trolls and Vampires, to say nothing of Elves and Gnomes, Queens, Knaves and Werewolves, are made Manifest, and many, many further Revelations of the Mystical Order of Things."
I and Scrap both wondered if this was an Appendix N work. Copyright 1967 and published in 1973 it seems to be the kind of thing that Gygax would be reading as he was working on D&D. But I have never heard a mention of it until now. Perhaps it simply swam in the same sea, a A pre D&D Cambrian explosion book, like a soft bodied organism that has not yet grown a fossilised shell.
It is a kind of parallel text to the Manuals and codification of Dungeons and Dragons. But in this, the book itself is an act of play, not a guide towards one. D&D is a 'real' book of record. the things it refers to are imaginary, but you do really need to look them up in an immediate coherent way. Book of Weird is a 'false' or pseudo-record.
It uses the same listing, ordering and information hierarchy as a book of record, but bends those structures to make them deliberately, slightly impractical. It will 'hide' elements inside strange hierarchies of meaning. 'Apotheosis', the act of becoming a god, comes under 'Guises and Disguises'. Its also insanely hyper-specific at points. A 'Dastard' is not a 'Poltroon', both are quite different. Within the entries are winding courses of words, slight pseudo-formal backward-phrasing, and verse. Like very serious answers to the kinds of question a child might ask.
And a construction of unknowing. The imaginary authority can tell you this particular thing, but this other thing adjacent to it is quite unknown. Of course both are largely products of the creators imagination, so what is known and unknown about the suggested world is a purely-constructed silence deliberately inviting creation and interpretation on the part of the reader.
It is also a work of visual art, illustrated by Byfield on almost every page. One huge thing that makes it different to the Gygaxian branch is that text and image are imagined spatially, emotionally and factually as-one across every spread. Image relates to text, and the balance of the image to the text is fluid and weighted, so the pages 'flow' not just in a linear sense in the way that their meaning is apprehended but in a spatial and proportionate sense.
You can still use it but it is made to be deliciously, a only slightly impractical. Things are not quite what would be expected so reading is an act of discovery.
Of course, Scrap and I did a lot of this in Fire on the Velvet Horizon, its only reading this book, made 50+ years earlier, and thinking about it, that has let me put some of those methods and techniques into words.
The original version was titled 'The Glass Harmonica' an item referred to only once inside the book, in an offhand manner, and which, if it has some poetic relationship to the meaning of the work as a whole, is beyond me. This very Scrap/Patrick touch was it seems too obscure for the publishers and they changed it for the next edition.
The fictional and imaginative world this draws from seems to be a similar one to the 'Walter Scott Shared Fictional Universe' I imagined in previous posts. A historical-dramatic viewpoint and aesthetic grouping running from Scotts popular novels, through 19th century theatre and into early 20th Century film, ending with 'The Vikings'.
It is a story-world more than anything else, a little like the Discworld. The Barons (well horsed and housed) of 19th Century Medievalism, mix with the Beux of 18th and 19th century modern fiction.
Soothsayers from Shakespere mix with fortune tellers from penny novels. The Landscape seems to be the same generalised imaginative Landscape of the Anglo diaspora between the 17th and 20th centuries. Something a little like a romanticised England, but bigger in scale and with some things England never had.
From the opening pages description;
"The Book of Weird
being a most Desirable Lexicon of the Fantastical Wherein Kings and Dragons, Trolls and Vampires, to say nothing of Elves and Gnomes, Queens, Knaves and Werewolves, are made Manifest, and many, many further Revelations of the Mystical Order of Things."
I and Scrap both wondered if this was an Appendix N work. Copyright 1967 and published in 1973 it seems to be the kind of thing that Gygax would be reading as he was working on D&D. But I have never heard a mention of it until now. Perhaps it simply swam in the same sea, a A pre D&D Cambrian explosion book, like a soft bodied organism that has not yet grown a fossilised shell.
It is a kind of parallel text to the Manuals and codification of Dungeons and Dragons. But in this, the book itself is an act of play, not a guide towards one. D&D is a 'real' book of record. the things it refers to are imaginary, but you do really need to look them up in an immediate coherent way. Book of Weird is a 'false' or pseudo-record.
It uses the same listing, ordering and information hierarchy as a book of record, but bends those structures to make them deliberately, slightly impractical. It will 'hide' elements inside strange hierarchies of meaning. 'Apotheosis', the act of becoming a god, comes under 'Guises and Disguises'. Its also insanely hyper-specific at points. A 'Dastard' is not a 'Poltroon', both are quite different. Within the entries are winding courses of words, slight pseudo-formal backward-phrasing, and verse. Like very serious answers to the kinds of question a child might ask.
And a construction of unknowing. The imaginary authority can tell you this particular thing, but this other thing adjacent to it is quite unknown. Of course both are largely products of the creators imagination, so what is known and unknown about the suggested world is a purely-constructed silence deliberately inviting creation and interpretation on the part of the reader.
It is also a work of visual art, illustrated by Byfield on almost every page. One huge thing that makes it different to the Gygaxian branch is that text and image are imagined spatially, emotionally and factually as-one across every spread. Image relates to text, and the balance of the image to the text is fluid and weighted, so the pages 'flow' not just in a linear sense in the way that their meaning is apprehended but in a spatial and proportionate sense.
You can still use it but it is made to be deliciously, a only slightly impractical. Things are not quite what would be expected so reading is an act of discovery.
Of course, Scrap and I did a lot of this in Fire on the Velvet Horizon, its only reading this book, made 50+ years earlier, and thinking about it, that has let me put some of those methods and techniques into words.
The original version was titled 'The Glass Harmonica' an item referred to only once inside the book, in an offhand manner, and which, if it has some poetic relationship to the meaning of the work as a whole, is beyond me. This very Scrap/Patrick touch was it seems too obscure for the publishers and they changed it for the next edition.
The fictional and imaginative world this draws from seems to be a similar one to the 'Walter Scott Shared Fictional Universe' I imagined in previous posts. A historical-dramatic viewpoint and aesthetic grouping running from Scotts popular novels, through 19th century theatre and into early 20th Century film, ending with 'The Vikings'.
It is a story-world more than anything else, a little like the Discworld. The Barons (well horsed and housed) of 19th Century Medievalism, mix with the Beux of 18th and 19th century modern fiction.
Soothsayers from Shakespere mix with fortune tellers from penny novels. The Landscape seems to be the same generalised imaginative Landscape of the Anglo diaspora between the 17th and 20th centuries. Something a little like a romanticised England, but bigger in scale and with some things England never had.
December 22, 2020
Byfield counterbalanced the grim and the whimsical so well. If, like me, you've wanted to read this guide thanks to its great cameo appearances in the 5-star horror story "Events at Poroth Farm," you should know that the tone here is mostly light and arch, not that of a true believer (or someone pretending to be). But it's not quite as parodistic as Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, either.
The Glass Harmonica is a brief compendium of fantasy literature staples, collecting information about the habits of vampires and dwarves, delineating the differences between oracles and psychics. Her tricky voice is at a certain remove, the whisper at the tavern, which preserves some of the magic. The royals are silly, but potent; the wizards are powerful, but prone to corruption. Age and rot and decay lurk at the edges. Her young dukes are destined to grow old and unhealthy. Her witches spend their afterlives mutely laboring in hell. Byfield makes fantastic decisions about how her gnomes and elves live; their described behavior is suggestive without being truly exposed to daylight.
This work fits best as a companion piece for an OSR role-playing game (such as Dungeon Crawl Classics), in which a game master can briefly consult an entry on giants or poison to determine a unique, interesting, or disturbing course of action.
The Glass Harmonica is a brief compendium of fantasy literature staples, collecting information about the habits of vampires and dwarves, delineating the differences between oracles and psychics. Her tricky voice is at a certain remove, the whisper at the tavern, which preserves some of the magic. The royals are silly, but potent; the wizards are powerful, but prone to corruption. Age and rot and decay lurk at the edges. Her young dukes are destined to grow old and unhealthy. Her witches spend their afterlives mutely laboring in hell. Byfield makes fantastic decisions about how her gnomes and elves live; their described behavior is suggestive without being truly exposed to daylight.
This work fits best as a companion piece for an OSR role-playing game (such as Dungeon Crawl Classics), in which a game master can briefly consult an entry on giants or poison to determine a unique, interesting, or disturbing course of action.
July 23, 2019
Oh - this was one of those seminal books of my youth. Actually, it was a copy owned by a good friend's older brother, which, of course, only added to its cachet. It was everything a fantasy-reading junior-high kid wanted. Wonderful, blotchy/scratchy ink illustrations, and memetic lists distilled from every fairy tale and fantasy novel I'd ever read or wanted to read. When I got out of college and worked at Harmony Books, I cajoled the editors to try to reprint this, but I think we were never able to get in touch with the author. A number of years later, in a conversation with Bruce Coville, I discovered that he had a similar experience with the book. If you want a taste of this (and can't access the original), Diana Wynne Jones's The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a close approximation, but nothing as evocative.
November 26, 2020
This is, as the subtitle says, "A lexicon of the fantastical," covering such topics as wizards, witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, castles, demons, spirits, as well as things like bedbugs, mangel-wurzel, monasteries, nunneries, and many other things. And it is an absolute delight, written in a very literate but whimsical style. It is obvious that the author had a lot of fun writing it -- and illustrating it. he book is filled with wonderful illustrations by her. I googled Ms. Byfield and found out that she was born in 1930 and died, unfortunately, in 1988 (much too young), but had written several other books -- children's books and mystery novels, so I will have to track down copies of those. This book was originally published in 1967 under the title "The Glass Harmonica." You can still find copies of it under that title if you have big bucks to spend.
May 8, 2023
I remember seeing this book when I was a kid - probably in a library, somewhere - and the art and subject matter entranced me. A dictionary-like guide to the world of Western medieval fantasy. Entries are rather whimsically arranged. I saw a claim recently that Gary Gygax must have known and used this book, and I think it likely, though it wasn't actually every referenced by him by name or in Appendix N. It is sadly out of print and not available in Kindle format, but if you can find a used copy, it makes for great inspirational reading for medieval fantasy . . .
May 16, 2018
Another book I read as a child. I checked it out from the library and spent many afternoons pouring over the alphabetical entries, making up stories in my mind that used all the elements listed in the book. The binding was in poor condition when I checked it out and the library discarded it upon return. It took more than a decade for me to track down another copy of the book. This is one of those reference books useful to any fantasy writer.
July 31, 2022
i didn't like the dark fantasy parts and was ready to finish the book in order to just add this one to my reading challenge count. i picked this one up randomly at the sf library. i thought, "oh, it's about fantasy. I'll like it.". i was kind of wrong.
however, i did like the illustrations. i think the author is more talented at sketching than writing. some of the definitions are just too vivid for kids and sensitive adults like me.
however, i did like the illustrations. i think the author is more talented at sketching than writing. some of the definitions are just too vivid for kids and sensitive adults like me.
September 9, 2019
I have read this many times since the 1970's.
It's sort of a tongue-in-cheek dictionary of many things fantastic and/or medieval. Endlessly fascinating. It is illustrated with india ink drawings, with many humorous details.
You can't buy this new anymore. You have to go to eBay or whatever.
No sign of scans of this book in ebook sites on the dark web either.
It's sort of a tongue-in-cheek dictionary of many things fantastic and/or medieval. Endlessly fascinating. It is illustrated with india ink drawings, with many humorous details.
You can't buy this new anymore. You have to go to eBay or whatever.
No sign of scans of this book in ebook sites on the dark web either.
March 4, 2008
Cool! The author takes you on a wild and funny ride through the ins and outs of fairy tales, fantasy and horror fiction, and the mythology on which a lot of the stories are based. The text is tongue in cheek and the illustrations are hilarious. This is a laugh-out-loud book and a great gift for anyone you might know who loves to read Tolkien, Lovecraft, et al, and/or hangs out at medieval faires and Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) events. I wore out the copy I got when I was in high school and was delighted to find a new edition.
February 7, 2015
This book is full of very potentially useful information, but I would be selective about the sort of person I'd give it to read--particularly children. It is, as it must be given the subject matter, rather weird.
October 2, 2011
This is one of my favourite books I've ever read and it's sadly out of print. It's basically just a lexicon full of adorable illustrations.
July 25, 2010
This was a cute little book. Awesome illustrations. Very informative!
August 16, 2012
fantastic guide to mythical and magical creatures.
February 9, 2014
This book was so useful when I was a DM. Nice to revisit it.
May 17, 2017
Fun bit of fantasy mascarading as an encyclopedia. Descriptions seem to be derived from what author observed in works of fantasy fiction--from Faust to Grimm's tales to Tolkien.
February 7, 2018
This vintage hard-to-classify gem is a witty encyclopedia of a fantastical alternate Europe. I wish I read this book back in my Dungeons & Dragons days.
July 5, 2012
brilliant!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews