In the tunnels of that twisted wood, whose low prodigious oaks twine groping
boughs and shine dim with the phosphorescence of strange fungi, dwell the
furtive and secretive Zoogs; who know many obscure secrets of the dream world
and a few of the waking world, since the wood at two places touches the lands of
men, though it would be disastrous to say where. Certain unexplained rumours,
events, and vanishments occur among men where the Zoogs have access, and it is
well that they cannot travel far outside the world of dreams. But over the
nearer parts of the dream world they pass freely, flitting small and brown and
unseen and bearing back piquant tales to beguile the hours around their hearths
in the forest they love. Most of them live in burrows, but some inhabit the
trunks of the great trees; and although they live mostly on fungi it is muttered
that they have also a slight taste for meat, either physical or spiritual, for
certainly many dreamers have entered that wood who have not come out. Carter,
however, had no fear; for he was an old dreamer and had learnt their fluttering
language and made many a treaty with them; having found through their help the
splendid city of Celephais in Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, where
reigns half the year the great King Kuranes, a man he had known by another name
in life. Kuranes was the one soul who had been to the star-gulls and returned
free from madness.
