PACKED full of wonderful images and razor-sharp humour, The Goblins of Labyrinth is a must-have for any lover of fantasy combined with art. Produced to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the classic cult movie Labyrinth, Chagford-based artist Brian Froud has excelled himself with a reference book celebrating the lives of goblins, in all their weird and wonderful forms. The book has been catalogued by Terry Jones, famous for his Monty Python past — perhaps not so well known as an award-winning children's book author and authority on medieval history and literature. The team-work of Jones and Froud has produced a fantastic blend of zaniness, humour and imagination in both the images and the text. Labyrinth leads the reader from an introduction to the discovery of goblins through a detailed description of their various forms. There is Zitzie — unexpectedly renowned as the most beautiful of all goblins but feared for the dreaded contents of her handbag. This contains such dangerous tools as the Short Hope Knife, able to cut through even the most optimistic goblin's aspirations in a matter of seconds, to the Luck Ladle. With a single scoop of this useful object, Zitzie is capable of creaming off an entire lifetime of good fortune from any unfortunate goblin! Faustus is a goblin renowned as an exponent of that most dangerous of goblin sports — goblin head-banging. His sharp horns are tipped with a uniquely unpleasant poison, which enters the victim's bloodstream and within 24 hours, makes his trousers drop off. Another sport enjoyed by goblins is called Lunchball, played wherever goblins can gather together enough spotted jumpers to form two teams. The game is apparently fast and furious, but complicated as both teams are dressed identically. The object of the game is to actually eat the ball, which usually happens quickly — the remainder of the game is spent finding out which goblin ate the unlucky ball, and discovering how ill they feel! Eled the Wormtamer was a goblin whose greatest achievement was training six worms to think logically. However, this was also to be his downfall. The worms formed a union, planning to smash their goblin oppressors and live a new life of freedom. Fortunately for the goblins, such a dazzling prospect blew the worms' minds so badly they lost their new found powers of reason and and started trying to lift heavy metal objects, which inevitably squashed them! But such a narrow escape ruined Eled the Wormtamer, who spent his declining years bashing a small worm called Mitchell over the head with a spiked mace. The goblin cook Weech is not known so much for the quality of her food as the quantities, having single-handedly cooked for entire armies of goblins, helped by her assistant, Stench. Weech's speciality is Something Brown in a Brown Gravy, although she has attempted more elaborate dishes, such as Something Brown in a Brown Gravy with Some Other Blackish-Brown Bits Scraped Off The Side. The trusty Stench enjoys a body that persistently dribbles, oozes, seeps and weeps but Weech swears he is essential to her culinary endeavours. Indeed, many goblins say it is true that on days Stench is laid low with particularly bad boils, the food certainly tastes different. According to Weech, Stench always puts his whole heart into the business of cooking. Fortunately, he always takes it out again, but, she says, it adds that certain je ne sais quoi! Some of the other goblin profiles include Agnes, who collects the empty promises and hollow opinions of politicians, and the bandit goblin Feedle, unconventional amongst his kind for though he is a vicious and ruthless killer, he always takes time to return stolen goods to their owners, usually in better condition and with a caring little note! Brian Froud's brilliant The Goblins of Labyrinth is published by Abrams and is available from bookshops priced £16.95. JANE HONEY
