“ Medieval Britons didn't write contracts. Instead, men making agreements would clap their knives onto an altar and recite the agreement three times to seal a deal. Even after the Normans introduced written contracts, British nobles would wrap the parchment around a knife to authenticate it.”
“ I know basilisks are immune to the gaze of other basilisks, but imagine if they weren't. Like the panda they would become ecologically unviable and endangered...
There are two large stones on the thinly wooded hillside above Tiringan. It is said that two basilisks surprised each other many years ago and fell in love at first sight. They also turned to stone at first sight. A local legend of star-crossed lizards: very moving.”
“ ...among the items identified was a dolphin-shaped bathtub of marble and porcelain, a winged-back, high-chair of teak and velvet studded with fire opals, the gear-thing contraption from the dungeon-laboratory of Dr. Bezemot, the oil portrait of the rubicund Madame Orundilde Tarwygg, and a strange item known only as the Last Candle.”