Location : KIRBY HALL, Northamptonshire

Winner: Tim Button

The main clues to the master riddle begin on page 63. The first paragraph gives all the instructions to create a pentacle or pentagram on the FIVE COUNTIES MAP of Middle England (not an OS map). This could also feasibly be done on the relevant 1:50,000 OS maps,
but they would have to be cut very neatly and taped exactly together.

At the bottom of page 63, the old man begins:

'Nonsense boy...'.

From here, there are a number of descriptions about a meeting of trajectories, where two paths collide and so on. The old man then knocks off Tallifer's hat which lands between his feet (like the pentacle universal man image). This in particular, and the other descriptions are all metaphors to suggest that a line is drawn from the highest point of the pentacle (the Derbyshire County Key Location), through the lowest point of the inverted inner pentagon (the point between the Northamptonshire & Lincolnshire County Key locations). This then meets a point where it touches another straight line drawn between the two lowest points of the pentacle. The whole thing looks roughly like an odd shaped
pentacle, with an upside down T drawn on top, but at an angle.

The biggest clue to the Master Riddle is when the old man says:

'If the missing ingredient for power (the Tarot Pentacle missing from the Byard's Leap
witch story, on page 37) is added to the charm of a sprite, then all will be revealed'.

The 'charm of a sprite' can be found on page 9. The woman dancing is described on the following page as a 'sprite of the dawn'. Her 'charm' is on a chain around her neck and is a T at an angle. Overlay this on the pentacle and the sixth key position can be located. It lands on a road by the entrance to KIRBY HALL in Northamptonshire (Map 141 GR 926 922). There, by the gate,
a big old oak tree guarded the key at it's base.