Book Fact No.1
Llandderfel Forest is a real place!
The tiny village of Llandderfel in Gwynedd in North Wales is surrounded by pine trees, sweeping hills and woodland areas and it's very near where I lived when I wrote the book.
Infact I came up with the main part of the story whilst walking down the back lane from my house in Bethel to Llandderfel village - it's around a 30 minute walk along a twisting one track road with a mix of either being surrounded by panoramic views of the Welsh hills or being completely submerged in disorienting towering hawthorn hedgerows -
At one point along the track just before entering the village you'll see a large wooded hill to your left with a monument to Queen Victoria sat on the top, this is where I played with the the idea of it once being a giant rubbish tip~ Llandfill ~ that got transformed back into beautiful woodland.
I liked the way both words, Llandderfel and Llandfill were slightly similar and I put the double LL in Llandfill to keep the link. There's alot of place names in Wales that use LL and It's actually pronounced with a
Chl sound that I never did get the hang of even though I lived there for eight years!
Book Facts No.2
Just what is FaekieLand?
Here's a map of FaekieLand (pronounced Fake-e-Land) but just where and what is FaekieLand?
FaekieLand is a dark smoggy place inside the worlds largest rubbish dump! It's home to Maple Syrup and all the other Faekies and where most of the story takes place.
If you look closely at the map you can see all of the places named in the story ~ Llandfill Town where Maple lives with her Grandma Suet, Big Yellow's Mount home to the big yellow monument, the WasteLand funfair where the Faekies love to spend their free time and also the huge sprawling PlasTi-coRp factory where most of the Faekies work, you can even see Maple's School.
But there's also something else happening in FaekieLand. Unbeknown to the Faekies the mycelie fungus gnomes are hard at work in The Crystal Cavern ~ happily recycling all the rubbish and singing and dancing their Jiggle Jigs!
You can see The Shiro where the mycelies work weaving their magical threads of mycelium, making fresh fertile soil for the forests to re-grow!
What else can you see on the map? Can you find the entrance to the Crystal Cavern?
Can you spot the magical Crystal Slide used by the Mycelies to send information from one place to another just like the Internet? Would you fancy a stroll around the Frozzel market to Tat End Pier, maybe a dip in Barf Bay or would you prefer the wonder and magic of the Crystal Cavern and its towering Crystal beams and glow bug lights!
Book Fact No.3
Look Out for the White Moths!
The white moth is a theme running throughout the book and stands for faith, hope, spirit and determination. Its the white moth that turns up whenever Maple is lost or unsure and helps Maple on her journey.
There are 18 white moths in total in the book (not including the chapter headings) some are easy to find and some are hidden!
Can you find them all!
Book Fact No.4
The Glowing Mushroom Path
In the story Maple is helped to find her way back to the Crystal Cavern by a magical glowing mushroom path. Just like the Mycelies told her to do she uses the steps of Jiggle Jig dance to make the Path appear.... but could there possibly be any truth in this idea?
Yes! It's based on real facts about mushrooms
Some mushrooms really do glow in the dark with a strange eerie green glow, these are known as bioluminescent mushrooms They glow as a way of attracting insects to help spread their spores.
Even stranger is the fact that some mushrooms can also 'hear' underground! They use their mycelium web to sense vibrations from above ground much in the same way a spider senses vibrations on its spider web. This gives them a better chance of finding food & spreading spores as then can send their fruiting bodies (mushrooms) up to where the action is, such as animal tracks and pathways.
So Maple dancing a Jiggle Jig above ground really could of been sensed in the Mycelies deep underground chambers and they really could of made a light up mushroom path for her to follow!
Book Fact No.5
You really can make clothes and shoes out of mushrooms!
In the story Miss Morchella Conica ~ the Mycelie seamstress ~ makes Maple a series of fabulous outfits and even some new boots made from 'mushroom leather and knitted mycelium' (Maple is wearing her new mycelium outfit in the illustration and her room is full of objects made from mycelium!)
But surely this is just pure fantasy and not based on facts
Wrong! You actually can make a leather substitute from mushrooms that is stronger and softer than deerskin and companies like Ecovative are working on a range of mycelium products from packaging to lampshades.
Find out more about Mycelium here
Book Fact No.6
The Enchantment pool at the end of the story is based on a real place!
St Nectan's Glen in Tintagel, Cornwall is an awesome 60 foot waterfall cascading through a magical portal like hole that the water has created in the original Kieve (basin)
The walk to the waterfall is just as magical walking alongside the river Trevillet through temperate Atlantic rainforest filled with moss, ferns and Ivy trails.
Long known as a sacred site the area is filled with myth and legends and is said to be a favourite haunt of the Cornish Faeries and Piskies.
It's become a tradition to leave small 'stacks' of stones at the bottom of the waterfall as an offering to the fae folk, known as 'faerie stacks' and some say that once you have built your faerie stack you can make a wish, others say if you sit quietly you may catch a glimpse of a faerie fluttering past!
Above the kieve is the old hermitage built upon the site of the original hermit cell and Chapel of Saint Nectan some 1500 years ago.
I was lucky enough to visit the Glen in 2019 and instantly knew it was were I wanted my enchanted pool at the end of the story to be based, I even included some of the magical faerie stacks in the painting.
