Temple Cloud

Now we cut back to Lizzie, listening to the Aurelia’s song in the ocean trench.  She, like Ben, is wondering whether the Aurelia will bring back vanished species such as unicorns or three-headed dragons.  There is a three-headed dragon in another of Cornelia Funke’s novels, Igraine Ohnefurcht ( Igraine the Brave ) , who appears to be a related species to Lung, since she too lives on moonlight.  However, it hadn’t been confirmed whether they existed in the Drachenreiter universe – though, as PDB11 complains, part of what he finds implausible about the Drachenreiter series is that it is so thick with fantastic beings and yet hardly anyone notices their existence. However, I’m still wondering about the chronology of unicorn extinction here.   Lizzie remembers discussing with Barnabas (which must have been more than twenty years ago) whether the Aurelia might bring unicorns back, which implies that they were already considered extinct by then.   But in Drachen...

The next chapter continues the experiences of the Wiesengrund family in America, but from Fliegenbein’s point of view, as he wakes early the next morning.  Good.  I love Fliegenbein, and I love the friendship between him and Ben, and this is the first time in this book that they have had the chance to spend time together as just the two of them, while everyone else is still asleep.  Characteristically, as they go out into the pre-dawn, Fliegenbein is worrying about how many creatures here could eat him ( practically everything except the rabbits ) , while Ben is cheerful and optimistic. Of course, Fliegenbein has real reason to worry – quite apart from whether mundane predators like coyotes or raccoons might eat him, the Aurelia is not only big enough to pull down a ship, but powerful enough to cause him and all fantastic beings to cease to exist.   Ben senses his anxiety and tries to cheer him up, pointing out that they don’t achieve anything by worrying about thi...