Some time ago, I wrote about one of my early significant influences, the Judges' Guild Ready Ref Sheets . But recently I was reminded of an even earlier influence, The Book of Weird , by Barbara Ninde Byfield. Or, to give it its full title as it appears on the cover: The Book of Weird, Being a Most Desirable Lexicon of The Fantastical, Wherein Kings & Dragons, Trolls & Vampires, to say nothing of Elves & Gnomes, Queens, Knaves & Werewolves are made Manifest, & many, many further Revelations of The Mystical Order of Things are brought to light. But yeah, The Book of Weird is much easier to type . The book has had a somewhat complicated publishing history. It was initially published in 1967 under the title The Glass Harmonica . There being but a single passing mention of that instrument in the book, it was reissued in 1973 under the title given here in a large (9x11-ish) format, and reprinted yet again in a somewhat smaller format in 1994, which happens to b