Propped open on the table was a small battered book, and next to it was a sheet of paper on which a single sentence had been written. It was in a foreign language, but Miss Eells knew what it said because she had taken a course in Anglo-Saxon in graduate school years ago. Slowly she moved her finger over the strange letters: Hwenne tha mona in Maerc gefyllede is, thonne / Cometh Aesctaroth, ond micel wundor gewyrcath" [91-2]. It translates to "When the moon is full in March, then Ashtaroth will come, and will work a great wonder.

Wuldor is the name of one of the gods worshiped by Anglo-Saxons, a name found many places throughout Old English literature. Two interesting examples are found in the words Wuldortanas (as seen in The Nine Herbs Charm and means 'glory twigs') and Wuldorfadur (meaning 'glory father,' as found in the work that is usually called Caedmons Hymn). Bowen wonders if Bellairs chose 'wuldor' due to its similarity to the word 'wundor,' his dictionary pointing out the two words are often mistaken for the other.

Whether a real manuscript entitled Aelfric's Glory exited is debatable and if so, we don't know if it discussed magic or not. Hantsoo notes Aelfric appears to have been a very religious person, primarily concerned with religious and theological issues, and "may have been reluctant to write a book on magic and Norse and Phoenecian deities." It is more likely Bellairs wanted nothing more than an Anglo-Saxon author's name and chose one of the most famous he could remember. Ultimately, as Myra notes after reading the ancient text: "This is very, very peculiar and mystifying." Indeed.

As to the accuracy of Bellairs' Old English, we asked Bowen his comments on the passage; he immediately noted that John's memory of his Old English class at the University of Chicago must have faded considerably by the time he wrote the lines in the book.

"I found three errors in the first clause: first, the correct form of the definite article before a masculine noun in the nominative case is 'se,' not 'tha' (Mona is masculine). Second, there was no Anglo-Saxon word Maerc.' The Latin names of months are used in Old English texts; in this case it would be Martius. March entered the language in the early Middle English period (i.e., after the Norman Conquest), when it was introduced from French. Finally, Englishmen of the ninth to eleventh centuries said 'when the moon is full,' just as we do, though they pronounced and spelled the words a bit differently. They did not say 'when the moon is filled,' which is what it says here. None of this matters to the book, of course. As a grumpy pedant, I naturally wish that John had gotten his Old English letter-perfect, but that won't bother anyone who is not a grumpy pedant one iota."