The Mad Poet
Of Cumberstone's many dark imaginings, the Speaking Glass stands as one of his most mysterious, and gruesome.
​
Scholars of such dark things maintain it is
a warning, prescribing caution against
the invasion of the supernatural, with
some suggesting the personification of
the mirror implicates the poem's subject
for a demon or other fell spirit, one
which casts no reflection in the glass...
Little is known of the reclusive and enigmatic poet Lord Cumberstone, though if his visceral verses are any indication, he must a truly touched individual be. Or perhaps it is only a pseudonym, passed down through some secretive anonymous order, a collective of poets writing under the title for their own grim amusement. For 300 years after all, the name has been signed to any number of grisly rhymes, surreptitiously copied down and later printed, to be tucked under pillows, stashed below floorboards or locked away, to emerge only by close and guarded candlelight, to be read in the small hours, before disapproving daylight leads one to think better of it.
