The Book of the People
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The Book of the People is the Fairy bible in the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, known by the fairies themselves simply as The Book. It is written in Gnommish, the fairy language. As it contains the history of the People and their life teachings, Artemis Fowl manages to secure a copy from an alcoholic fairy in Ho Chi Minh City and use it to kidnap Holly Short, and to decode Gnommish. The first few lines are included in the first book.
Some of the first lines are:
- The Booke of the People.
- Being instructions to our magicks
- and life rules.
- Carry me always, carry me well.
- I am thy teacher of herb and spell.
- I am thy link to power arcane.
- Forget me and thy magick shall wane.
- Ten times ten commandments there be.
- They will answer every mystery.
- Cures, curses, alchemy.
- These secrets shall be thine, through me.
- But, Fairy, remember this above all.
- I am not for those in mud that crawl.
- And forever doomed shall be the one
- Who betrays my secrets one by one.
It also states the proper Ritual in which one buries an acorn to regain his or her powers. Apart from Artemis and his bodyguard, no humans are said to have seen the Book. If a human touches the Book without the fairy's permission it will combust.
Originally, the book was printed in spirals, which is how ancient fairy texts were read. However, reading in circles gave faires migraines, so normally printed version have been made (ordinary gnommish), this is in the typical western version of reading, left-to-right, top-to-bottom.
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