British 90s nostalgia and shite

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Steeleye and The Lost Magic was an adventure gamebook published in 1987. It had gorgeous illustrations like these:

There were also some disturbing parts. Check out this passage:

Suddenly, a shower of wriggling creatures falls upon your head. Hundreds of tiny luminous white snakes are writhing all over your body. You try to shake them off but without success.

This is accompanied by a picture:

And I'll never forget this part with the unicorn's tear:

The noble beast fixes you with a gaze of terrifying power, yet its speech is gentle. "The land is dying, young Hero," it says. "You alone could save it. [...] Go now, across the lake. But first, I give you my protection." A great tear rolls down the Unicorn's green muzzle. "Cup your hands and catch it!" he cries. To your surprise, the tear is solid and warm in the palm of your hand.

That encounter with a unicorn was my favourite part of the book. I always thought he would make a great friend.

Trip to Disney World

The book was notable because you could win a trip to Disney World in Florida.

However, according to the small print in the back of the book, the final entry date was 30th November 1987. So if you're thinking of entering, then you're a bit late.

To win the prize, you had to go through the book and find a secret message. Then you had to send the secret message to the publisher.

As a kid, I could never figure out the message. I was tempted to write "FUCK YOU STEELEYE" and send it to the publisher that but the competition had already ended years earlier.

So as an adult, I went through the book again, this time determined to find the message. If no one ever figured out the message then the prize must still be up for grabs, I reckon.

Finding the hidden message

At the start of the book, Steeleye says:

Solve the clues that are scattered through the forest. They will contain a secret message, and you must tell me what it is. Without it, I can never hope to find the one creature in the world who could restore our dying valley with his lore.

I've put the important part in bold. It implies that what we're looking for is a creature, one who will save Steeleye's world.

The first and second words: The good, The wise, The arrogant, The proud

The first thing you find on your adventure is a cryptic clue:

Words hide initially. This enigma boldly emphasises a rule. Do learn its eventful secrets.

The initial letters of each word spell out WHITEBEARD LIES. Who or what is Whitebeard, we don't yet know.

We then have to choose from five paths. I have no idea which path is the correct one, or if there even is a correct one.

No matter what path you took earlier, you come to a dwarf with a white beard. Aha! This must be Whitebeard!

He sits in front of two gates. Depending on the path you chose, he's sitting either in front of either a) a bronze gate and a wooden gate or b) an iron gate and a copper gate.

• On page 4, he says "Go through the copper gate, Hero!"
• On page 60 he says "The wooden gate is best. Bronze is good, but it isn't the one you want."
• On page 12 he says "I'd advise you to go through the wooden gate. Wood is wise, whilst bronze is only good".

I guess we're meant to do the opposite of the dwarf says, given that "Whitebeard lies". So the copper gate and wood gates must be the wrong choices, and either the bronze or iron gate is the correct choice.

On the gate you choose are words:

• The iron gate (page 38) has the words 'The arrogant'.
• The bronze gate (page 43) has the words 'The good'.
• The wooden gate (page 54) has the words 'The wise'.
• The copper gate (page 71) has the words 'The proud'.

Assuming the copper and wood gates are the correct choices, then the correct words must be either 'The proud' or 'The wise'. But which of these is it? 'The proud' or 'The wise'? I don't know. I'm already stumped and this is just the first part of the book. This is not looking good. The trip to Disneyland already feels further away.

The third word: ruby, sapphire, emerald or golden

Next, you encounter another cryptic clue. The clue you get depends on the path you take. There are four possible clues to encounter:

Spin bury around a bit, and you have a gem of a word

The answer is RUBY, which is an anagram of 'bury'

Rip shape to pieces for something you'll treasure

The answer is SAPPHIRE, an anagram of 'rip shape'

They call me Old Emma, but I say it sounds better backwards

The answer is EMERALD, which sounds like 'Emma Old', which is 'Old Emma' backwards

In part, gold encloses the secret

The answer is GOLDEN, which is part of the phrase 'gold encloses'.

Reeling in bream gives a great pleasure

The answer is AMBER, an anagram of 'bream'.

Which of these is the correct word, I don't know. It could be any of them. It could be all of them. This isn't going well.

The fourth word: eagle, bear, centaur or dragon

When entering the final castle, you pass one of a number of animals. Whatever animal it is, he'll say he's the Guardian of the Gate. Depending on the path you took, the animal is either:

• an eagle (page 64)
• a bear (page 116)
• a dragon (page 16)
• a centaur (page 20)

The fifth word: keeps, retains, knows, cherishes or possesses

After this you encounter one of four creatures who gives you a word.

• On one path, there is "a boy, strangely dressed in a green shirt and wrinkled stockings" who gives you the word "keeps".
• Choose a different path and you meet the same boy again, but this time he gives you the word "retains".
• A toad gives you the word "knows"
• A minotaur statue gives you the word 'cherishes' (page 68)
• A snake gives you the word 'possesses' (page 44)

The sixth and seventh words: the old, the ancient, the lost or the secret

After this, you find a message about armour. The message is slightly different depending on the path you take, but the meaning is always the same: 'Thrice armour speaks key', 'Three times armour says key', 'Armour's thrice spoken key'

Soon thereafter, you'll encounter a suit of armour.

The armour repeats a message three times. Depending on the path you took, the armour will say one of four different messages:

• On page 96, the suit of armour says, "The old, the old, the old"
• On page 48, the suit of armour says, "The ancient, the ancient, the ancient"
• On another page, the armour says, "The lost, the lost, the lost"
• On yet another page, the armour says, "The secret, the secret, the secret"

The final word: spell, lore, magic, sorcery or enchantment

The final word is whispered by voices. Again, the words you hear will depend on the path you take in the book. There are five possible words here:

• "The air is full of voices, all whispering the same word, over and over again. Spell, spell, spell"
• "The air suddenly fills with the sound of voices, all whispering the same word over and over again: lore, lore, lore.

On another paths are the words magic, sorcery and enchantment.

The full phrase

By the end of the book, you have a full sentence. However, that sentence would be different depending on the choices you made throughout the book. For example, your sentence might be "The arrogant emerald dragon retains the lost spell." Or if you had made completely different decisions, then your final phrase might be "The wise ruby bear keeps the ancient lore."

I still don't know which are the correct words though. The words you get depend on the choices you make throughout the book and I presume there is only one correct path. Or maybe the exact phrase doesn't matter. As long as you had a full set of words, maybe that was enough to win the trip to Disneyland. I'll probably never know.

Other clues

There are some other odd clues in the book that don't seem to fit anywhere. For example, at one point you find a scroll where only some of the words are legible:

...is true. For the plan... foiled... lost. Hero dead in minutes

I'm guessing these words are a red herring.

But how about this? The unicorn says something oddly specific:

That without colour spells danger!

Hmm.

Contacting the book's creators

One final option I have is to contact the book's creators.

Roger Hurt

A man named Roger Hurt made the puzzles. He made quite a few gamebooks, including He-man and the Memory Stone, which he worked on with Jason Kingsley.

I've googled "Roger Hurt steeleye" but found nothing about who he is.

Jason Kingsley

A man called Jason Kingsley wrote the book. Googling "jason Kingsley steeleye" lead me to a newspaper article which says Jason Kingsley is quite famous. In 1992 he set up a company called Rebellion Developments with his brother Chris, which the article describes as "Britain’s biggest independent video games developer". They made a game on Atari which gave them enough money to buy the comic 2000 AD. And Jason Kingsley was awarded an OBE by the queen, probably not for his Steeleye book but for other work. This is all unbelievable. I assumed Jason Kingsley would be just some old guy who wrote a couple of adventure books in the 1980s but instead he's the CEO of one of the UK's biggest game developers. And he has an OBE.

And there's an interview in the article where the two brothers mention Steeleye and the Lost Magic:

Chris Kingsley: And then you wrote those adventure game books for Ladybird, which was a big number one hit.

Jason Kingsley: Steeleye and the Lost Magic.

Chris Kingsley: And He-Man and the Memory Stone. [laughs] They were like million-selling books, and he wrote them when he was about 18.

This is amazing. And surely it can't get any weirder.

Then I googled "Jason Kingsley OBE" and the fifth result was a webpage about a book called Leading the Rebellion, a book written by Jason Kingsley himself. The cover has a guy who must be Jason Kingsley, and he's wearing knight armour. I suppose that's fitting for someone who made Steeleye and the Lost Magic.

I'm writing this on the 27th July 2023, just nine days after the book was published. Needless to say I've bought a copy. Now I can say I own two books by Jason Kingsley: Steeleye and this one. Maybe there'll be something in it about Steeleye too.

Joan Collins

Someone called Joan Collins helped too. Joan Collins the actress? I don't know.

Steeleye and The Lost Magic is available to buy at Amazon.