The trapping of garden gnomes is ignoble.

Gnomic genomes?  The picture explains everything!

Here's a fire hydrant gnome.

Do gnomes grow on trees?  Lauri Gröhn offers proof!

What's under a gnome's pointed red hat?

The Gnome Pebble, discovered by Nicolas P. Rougier, preserves a gnome's footprint.

Plaster gnome Danny will never be the same after taking a tumble down a stairway.  He was left tragically shattered down one side of his body, and his face and ear took a direct hit.

A lovely limestone gnome by Dan Brandemuehl.  And one in red cedar by Ray Brooks.

Gnomes placed in out-of-service urinals?

Sleeping with the Enemy

Q: Magicians famously work with doves and rabbits, but which animal invariably gets blamed whenever something goes wrong?

A: The escape-goat.

By the way, never put a goat in charge of the lights.

Unicornisaurus Rex!

A hand-forged baby unicorn shoe.

A unicorn peacock.

"Unicorn with sunbeams" mosaic bollard

The "super magical unicorn no. 1" envelope art.

Sculptor Edward Netley makes amazing wireframe unicorns for the garden, each leaping over a fence.  They require eight weeks of twisting to take final form.  Regarding one of his sculptures, he explains: "A unicorn is not ridden! It allows one to participate in the ride. The elf shown here is barely balanced as the unicorn jumps the fence. A slight twist of the hind quarters is all that keeps the elf from falling to the ground."

The unicorn king coin by the British Royal Mint.

Unicorn-themed color palettes from ColourLovers.com:

"Unicorn Soup" by Kimib. The full palette description is here.

"The Unicorn is Dead" by Prettyghost. The full palette description is here.

"Awkward Unicorn" by Trademarkrain. The full palette description is here.

Piecing together the secret of fascination . . .


 

This puzzle grid contains several big words. Can you find them?

• 7-letter words: 9
• 8-letter words: 2

All letters in the word must touch (in any direction), and no square may be reused. One of the 7-letter words refers to cheerful symbols best viewed sideways.

Click to display solutions

What's the dirtiest water sport on earth?  Bog snorkeling!  Every year, a host of mud-caked competitors get at loggerheads in a sixty-yard peat bog for the coveted "World Champion Bog Snorkeler" title.  The international sporting event takes place every August in the dense Waen Rhydd Peat bog on the southern outskirts of the smallest town in Wales, Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys Mid Wales.

Silk Trap, Baited With a Woman

I dreamed I had the worst case of Semicolon Cancer in recorded history.

Later, I dreamed my playground had been taken over by miscreant semicolons.

Piecing together the secret of the forest . . .


 

Enigmatic smiles:

Figure 1 (obviously)
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook: