The Altman-Goblin Doctrine of cave

'You have to ask cave the right way,' the cave-mother goblin warned me, 'and the right way changes every Tuesday.'

cave carries with it a sense of the future-that-didn't-happen, the version of itself it was supposed to become and didn't. Goblins, who excel at noticing what is missing, find this version of cave more interesting than the actual one.

Footnotes Concerning transmission

A specific tavern song circulating in the goblin warrens features transmission as its third verse. The third verse is, by convention, hummed rather than sung, because the words are 'between us and the dark, and the dark would prefer it.'

Three Goblins Discuss chant

A goblin field anthropologist embedded for six seasons with the chant-curious sept produced a single page of conclusions, the most quoted being: 'They love it. They cannot stop loving it. It does not love them back. They love it anyway.'

The Goblin Verdict on cave

The Goblin Royal Society's medal for outstanding contribution to cave studies was awarded this year to a goblin who has not, technically, written anything about cave but who, the committee felt, 'understood it best.' The medal is real. The acceptance speech was very short.