Chapter 3: The Story of Thelyphron and Chapter 4: The Festival of Laughter Summary

Chapter 3: Lucius goes to a dinner party at Byrrhaena's house and one of the guests, Thelyphron, tells a story which surely appeals to Lucius, for it is about witches and magic. Thelyphron, then a much younger man, had gotten a job—one which paid very handsomely—to simply stand watch over a corpse that was soon to be buried. The mourners were worried that witches would mutilate the corpse's face for ingredients for their spells and warned Thelyphron about how crafty said witches were. Thelyphron stayed the night, which passed more or less uneventfully. A weasel tried to come into the crypt, which he assumed was one of the witches in a transformed state, but he chased it away easily. Not...