Entrance to the Golden Boughs
The Golden Boughs Retirement Village is a facility masquerading as a retirement home, and used to imprison Fables that have escaped into the mundane world. Over the centuries, the actual settlement of the place has moved several times. Its main goal is to keep the inhabitants out of the public conscience until the people forget their stories. It is run by Mister Revise.[1]
The Facility
The Golden Boughs consists largely of a series of cottages assigned to the various inmates, along with a number of public buildings such as a pub, plus the various buildings required to run the place:
- The Golden Boughs Retirement Community: Which consists of the housing for the captured fables, inside their every need is fulfilled, and they are kept in virtual comfort.
- The Library
- The Memory Hole
Security consists of a fence, moat and guard towers, which are constantly manned by the junior librarians. In the event of an escape, the facility has a number of carefully trained tigers which can be released to track escapees, along with a group known as the Bagmen, powerful creatures of unknown type that inhabit an all-encompassing outfit that gives them humanoid shape and which can be folded down to resemble a large bag. Each guard tower is equipped with a Doubling Rook, a magical bird that, when released, will multiply quickly until all available food is exhausted, and can be used to deal with any attempt at an aerial escape.
After the Bookburner's strike on the Golden Boughs, Jack, his fellow Fables, the Literals and the librarians were forced to release Wy'east Klickitat and Loo-With, Native American mountain spirits who unleashed a roaring volcano upon escape, marking the end of the Golden Boughs Retirement Village.
Staff
The facility is overseen by Mr. Revise, a Literal who has made it his mission to rid the world of magic. He is supported by the Page Sisters, referred to as senior librarians, and a host of lesser staff members.
Of ambiguous status is the Pathetic Fallacy, Revise's Literal grandfather, who personifies that concept.
Inmates
Former:
- Alice
- Babe the Blue Ox
- Black Caroline[1]
- The black sheep and the little boy[1]
- The cat and the fiddle[1]
- The Dormouse
- The Butcher, Baker and Candlestick Maker (revised versions) †
- Carl †
- The cat with bagpipes[1]
- Chicken Laundress[1]
- Cottingley Fairies (Lola and Doris)
- Cowardly Lion[1] †
- Cuchulain
- Dorothy Gale
- Goldilocks[1] †
- The Hatter †
- Humpty Dumpty †
- Jack Horner
- The Jersey Devil (revised version)
- John Henry
- Lady Luck †
- Little Tommy Tucker[1]
- Kiviuq †
- Kiviuq's polar bear
- The man, the seven wives and the cats
- March Hare †
- Mary Mary
- Mother Goose †
- Moth
- The mouse and the bumble-bee[1]
- Munchkins
- Mustardseed
- The Oysters[1] †
- Peaseblossom
- Paul Bunyan †
- Pecos Bill
- Raven †
- Sam
- Scarecrow
- Tin Woodman[1] †
- Tooth fairy
- The Tortoise and the Hare († – Tortoise) (revised versions)
- Toto
- The Walrus and the Carpenter[1] † (revised Walrus)
- White Rabbit † (revised version)
- Wicked John †
- Wy'east, Klickawit and Loo-Wit
- Wynken, Blynken, and Nod († — Nod)
Trivia
- The Golden Boughs resembles the Village of The Prisoner in some ways, and as he escapes from the Golden Boughs, Jack Horner explicitly makes the connection in a narrative aside to the reader about the place "in the British TV show" guarded by the evil "weather balloon."
- The name is an explicit reference to The Golden Bough, a lengthy study in the comparative mythology, religion and folklore of hundreds of cultures, from aboriginal and extinct cultures to 19th-Century faiths.[2]