Golden Boughs Retirement Village

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 Mundy. Over the centuries the actual settlement of the place has moved several times. It's main goal is to keep the inhabitants out of the public conscience until the people forget their stories. It is run by a man called himself Mr. Revise.

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

Fables associated with Jack and Revise

• Babe the Blue Ox
• The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestickmaker (revised versions) †
• Carl (the fourth of the Three Little Pigs) †
• Cobweb
• The Cowardly Lion †
• Cuchulain
• Dorothy Gale
• Raven †
• Mother Goose †
• Kiviuq †
• Kiviuq's Polar Bear
• Lola the Cottingley Fairy
• Mustardseed
• Sam
• The Scarecrow
• The Tin Man †
• Toto
• The Walrus and the Carpenter † (revised Carpenter)
• Wynken, Blynken, and Nod † — Nod

Other Fables

• Alice
• Black Caroline
• The Black Sheep and the Little Boy
• The Cat and the Fiddle (from the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle")
• The Dormouse
• The Man, the Seven Wives and the Cats
• The Cat with Bagpipes, and the Mouse and the Bumblebee (from the nursery rhyme "A Cat Came Fiddling")
• Chicken Laundress (from the Italian fairytale by Italo Calvino)
• Doris the Cottingley Fairy
• Goldilocks †
• The Hatter †
• Humpty Dumpty †
• The Jersey Devil
• John Henry
• Lady Luck †
• Little Tommy Tucker
• The March Hare †
• Mary Mary
• Moth
• Munchkins
• The Oysters † (from "The Walrus and the Carpenter")
• Peaseblossom
• Paul Bunyan
• Pecos Bill
• The Tooth Fairy
• The Tortoise and the Hare † — Hare (revised versions)
• White Rabbit † (revised version)
• Wicked John † (an earlier version of Jack Horner)
• Wy'east, Klickawit and Loo-Wit (based on Wyeast, Klickitat and Loowit from Native American mythology)

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.