Stories have been told and retold across generations. Records have disappeared. Facts have become folklore, while folklore has sometimes proved rather closer to the truth than anyone would like to admit.

What really happened on the island depends very much upon whom you ask.

Long before there was a town, there was the island.

How it came to be depends upon which version of the story you believe.

Some accounts speak of rock, sea and the slow work of nature.

Others tell a rather different tale.

Eventually people came.

Settlers made homes upon the island, fishermen worked its surrounding waters and a community began to grow.

Homes became streets.

Streets became a town.

And with nowhere else to go, Lankytown began to grow upwards.

Eventually people came.

Generation followed generation.

Buildings grew taller. Businesses opened. Families prospered. The Theatre welcomed audiences, the park offered a retreat from the crowded streets and, high above them all, the Clocktower kept time.

Back then, its hands still moved.

Precisely what depends upon which records survive.

There are stories of accusations and disappearances. Of fear spreading through the island. Of people whose names were subsequently spoken only in whispers.

Some accounts contradict one another.

Others appear to have been deliberately altered.

And some are missing altogether.

No one living in Lankytown remembers seeing the Clocktower move.

Older records suggest there was once a time when it did.

Whatever happened, its hands eventually came to rest at precisely:

They have remained there ever since.

The people of Lankytown learned to live with it.

They also learned to be indoors before dark.

Years became decades.

Those who remembered became fewer.

Events became stories.

Stories became warnings.

And eventually, children were taught the rules without being told why they existed.

Perhaps that was the intention.

Not everything that happened in Lankytown found its way into the history books.

Fragments remain in family stories, forgotten documents, damaged records and recollections passed quietly from one generation to another.

Taken individually, they mean very little.

Put them together and they begin to tell another story.

“Long, spiky, pointed teeth and nails sharp as ravens’ claws.”

— Recollection attributed to one of Lankytown’s oldest residents

Across generations, Lankytown has accumulated legends, forgotten incidents, strange encounters and stories passed from one islander to another.

The Lore of Lankytown explores those stories — tales from beyond the central saga that reveal glimpses of the island’s long and peculiar past.

The stories surrounding Lankytown may be difficult to separate from folklore.

The history of Lankytown itself, however, began with a drawing made more than thirty years ago.