So, what's with "Jaxanth"? It is my little part of Xanth, and Xanth is from a series of fantasy books written by Piers Anthony. The books relate to a "companion world" called Xanth. This world, on a map, looks suspiciously like Florida (Anthony's home state and now mine). Magic abounds in Xanth, and some Xanthians are aware of the "non-magical" world, called Mundania. (Look down, it's where you are now!) Every "Xanthian" has a magical power of some kind. It may be something as limited as making spots appear on walls, to something as major as invisibility or shape shifting. The "creatures" (as we Mundanes would call them)have their own versions of magic, sometimes it is just being "them". These books are filled with puns and double entendre. Some examples are "cat-a-pult", "ogre-eater" "Bow-vine", "Punish-mint", "Com-pewter", "Turtle-recall". I'm sure you get the picture.

This description of Xanth is reprinted (retransmitted?) from Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth--By Piers Anthony and Jody Lyn Nye, Copyright© 1989 by Bill Fawcett and Associates.

"The land of Xanth is a peninsula, which moves around the face of the Earth (some say) to prevent its unique character from being diluted or susumed by the other cultures that exist in more Mundane lands. Xanth is unusual in many ways, the most important being that it is rich in magic. Species exist there that have never been glimpsed or dreamed of outside its borders. And any child born there is endowed with his or her own magical talent.

Over the thousands of years that Xanth has been a magic land, its residents have changed drastically several times. To the untrained eye, Last Wave Xanth resembled the Korean peninsula of the thirteenth century, common era. During the Mundane Era of the Punic Wars, Xanth bore a striking likeness to Italy; to the Avars near the Black Sea, it resembled the Baltic peninsula, and modern Xanth would seem to wear the face of the state of Florida in the United States of America. The human population is somewhere between two and five thousand. No official survey has ever been made of the population of the other species.

Possibly in the ancient past, Xanth was an island, and retained its unique character through complete isolation until the land bridge was formed. Access remains complicated, since Xanth is not fixed in time the way Mundane lands are. If correct timing is not observed, there is no guarantee that the era you left when you entered Xanth is the same to which you would return. Each era "window" lasts between five minutes and an hour, from Xanth, so that he will reenter Xanth in the same time frame he left it. The knowledgeable traveler will watch the color of the water to determine on which era the window is open.

To the Mundane (non-Xanth) world at large, Xanth remains a myth, known only in stories and legends. Except during the Waves of Colonization which bring new human settlers, or in the upheaval of a wiggle swarm, it is a peaceful land -- for one that uses puns as fundamental building blocks."

I will never be the world's expert on Xanth, just an interested observer who came to Xanth from Mundania, decided he liked it, and felt he had to return at every opportunity.

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