The Talking Parcel
The Talking Parcel (also published as The Battle for Castle Cockatrice) is a 1974 book by Gerald Durrell in which children are transported to the fantasy land of Mythologia to save it from cockatrices. They are aided by a talking parrot and encounter many other magical creatures, including a mooncalf. The book has been translated into a number of languages, including Czech, Estonian, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. Synopsis Peter and Simon, two boys from England, join their cousin Penelope and her father Henry, who live in Peloponnese, Greece for the summer holidays. While taking a tour in an inflatable dinghy on their first day, the children rest on a sandbank, where Penelope encounters a strange, paper-wrapped parcel from which two voices emanate. Unwrapping the parcel, the children find a cage with a clothed, sentient parrot and a tiny golden spider inside, who introduce themselves as Parrot (short for "Percival, Archibald, Reginald, Roderick, Oscar, Theophilus") and Dulcibelle. Parrot proclaims them both to be denizens of a hidden subterranean realm called Mythologia, founded centuries ago by the wizard Hengist Hannibal ("H.H.") Junketberry to serve as a sanctuary for the last mythological beasts on Earth. Due to space restrictions, the beast population