Come right in folks. What say you leave your tour bus and come inside out of this rain? Up the apples and pears, into the Bath and Barrel. There you go! I see you ‘ave one of them special Wanions tour tickets in your ‘and, one that takes you between realities.

What’s that guvner? Why yes, I do sound like that chimney sweep fella from the Mary Poppins movie. Except I’m a proper Cockney, born and raised within earshot of Mary le Bow’s bells. St. Mary’s is a good hour walk away, mind you. Good thing that you stopped ‘ere before moving on, because there’s no better place than where you stand, my family owned Rub-a-Dub.

Soaps? Nah, don’t worry. There’s no frilly bath soaps being sold ‘ere. Rub-a-Dub’s Cockney rhyming slang, is all. Dub rhymes with pub. Just like when I said, “Apples and pears,” it means stairs. You’ll catch on as we chew the fat – have a chat!

This ‘ere is the Bath and Barrel Pub, in London’s East end. Gets its name from the Roman baths that used to be across the way, along what a Roman road that led right into ancient London from the East. ‘Least that’s what tradition tells us.

Right, ‘ave a seat at the bar, get our your Lady Godiva, and I’ll pull you a Britney Spears – that’s a beer, bro.

Let me see if I can determine what kind of tourists you are. We’ve ‘ad lots of tourists in ‘ere on account of the upcoming Olympics. I reckon you’re the fairy tale and ghost story type. Like them good folks over there.

That slim lady with the blonde ‘air, her name’s Sunshine and she’s as bright. Well, she told me she were out last night taking photographs of the Thames. Swears she saw a mermaid in the water. Spent her whole night snapping pictures with no proof. Then, ‘ows you like it, she saw a bright flash of green rising from a construction site at the water’s edge in Canary Wharf. Glowed like a column of magic, she said.

Take a Butcher’s at what she printed this morning. Doesn’t this look like a figure ‘overing in that flash of light? It makes me Adam and Eve!

Believe, sir. I believe that this man is a bloody fairy.

And that other tourist, the one dressed all Goth in her dark boots and black-lined eyes. Super nice, but she’s a mom of five, so don’t cross her. Says her name’s Tsuki. She’s investigating a weird storm with blue lighting that ‘appened over the old Dugan’s Bode in Soester Village, in Kent. She ‘eard about it on the internet, and ‘ow some unidentified military arrived there, then it were all over. Very unusual, innit?

Perhaps you haven’t a Scooby what I’m rabbiting on about.

Let me tell you what my Grannie always told me: the fairy folk, the seelie wicht, once existed. Walked among us; gods among men. One day they will come back, she said. She thought they even put a fairy on the throne in Elizabethan times. After all, people called Queen Elizabeth I the Fairy Queen, didn’t they?

I used to think my Gran all Marbles and Conkers. Then I read a book of historical and contemporary fantasy that changed my mind called The Queen’s Viper. The Queens of Britain ‘ave burning secrets, let me tell you!

Tell you what. You’re such nice folks, I’ll give you the first part of The Queen’s Viper to read for free. No bread and honey required.

Grab your mobile and click on this link, ‘ere.

Maybe it’s all folklore and legend. Then again, maybe not.

Consider the brass tacks that ‘ave been going on: the weird earthquake and tornado southwest of London, then that flood in Maidstone that took out a footbridge, for a start. Plus, there ‘ave outbreaks of smallpox, and the bombing at Buckingham Palace.

Thanks to The Queen’s Viper, I’m convinced it’s all connected.

London has an underground that we simple folk know nothing about.

Speaking of urban fantasy, I want to tell you how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway for a $20 Barnes and Noble gift card as part of your Wanions of the Wicked pub tour.

Start things off by commenting on your favourite folklore or legend below. Do you Adam and Eve fairy magic? Pardon my Cockney slang, if you will. I mean, do you believe in the seelie wicht, the fairy folk that once walked Britain’s green pastures?

Don’t forget to see me during the Facebook event on April 30th. Stop in at all the pubs and restaurants on the tour for more qualifying entries in the raffle!

April 24th: Romarin Demetri- Seven’s Pub and Plundery.https://goo.gl/YEqApl
April 25th: Lesley Donaldson– Bath and Barrel in London of The Queen’s Viper https://goo.gl/8QCOKt
April 26th: Debbie Manber Kupfer- Victor’s Dining Hall in London P.A.W.S.https://goo.gl/woRFg4
April 28th: Lisa Emme- The Lodge and Ice House
https://goo.gl/uruCvc
April 29th: Lilly Luchesi- Crowley’s Pub in the Paranormal Detectives Series
https://goo.gl/KVGmJo