You'll find them in a lion's mouth

Very early yesterday morning (12:30 a.m. Taiwan time), I received an email from Leo in which he mentioned a certain connection between himself and the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie. I'm not sure how literal he was being when he called one of the connecting links "a little secret," so I'll err on the side of keeping things vague. Suffice it to say there is an objective link between him and each of these two characters. The name Leo of course means "lion," and I had some faint memory of having seen a Bert and Ernie sketch that featured that animal. I looked it up and found it. It's from Episode 4046, which aired on April 28, 2003 -- far too late for me to have seen it as a child -- but I guess I probably saw it on YouTube at some point. I've often had occasion to search for old Bert and Ernie sketches on that platform, which could have caused the algorithm to recommend others. Anyway, here it is:

It ends -- spoiler alert, I guess -- with a lion showing up in Bert and Ernie's apartment, wanting to borrow the book Bert is reading. I sent Leo a link to the video, and he said of the book the lion wants, "Maybe he wants to eat it like one of the lions on the Animalia L page."

The L page of Graeme Base's book Animalia shows a lion with the book Lassie Come Home in its mouth. In my June 19 post "The book that proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew," I note that the lion is a symbol of the House of Judah (i.e., the Jews) and propose that the book is coming out of the lion's mouth. In a comment Leo left there at the time, he wrote, "That lion could be eating the book which is a scriptural theme you've brought up before." Anyway, whichever direction the book may be going, Animalia shows it in a lion's mouth.

For a couple of weeks now, I've been reading a certain book again and again and again to a very young child of my acquaintance who keeps requesting it. The book is The Tooth Book, written (but, oddly, not illustrated) by Dr. Seuss under the name Theo LeSieg. The idea of a book in a lion's mouth made me think of this bit:

"You'll find them east, west, north, and south. You'll find them in a lion's mouth." In context, of course, them refers to teeth. However, I can't help but connect this with something Nephi writes in the voice of the Lord:

For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them; for out of the books which shall be written I will judge the world, every man according to their works, according to that which is written (2 Ne. 29:11).

There are five verses in the Book of Mormon that mention the four cardinal directions. This one -- the one about books being written -- is the only one that lists them in the same order as The Tooth Book.

In the Bert and Ernie sketch, the book the lion wants has a blue cover. Wondering if the book in the lion's mouth in Animalia was also blue, I searched my own blog for lassie come home and found this image, confirming that it is:

I was making these connections last night. Then this morning I checked William Wright's private blog and found two new posts, one of which -- "Moses and Drawing Treacle" -- includes the exact same image, taken from my blog!

There's a lot in this post of Bill's that I'll want to discuss later, but here I just want to note that he associates Moses with Theodore the Chipmunk, who dresses in green. In The Tooth Book -- by Theodore Seuss Geisel, alias Theo LeSieg -- the man putting his head in the lion's mouth is dressed in green.

Bill brings up Lassie because it is similar to Lacie, one of the three girls who live in the bottom of a well in the Dormouse's story:

"Once upon a time there were three little sisters," the Dormouse began in a great hurry; "and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well — "

There's another story that begins that way. Here are the opening lines of The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch:

"Once upon a time there were three little girls --"

"Oh look what he's doing now!"

"And their names were --"

"Come here, come here."

"And they lived at the bottom of a well."

The first speaker was Joan Blacket, the second was Louise Anderson, the one so urgently summoned was a dog, the little girls mentioned were Louise's children, the place was Kensington Gardens, the month was October.

The dog, whose name was Anax, a distinguished and unusual collie . . .

The man with his head in the lion's mouth is dressed in some sort of green military costume, making him a “green knight” of sorts. The Green Knight opens with Joan quoting the Dormouse nearly verbatim, but where the names would be — including the name Bill has identified with Lassie — she is interrupted by Louise saying “Come here, come here” to a collie. This obviously syncs very precisely with Lassie Come Home, Lassie being the name of a collie in that book.

The names Joan and Louise are also clearly synchronistically relevant. I haven’t read The Green Knight in more than 20 years. Perhaps I should revisit it.

The three girls in the Dormouse’s story draw things beginning with the letter M. This is an obvious link to Animalia, the whole point of which is that on each page the author has drawn lots of things beginning with a particular letter of the alphabet. The lion in a library with Lassie Come Home in its mouth is from the L page. The M page, which I suppose I shall now have to take a closer look at, features mice decoding mysterious messages.

There’s lots more to discuss. I just want to log this first.