B is for Bestiary

After the Lion dancers and all the other Christmas guests from near and far had gone home again, the Unicorn Farm was a quiet place. Many of the apprentices stayed i the guest rooms, Susan stayed with Heidi and her family, enjoying the few days left of the Christmas holidays before normal school was supposed to begin again.
  As they lay in their beds in Heidi's room, Heidi asked Susan. "I saw Ella, Teiko and Kensuke slipping you a book, what was that?" 
  "Oh, haven't I told you about it already. The book, I bought in Paris together with my parents, Ella's Granny borrowed it to copy it. They promised to bring it to me. I intend to give it to Thora or Tähti and Taavi. It is mostly a bestiary with some wild ideas about some the animals. I remember reading through a chapter on black roosters being immortal while driving home."
  Can I see it," Heidi asked, "and is there anything on transformation in it?"
  "Of course you can see it, but it had better wait until tomorrow in the dayligth."
  "Is it that scary?" Heidi asked.
  "No, it's not that, it's the print. It is hard to read even in good light. It's an old German book, it's printed mostly in Blackletters and blurred too. And here and there some notes are added in handwriting. I can't read that very well."
  "I'll wait, then."

They slept. Next morning after an ample breakfast they studied the Bestiary before going off for Unicorn Farm. "You're right," Heidi said" I cannot read this print at all, except for the names of animals and such. Those letters there look more like the ones I know."
  "It's because Latin, French and Italian and  so on are printed using another type. My Auntie G taught me how to read Blackletters and Deutshce Schrift, that's the crazy handwriting there," Susan said pointing to an almost illegible scrawl in the book. "She told me that there existed two different types of letters side by side. Blackletters and our normal letters, Antiqua. And they fought for supremacy, and in the end Antiqua won everywhere, last of all in Germany, where some old people still use Deutshce Schrift."
  "Maybe Lis could help us, she's a handwriting nerd, as you might remember from last Christmas." Heidi said,  nodding  her head at the book.
  "Oh yes, I do remember," Susan said. "I think I'll wait a couple of days to hand over this book. Let's try and get Lis help us after school today. Now I think we should be off to The Farm."

Note: This happens in the second Christmas holiday on Unicorn Farm. Wizards and witches from other schools and academies have been visiting, and the Lion dancers from Germany were among them. We will probably hear more of their visit under L for Lion Dancers; and maybe even more about what Susan and the magician's children discover in the old Bestiary.