The Associated Board of Seals
How the Board of Seals began
In the year 1272, the Council of the Land wrote a short letter to the Embossing Department. It said: Please send one seal of approval, for the letters. Thank you.
The Embossing Department had never been asked for anything before, and it was thrilled. It packed the order with enormous care, lined the box with seaweed, punched air holes in the lid, and sent Fred.
Fred was a seal. A real one: round, grey, whiskers like a soft broom, and the most agreeable creature anyone in the Land had ever met.
Fred approved of everything. He approved of the letters. He approved of the envelopes, the weather, the Council, a puddle, a sock that had lost its partner, and the colour of Tuesday. He clapped for every one of them. The Council found this wonderful, and also not very helpful.
Fred had exactly one rule. Before approving anything, he leaned in, sniffed it, and asked, very seriously, "Is it fishy?" If it was, he approved of it twice.
For seven years, Fred approved of everything put in front of him, and the Land got wonderfully muddled.
He approved the Mapmaker's sardine sandwich as the official map of the coast, twice. For a whole spring, fairies set off in search of Crust Bay and the Isle of Pickle. Two of them found it. It was lunch.
He approved a letter that was completely blank, because it was very tidy and smelled faintly of the sea. It went into the drawer with all the other letters waiting for a Post Office, and it is still the tidiest one in there.
He approved a request from a small grey cloud to come indoors, because it looked cold. The Council met under umbrellas until autumn.
He approved an order for one hundred teacakes, when the order said ten. The press room ate teacakes for breakfast, lunch and supper for a month, and the mice in the pushing line had to be rolled home.
He approved a herring as Chief Pebble Counter for one Tuesday. Everyone agrees the herring did a reasonably good job, and was very punctual.
And he approved a suggestion that Thursdays be cancelled. For a whole year the week went Wednesday, Friday, and anything anyone had put down on a Thursday was never seen again. Several hats are still missing.
What nobody knew was that a second parcel had left the Embossing Department the day after Fred. Inside it was a small, round, brass stamp: the kind of seal you press into paper to leave a mark. With it was a note that said: Small mix-up. The seal we sent you yesterday is the wrong kind of seal. The right kind follows shortly.
It went by snail mail. The snails are the most careful post in the Land and have never once lost a parcel. They are not, however, quick, especially with heavy things, and a brass stamp weighs about as much as eleven snails. They carried it in turns, very slowly and very proudly, and it arrived seven years later, on a Thursday, which caused its own confusion.
By then Fred had gone home to his island for the herring season. The Council read the note, looked at the little brass stamp, and found, to their surprise, that they missed being approved of. A brass stamp can press a very good mark. It cannot clap.
So the Council wrote one more letter, and this time they checked every word three times. It said: Please send seals. Several. The kind that clap.
Fred's cousins came, and his aunts, and a very old and very wise seal called Mrs Pebble, who could read the smallest writing in the world through a single drop of water. Together they founded the Associated Board of Seals, with proper rules at last: every letter must be kind, true, and the right size to be read through a glass. Fish are approved on Fridays only.
They use the brass stamp too, at last, and they always say thank you to the snails. So every letter that leaves the Land now gets two things: a round of applause, and a mark pressed into the corner that you can feel with your fingertip.
Fred still visits every summer. He sits in on meetings, he sniffs the post, and he approves of the Board enormously. He approves of everything. Especially you.
Every letter card in a Wobbly Post kit is embossed by hand with the Board's mark. Run a fingertip over the corner.