#8 shekti -- culinary term: mild curry containing not less than three horse-radishes and three and one third chili peppers per person, diluted with twelve parts cooking spirit by volume and containing a subtle blend of five herbs and two spices from the continent, not including cumin.

#7 ghen-madifi -- 1) in Congo and central Africa, a witch-doctor specialising in matters sexual; common duties include the banishment of inhabiting spirits from the male organ by means of ritual scalding and bloodletting, and the curing of nymphomania, also by banishing spirits by scalding and bloodletting. 2) a two-foot ceremonial steel phallus, symbol of the above office, and also a tool for scalding ad bloodletting.

#6 fargo -- Trobriand islander term for the occasional conglomerations of rotting seaweed, dead fish and other assorted jetsom which from time to time are washed up on beaches or caught in the nets of fishing boats in those waters, sometimes forming irregular balls more than 10ft across at their broadest dimensions. From farqhoyia, archaic term of obscure yet clearly scatological derivation.

#5 yardhen-pole -- 1) statutory measure originating in pre-Norman Cornwall of exactly fifty-five and two-sevenths inches 2) the ceremonial bronze instrument for measuring this length. (yarthen + POLE; Derivation unknown.)

#4 dryopthor -- philosophical instrument of mid-fourteenth century Britain, using simple mechanical principles akin to those of Napier's Bones to determine the truth in a given statement. Banned by royal decree a week after its public unveiling, the plans and all working models were reported destroyed by the inventor shortly afterwards. However, since we now have no way of confirming the veracity of this statement, its legacy remains to this day a sword of Damocles over the heads of Her Majesty's Government.

#3 minchas -- Any member of the genus M.; small fur-bearing mammal native of the Siberian tundra. Twelve species have been recorded in the past, although five are now known to be extinct. Similar in appearance to large beavers with the banded tail of a raccoon, M. rutheniensis, the common Siberian minchas, once widely hunted for its fur, is now verging on extinction, due to destruction of its natural habitat and the species' inability to breed in captivity.

#2 greffet -- agricultural term for a freemartin calf of freisian stock, of between six and eight months of age. Archaic.

#1 denstwort -- rare herb found only on the southern slopes of certain of the Channel Islands. Famed for its curative properties when administered as a hot poultice to inflamed haemarrhoid clusters.