Originally a performance piece by Alan Moore and Tim Perkins, The Birth Caul is a shamanism of childhood, a journey from the present to the past, back into the womb and beyond. The magical creation theory story of love, death and resurrection Snakes and Ladders was also a performance, entwining the disinterment of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Siddal, the visionary nature of Arthur Machen's experiences after the death of his wife and Alan Moore's magical traveller, John Constantine.