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I have an OED in two volumes with tiny print, for which you need a magnifying glass, but I bought it in about 1980 from a neighbour. It does not contain 26 ac. This must be a 'new' addition.

As this is the first time I have had to consult it for ages, this was a bit frustrating. As you say, Websters confirmed what I thought was the case.

Yes, I have been using that. I have two five letter names and three six letter names. I need another five letter name, I know (from Wiki) what the possibilities are, and I cannot find any of them in the grid!

Of course, it might be six letters one of which is already there in the 37 which are highlighted.

This is very frustrating having spent ages solving the clues and understanding how the movement worked.

Oh ok - not sure what to suggest then.

There should be a likely looking word that sticks out that you can Google with the theme. Otherwise perhaps you have a grid error.

Foinaven - if I'm thinking of the correct character, wiki has it as the second of a pair and it's easy to miss

Got it. I had been ignoring this since I did not see it. Thanks.

Having resumed consideration of the clues, the solver repels his initial reaction and decerns. I was finding this tough going and took a break via the much gentler IQ and the extremely gentle EV. Then I came back this morning to my half-empty grid - which included some very tentative entries . Things started to fall into place and, for reasons which escape me, I jaloused the theme and was able to create the message and the origin without recourse to my list of additional letters, which I used simply to confirm my supposition. The highlighting was then quickly completed. Many thanks, Avian for a tough but very fair challenge. (And thanks, too, to whatever angel of inspiration visited me!)

I certainly found this a tough one to crack. I barely found sufficient letters to extrapolate 5dn, and then the first of the 6 characters resurfaced in my memory. At that point, I had only 3 characters sufficiently evident from the part-completed grid, but armed with a full list and Wiki (I’ve never experienced the characters in any of their forms) the remaining details fell into place. I found the clues particularly abstruse due to the confounding set up. A struggle, and not one I particularly enjoyed completing.

I thought this was very good. Tough clues, made trickier by the moving letters, and brilliant construction to make the letters work for both phrases and to fit them into the grid in the right places with the characters.

Two parsings outstanding for me, can't see the wordplay for 3d and 7d, both on the left.

Now back to last week's, which is proving stubbornly difficult to finish off...

I'm also still unclear on the 3d LH wordplay.

SH, for 7d, my understanding is: you lop the top off a word for rank, and then add a letter from the last word of wordplay.

For 7d I had rank as the definition with a word for top lopped and then the last letter added

3d - double definition as it means an indication of unknown as well as “in one” in books