Enigmatic Variations No. 1763: Magic Square by Kcit

A ‘MAGIC SQUARE’ from Kcit this week – maybe blurring the boundaries between word puzzles and number puzzles, and a bit of a jigsaw puzzle as well!

The preamble states that:

“Clues 10-25 are normal. ‘Magic Square’ clues 1-9 are clues to two words run together, definition and wordplay for the first preceding those for the second, with the division not necessarily marked by punctuation. One is an across answer, one a down, and they cross in a shared square. There is one such shared square in each 4×4 section of the grid. Solvers must enter the shared clue number in that square (along with the letter), setting up a 3×3 MAGIC SQUARE – which doesn’t work. Solvers must therefore rearrange some of the newly numbered cells, including their letters, to make the square work, while forming new words. The Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended, but does not give 15 or 17; both are in Collins.”

Well, it made sense for the first sentence…but then it got a bit complicated and needed a few re-reads! And even then I decided to just start with Clues 10-25, for a bit of ‘normality’.

Once a few of these had created a framework to hang some of the ‘magic’ clues on, I ventured into 1-9 to try and split the clues and get some possible jigsaw pieces. The ‘African tree’ had to be BAOBAB, and I had seen TOE-IN recently as a ‘wheel adjustment’ – so those two must cross on the O, and there was a slot at top right for a six-letter word ending with a B. One down, eight more to go!

The horse for long distance should be a STAYER; the second half of 4 looked like it had to be MASTHEAD; and so forth – gradually wheedling a few answers, but not getting too many pairs to start looking where they might cross. RABBINICAL helped, as it had to go along the third row up.

Suffice to say that I got there eventually, although I had put the numbers 1-9 large in their cells without their letters in my working copy, to try and help with the next stage of making the Magic Square work.

The initial configuration was :

              ➚ 13

4  1  6  ➙ 11

3  5  7  ➙ 15

2  9  8  ➙ 19

 ↕  ↕ ↕    ➘ 17

9 15 21

And looking at the words, rather than the numbers, it seemed obvious that BAOBAB, RABBINICAL, MASTHEAD, ECHIDNA/AUTOVAC and LAW-WRITER wouldn’t easily make new words with a single change, whereas STAYER/FORMAT; PLATE/CLIME and STARE/SPIRE seemed ripe candidates for some manipulation.

A little bit of trial and error with 8,4 and 2 ended up with perfect 15s all round:

              ➚ 15

8  1  6  ➙ 15

3  5  7  ➙ 15

4  9  2  ➙ 15

 ↕  ↕   ↕   ➘ 15

15 15 15

And a final grid as in the last frame below:

Hopefully I have covered it all – a lot of thematic material and a complicated preamble, but eventually not as daunting as it started off looking. My thanks to Kcit for an enjoyable challenge and an interesting device – not sure I’ve seen this sort of thing before…although those with longer memories/wider cruciverbal experience may suggest otherwise below…