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Novice,

In row 1 it's just letter 7 (although it doesn't change)
In row 2 it's letters 6 and 8
In row 3 it's letters 5, 7, and 9
In row 4 it's letters 4, 6, 8, and 10

The shape doesn't 'contract' once it reaches the sides. So in row 13 letters 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 change.

Brilliant- well done for cracking this one.

I challenge anyone to name any of the previous 1247 EV puzzles that has been more complicated than this one. It was either the greatest waste of time or the greatest achievement of the year to date - I can't quite decide. I suspect I would have finished a lot earlier had I been a master of Excel - even so Excel did save me quite a bit of effort on the modulus 26 stages.
I do think the message uncovered after the initial grid fill was far too open to multiple interpretations - and, but for some reassurance from posts above, I might have given up under the 'life's too short' rule. Harribobs your card is marked - I will look out for your next effort with interest. Oh, and by the way, it would be churlish not to stand back in amazement at the guile and craft used in constructing this puzzle. This was harder than any Listener I can remember!

The help provided has been excellent, but (unless my arithmetic is vastly awry) I still get only gibberish. So let me ask a question. In the two cells of importance in Row 2 I add O to U to obtain J and add O to P to obtain E. So far so straightforward. In Row 3 do I add J to T to get D, then (in the middle) add J to E to E to get T, then add E to I to get N, and so on? I'm assuming I don't just add O every time.

You're on the right lines, Cockie. Keep the cascade you've started correctly, going all the way down to the foot of the grid with the affected cells at the edge of the cascade just being the sum of themselves and the cell diagonally above whilst the other cascaded cells being the sum of themselves and the two cells diagonally above. It takes a lot of patience and (if you're like me) you'll make an error somewhere so its worth doing all the sums twice as a check as you go down.
Once complete you will find the apposite aphorism in rows 5, 8, 10 and 13.
A truly epic EV!

I have pulled out enough hair over this and would appreciate a guiding light....I have filled the grid and have the instruction from the missing letters. I think I must be misinterpreting that message and the very helpful nudges in this thread, as I continue to get gibberish. I have tried both manual and Excel methods....I have the same outcomes as per the start of Cockie's suggestion. Running from top down, left-to-right, I have 15, 36-31, 56-72-40, 61-149-118-45, 67-222-283-168-63 and so on. This gives me respectively :O, J-E, D-T-N, I-S-N-S, O-N-W-L-K and so on. The original source of this sequence being: O, U-P, T-E-I, E-U-F-E, F-L-P-E-R

I am curious as to mistersting's comment #10 - on line three the two outlying characters are both A...Does that signal a "zeroing" of the cascade? Which doesn't tie up with Stacpolly's suggestion of a continual cascade (which is my interpretation)? Also, what happens when the sequence hits the outer walls at row 7? I am taking the first 'diagonal' character needed in rows 8, 10 and 12 to be the second character in each row (C, N and E) ....and the first diagonal in rows 9, 11 & 13 to be the first character in each row (G, A and A)

I feel I am close but any wee nudge to put me back on the right path would be extremely welcome

I'm baffled, JLC, since everything you suggest in your post is spot on. The contents of the affected cells before translation at the start of rows 8 to 13 are just as you suggest and your translation of characters is correct as far as you specify it. There is no zeroing of the sums - they just carry on accumulating to the foot of the grid and then get translated back into characters via modulus 26. Remember the affected cells touching the right or left hand edges of the grid are only subject to accumulating their own content and that of the single diagonally senior cell whereas all other affected cells have two other diagonally senior cells involved In their accumulation. It is also well worth checking your sums since a single error blows everything below it out of the water. Perhaps you have slipped up somewhere in your original grid fill. As I said in my earlier post the message rows are 5, 8 .10 and 13. Good luck - it is well worth persevering.

Thanks Stacpolly, I'm as equally baffled as you :)

I had wondered whether I had gone astray with some of the solves, hence putting my source letters in my post. Though I must have checked parsing and solves 10 times over.....Perhaps if Cockie strays upon this thread again he/she can make comment on if he/she has a match with mine. I have obviously gone wrong somewhere. As you say one subtle glitch can cause haywire throughout. Pretty unforgiving puzzle..

Hello JLC,

In row 5 you should have the start of the aphorism (two words 2,9). If you google this it will bring up the whole aphorism so you can check if an odd letter somewhere in the cascade is wrong.

The cascade continues over all the diagonals to the edges and corners, like the aphorism suggests

Hi Folks

I had it solved all along correctly. Massive facepalm here. I was looking for the message in the changed letters only

Many thanks