“I agree that the Raven King has every thing to do with it,” said Mr Norrell, “but not, I think, in the way you suppose. Consider, if you will, Mr Strange, that all the time the Raven King ruled Northern England, he also ruled a fairy kingdom. Consider, if you will, that no king ever had two such diverse races under his sway. Consider, if you will, that he was as great a king as he was a magician – a fact which almost all historians are prone to overlook. I think there can be little doubt that he was much preoccupied with the task of binding his two peoples together – a task which he accomplished, Mr Strange, by deliberately exaggerating the role of fairies in magic. In this way he increased his human subjects’ esteem for fairies, he provided his fairy subjects with useful occupation, and made both peoples desire each other’s company.”

“Yes,” said Strange, thoughtfully, “I see that.

“It seems to me,” continued Mr Norrell, “that even the greatest of Aureate magicians miscalculated the extent to which fairies are necessary to human magic. Look at Pale! He considered his fairy-servants so essential to the pursuit of his art that he wrote that his greatest treasures were the three or four fairy-spirits living in his house! Yet my own example makes it plain that almost all respectable sorts of magic are perfectly achievable without assistance from any one! What have I ever done that has needed the help of a fairy?”

“I understand you,” said Strange, who imagined that Mr Norrell’s last question must be rhetorical. “And I must confess, sir, that this idea is quite new to me. I have never seen it in any book.”

“Neither have I,” said Mr Norrell. “Of course there are some sorts of magic which are entirely impossible without fairies. There may be times – and I sincerely hope that such occasions will be rare – when you and I shall have to treat with those pernicious creatures. Naturally we shall have to exercise the greatest caution. Any fairy we summon will almost certainly have dealt with English magicians before. He will be eager to recount for us all the names of the great magicians he has served and the services he has rendered to each. He will understand the forms and precedents of such dealings a great deal better than we do. It puts us – will put us – at a disadvantage. I assure you, Mr Strange, nowhere is the decline of English magic better understood than in the Other Lands.”

“Yet fairy-spirits hold a great fascination for ordinary people,” mused Strange, “and perhaps if you were occasionally to employ one in your work it might help make our art more popular. There is still a great deal of prejudice against using magic in the war.”

“Oh! Indeed!” cried Mr Norrell, irritably. “People believe that magic begins and ends with fairies! They scarcely consider the skill and learning of the magician at all! No, Mr Strange, that is no argument with me for employing fairies! Rather the reverse! A hundred years ago the magio-historian, Valentine Munday, denied that the Other Lands existed. He thought that the men who claimed to have been there were all liars. In this he was quite wrong, but his position remains one with which I have a great deal of sympathy and I wish we could make it more generally believed. Of course,” said Mr Norrell thoughtfully, “Munday went on to deny that America existed, and then France and so on. I believe that by the time he died he had long since given up Scotland and was beginning to entertain doubts of Carlisle … I have his book here.”³ Mr Norrell stood up and fetched it from the shelves. But he did not give it to Strange straightaway.