How many spells were there? asked Mrs Bloodworth.

About three, thought Buckler.

Were they hard to learn?

Oh no! Very easy.

Would it take long?

No, not long, she would be back in time for Mass.

Seventeen people entered Buckler’s cupboard that morning and were never seen again in England; among them were Mrs Bloodworth, her two youngest daughters, her two maids and two manservants, Mrs Bloodworth’s uncle and six neighbours. Only Margaret Bloodworth, Bloodworth’s eldest daughter, refused to go.

The Raven King sent two magicians from Newcastle to investigate the matter and it is from their written accounts that we have this tale. The chief witness was Margaret who told how, on his return, “my poor father went purposely into the cupboard to try if he could rescue them, tho’ I begged him not to. He has not come out again.”

Two hundred years later Dr Martin Pale was journeying through Faerie. At the castle of John Hollyshoes (an ancient and powerful fairy-prince) he discovered a human child, about seven or eight years old, very pale and starved-looking. She said her name was Anne Bloodworth and she had been in Faerie, she thought, about two weeks. She had been given work to do washing a great pile of dirty pots. She said she had been washing them steadily since she arrived and when she was finished she would go home to see her parents and sisters. She thought she would be finished in a day or two.

6 Francis Sutton-Grove (1682—1765), theoretical magician. He wrote two books De Generibus Artium Magicarum Anglorum, 1741, and Prescriptions and Descriptions, 1749. Even Mr Norrell, Sutton-Grove’s greatest (and indeed only) admirer, thought that Prescriptions and Descriptions (wherein he attempted to lay down rules for practical magic) was abominably bad, and Mr Norrell’s pupil, Jonathan Strange, loathed it so much that he tore his copy into pieces and fed it to a tinker’s donkey (see Life of Jonathan Strange by John Segundus, 1820, pub. John Murray).

De Generibus Artium Magicarum Anglorum was reputed to be the dreariest book in the canon of English magic (which contains many tedious works). It was the first attempt by an Englishman to define the areas of magic that the modern magician ought to study; according to Sutton-Grove these numbered thirty-eight thousand, nine hundred and forty-five and he listed them all under different heads. Sutton-Grove foreshadows the great Mr Norrell in one other way: none of his lists make any mention of the magic traditionally ascribed to birds or wild animals, and Sutton-Grove purposely excludes those kinds of magic for which it is customary to employ fairies, e.g. bringing back the dead.

7 Duke of Portland, Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury 1807—09.

8 A gentleman with thistle-down hair

1 “O Fairy. I have great need of your help. This virgin is dead and her family wish her to be returned to life.”

2 “Here is the dead woman between earth and heaven! Know then, O Fairy, that I have chosen you for this great task because …”