4 The name of this Daoine Sidhe King was particularly long and difficult. Traditionally he has always been known as Oberon.

46 “The sky spoke to me …”

1 The spell to detect magic appears in The Instructions by Jacques Belasis.

47 “A black lad and a blue fella – that ought to mean summat.”

1 John Uskglass’s arms were the Raven-in-Flight (properly called the Raven Volant), a black raven on a white field.

2 Presumably the Raven King’s original Sidhe name, which Jonathan Strange thought meant “Starling”.

48 The Engravings

1 Famulus: a Latin word meaning a servant, especially the servant of a magician.

2 Sir Walter is voicing a commonly-held concern. Shape-changing magic has always been regarded with suspicion. The Aureates generally employed it during their travels in Faerie or other lands beyond England. They were aware that shape-changing magic was particularly liable to abuses of every sort. For example in London in 1232 a nobleman’s wife called Cecily de Walbrook found a handsome pewter-coloured cat scratching at her bedchamber door. She took it in and named it Sir Loveday. It ate from her hand and slept upon her bed. What was even more remarkable, it followed her everywhere, even to church where it sat curled up in the hem of her skirts, purring. Then one day she was seen in the street with Sir Loveday by a magician called Walter de Chepe. His suspicions were immediately aroused. He approached Cecily and said, “Lady, the cat that follows you – I fear it is no cat at all.” Two other magicians were fetched and Walter and the others said spells over Sir Loveday. He turned back into his true shape – that of a minor magician called Joscelin de Snitton. Shortly afterwards Joscelin was tried by the Petty Dragownes of London and sentenced to have his right hand cut off.

3 It has already been described how Lt-Col. Colquhoun Grant’s devotion to his scarlet uniform had led to his capture by the French in 1812.

4 The common people in Northern England considered that they had suffered a great deal in recent years – and with good reason. Poverty and lack of employment had added to the general misery which the war with the French had produced. Then just when the war was over a new threat to their happiness had arisen – remarkable new machines which produced all sorts of goods cheaply and put them out of work. It is scarcely to be wondered at that certain individuals among them had taken to destroying the machines in an attempt to preserve their livelihoods.

5 There could be no neater illustration than this of the curious relation in which the Government in London stood to the northern half of the Kingdom. The Government represented the King of England but the King of England was only the King of the southern half. Legally he was the steward of the northern half maintaining the rule of law until such time as John Uskglass chose to return.