In the centre of the hill Stokesey found an enchanted hall where everyone was dancing. He waited until one of the dancers came close. Then he rolled a magic apple towards her and she picked it up. Naturally it was the best and most beautiful apple in all the worlds that ever were. As soon as the fairy woman had eaten it, she desired nothing so much as another one just the same. She looked around, but saw no one. “Who sent me that apple?” she asked. “The East Wind,” whispered Stokesey. On the next night Stokesey again followed Col Tom Blue inside the hill. He watched the dancers and again he rolled an apple towards the woman. When she asked who had sent it to her, he replied that it was the East Wind. On the third night he kept the apple in his hand. The fairy woman left the other dancers and looked round. “East Wind! East Wind!” she whispered. “Where is my apple?” “Tell me where Col Tom Blue sleeps,” whispered Stokesey, “and I will give you the apple.” So she told him: deep in the ground, on the northernmost edge of the brugh.

On the following nights Stokesey impersonated the West Wind, the North Wind and the South Wind and he used his apples to persuade other inhabitants of the mound to give him information about Col Tom Blue. From a shepherd he learnt what animals guarded Col Tom Blue while he slept – a wild she-pig and an even wilder he-goat. From Col Tom Blue’s nurse he learnt what Col Tom Blue held in his hand while he slept – a very particular and important pebble. And from a kitchen-boy he learnt what three words Col Tom Blue said every morning upon waking.

In this way Stokesey learnt enough to gain power over Col Tom Blue. But before he could use his new knowledge, Col Tom Blue came to him and said he had reconsidered: he believed he would like to serve Stokesey after all.

What had happened was this: Col Tom Blue had discovered that the East Wind, the West Wind, the North Wind and the South Wind had all been asking questions about him. He had no idea what he could have done to offend these important personages, but he was seriously alarmed. An alliance with a powerful and learned English magician suddenly seemed a great deal more attractive.

55 The second shall see his dearest possession in his enemy’s hand

1 The last English magician to enter Faerie willingly before Strange was Dr Martin Pale. He made many journeys there. The last was probably some time in the 1550s.

2 See Chapter 54, footnote 4.

3 Italian party.

4 Presumably John Uskglass’s Sidhe name.

5 A particular problem in mediaeval England was the great abundance of cowans. It is a term (now obsolete) properly applied to any unqualified or failed craftsmen, but here has special application to magicians.

6 Several authorities have noted that long-lived fairies have a tendency to call any substantial period of time “four thousand years”. The fairy lady simply means she has known the brugh time out of mind, before any one troubled to reckon up time into years, centuries and millennia. Many fairies, when asked, will say they are four thousand years old; they mean they do not know their age; they are older than human civilization – or possibly than humankind.