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.

7 Meaning Venice: Altinum was the city on Italy’s eastern coast whence came the first inhabitants of Venice.

56 The Black Tower

1 German for magician.

2 A somewhat poetical name for fairies.

3 Lord Byron is speaking of Great Britain.

4 See Byron’s letter to Augusta Leigh, October 28th, 1816.

57 The Black Letters

1 Strange’s later Venetian letters (in particular his letters to Henry Woodhope) have been known by this name since their publication in London in January 1817. Lawyers and magical scholars will doubtless continue to argue over whether or not the publication was legal. Certainly Strange never gave his permission and Henry Woodhope has always maintained that neither did he. Henry Woodhope also said that the published letters had been altered and added to, presumably by Henry Lascelles and Gilbert Norrell. In his The Life of Jonathan Strange John Segundus published what he and Woodhope claimed were the originals. It is these versions which are reprinted here.

2 This letter has never been found. It is probable that Strange never sent it. According to Lord Byron (letter to John Murray, Dec. 31st, 1816.) Strange would often write long letters to his friends and then destroy them. Strange confessed to Byron that he quickly became confused as to which he had and had not sent.

3 Byron died of a chill five years later in Greece.

59 Leucrocuta, the Wolf of the Evening

1 The prison where Drawlight was imprisoned for debt in November 1814.

61 Tree speaks to Stone; Stone speaks to Water

1 See Chapter 3, footnote 1.

2 Restoration and Rectification was a spell which reversed the effects of a recent calamity.

3 Teilo’s Hand was an ancient fairy spell which halted all sorts of things: rain, fire, wind, coursing water or blood. It presumably was named after the fairy who had first taught it to an English magician.

4 Chauntlucet: a mysterious and ancient spell which encourages the moon to sing. The song the moon knows is apparently very beautiful and can cure leprosy or madness in any who hear it.