91 Brocéliande: Wace was the first whom we know of to write about Brocéliande, now considered to be the Forest of Paimpont in Brittany. The quotation is from the Roman de Rou, Wace’s twelfth-century verse chronicle of the dukes of Normandy written for Henry II of England. Warner quotes lines 6415–20, which read in English: ‘I went thither [to the forest] on purpose to see these wonders / I saw the forest and the land / I sought for the wonders, but I found none / I came back a fool, [as] I had gone like a fool / I went like a fool, and so came back / I sought after folly, and hold myself a fool for my pains.’ Adapted from Edgar Taylor’s 1837 translation Master Wace, his chronicle of the Norman conquest from the Roman de Rou.

92 table-turning: holding séances around a table, hoping to communicate with spirits or the dead who will answer by rapping on the table, or moving it.

93 vestigial: once functional, then, when the design alters, remains in place but is useless.

94 three-handed: for three players.

95 mandragora: a toxic plant, can also produce hallucinations and unconsciousness, so it is not clear whether the Favourite intended to kill himself out of despair, to cause a dramatic scene to draw attention to himself, or merely to sedate himself to avoid taking sides in the revolt.

96 formalist: a mode of thinking that ignores context, suggesting that the Ambassador would be unpleasantly rational.

97 una corda: Italian, the soft pedal on a piano.

98 whipper-in: from fox-hunting, an assistant to the huntsman who keeps control of the hounds, or, in this case, werewolves.

99 murrain: archaic and nonspecific term for an animal or crop disease.

100 chawbacon: American English term for a bumpkin, a clod.

101 Antecessor: this scene of a witches’ dance recalls Warner’s first novel, Lolly Willowes (1926).

102 tail: followers, attendants.

103 shagreen: a raw hide, so in this case from an animal with white skin, which suggests the unpleasant possibility that this is human shagreen from the Brocéliande estate.

104 baisemain: French, literally ‘kissing of hands’, a formal courtesy visit to a monarch.

105 quid pro quo: Latin, ‘something for something’, a formal exchange that begins when the first item is offered.

106 congé: French, the formal dismissal, or taking of leave.

107 Vivien: Merlin’s grave is said to be in the Forest of Brocéliande, placed there by the sorceress Vivien.

108 coeval: of the same age as.

109 Carnac: the celebrated Neolithic standing stones in Brittany.

110 Pomponius Mela: held to be the earliest Roman geographer, active in the first century CE.

111 flageolet: a small (and thus more portable) woodwind instrument, played like an oboe.

112 doing the polite: early twentieth-century slang for performing a social duty.

113 Mynnydd Prescelly: strictly speaking this is a range of hills in west Wales, the Preseli Hills.

114 Giraldus Cambrensis: twelfth-century cleric and historian of Wales. The ltinerarium Cambriae is an account of a journey through Wales in 1188.

115 torque: torc, solid neck ornament made and worn by Bronze and Iron Age peoples.