#magical deeds

[fyeahjsmnquotesandfootnotes]

"Ah! Listen! Oh, listen!" cried the King, spinning round. "He is playing for you now! That harsh melody is for your wicked tutor who will not teach you what you have every right to learn. Those discordant notes describe your anger at being prevented from making new discoveries. That slow, sad march is for the great library he is too selfish to shew you."

"How in the world . . ." began Strange and then stopped. He heard it too -the music that described his whole life. He realized for the first time how full of sadness his existence was. He was surrounded by mean-spirited men and women who hated him and were secretly jealous of his talent. He knew now that every angry thought he had ever had was justified and that every generous thought was misplaced. His enemies were despicable and his friends were treacherous. Norrell (naturally) was worst of all, but even Arabella was weak and unworthy of his love.

"Ah!" sighed His Majesty, "So you have been betrayed too."

"Yes," said Strange, sadly.

Chapter 33, Place the moon at my eyes

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Mrs Brandy picked up one of the coins and examined it. It was as if she held a ball of soft yellow light with a coin at the bottom of it. The light was odd. It made Mrs Brandy, John and Toby look quite unlike themselves: Mrs Brandy appeared proud and haughty, John looked sly and deceitful and Toby wore an expression of great ferocity. Needless to say, all of these were qualities quite foreign to their characters. But stranger still was the transformation that the light worked upon the dozens of small mahogany drawers that formed one wall of the shop. Upon other evenings the gilt lettering upon the drawers proclaimed the contents to be such things as: Mace (Blades), Mustard (Unhusked), Nutmegs, Ground Fennel, Bay Leaves, Pepper of Jamaica, Essence of Ginger, Caraway, Peppercorns and Vinegar and all the other stock of a fashionable and prosperous grocery business. But now the words appeared to read: Mercy (Deserved), Mercy (Undeserved), Nightmares, Good Fortune, Bad Fortune, Persecution by Families, Ingratitude of Children, Confusion, Perspicacity and Veracity. It was as well that none of them noticed this odd change. Mrs Brandy would have been most distressed by it had she known. She would not have had the least notion what to charge for these new commodities.

Chapter 17, The unaccountable appearance of twenty-five guineas.

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THOMAS BRIGHTWIND ME FECIT ANNO DOMINI MDCCLXXX*

*Thomas Brightwind made me, the year of our Lord 1780. This is the inscription on the bridge at Thoresby.

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...the forest was no longer a hundredth part of what it had once been, but there were still a number of very ancient trees and Tom was determined to pay his respects to those he considered his particular friends and to shew his disdain of those who had not behaved well towards him.*

*Fairies born in the last eight centuries or so--sophisticated, literate and consorting all their lives with Christians--have no more difficulty than Christians themselves in distinguishing between the animate and the inanimate. But to members of older generations (such as Tom) the distinction is quite unintelligible.

Several magical theorists and commentators have noted that fairies who retain this old belief in the souls of stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds etc., are more adept at magic than the younger generation and their magic is generally much stronger.

The following incident clearly shews how, given the right circumstances, fairies come to regard perfectly ordinary objects with a strange awe. In 1697 an attempt was made to kill the Old Man of the White Tower, one of the lesser princes of Faerie. The would-be assassin was a fairy called Broc (he had stripes of black and white fur upon his face). Broc had been greatly impressed by what he had heard of a wonderful new weapon which Christians had invented to kill each other. Consequently he forsook all magical means of killing the Old Man of the White Tower (which had some chance of success) and purchased instead a pistol and some shot (which had none). Poor Broc made his attempt, was captured and the Old Man of the White Tower locked him up in a windowless stone room deep in the earth. In the next room the Old Man imprisoned the pistol, and in a third room the shot. Broc died some time around the beginning of the twentieth century (after three centuries without a bite to eat, a drop to drink or a sight of the sun, even fairies grow weaker). The pistol and the shot, on the other hand, are still there, still considered by the Old Man as equally culpable, still deserving punishment for their wickedness. Several other fairies who wished to kill the Old Man of the White Tower have begun by devising elaborate plans to steal the pistol and the shot, which have attained a strange significance in the minds of the Old Man’s enemies. It is well known to fairies that metal, stone and wood have stubborn natures; the gun and shot were set upon killing the Old Man in 1697 and it is quite inconceivable to the fairy mind that they could have wavered in the intervening centuries. To the Old Man’s enemies it is quite clear that one day the gun and the shot will achieve their purpose.

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By two o'clock Tom and David had reached Nottinghamshire...*

*In the late eighteenth century a journey from London to Nottinghamshire might be expected to take two or three days. Tom and David seem to have arrived after a couple of hours: this presumably is one of the advantages of choosing as your travelling companion a powerful fairy prince.

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...the Ministers turned their attention to the great number of new magicians who had suddenly sprung up. These magicians had performed scarcely any magic and were largely uneducated; nevertheless they promised to be every bit as quarrelsome as Strange and Norrell themselves, and some means of regulating them would have to be found. Suddenly Mr Norrell's plans for reviving the Court of Cinque Dragownes (which had seemed so irrelevant before) were found to be of utmost pertinence.*

*Many of the new magicians applied to Lord Liverpool and the Ministers for permission to go and find Strange and Norrell. Some gentlemen were so thoughtful as to append lists of equipment, both magical and mundane, which they thought they might need and which they hoped that the Government would be kind enough to supply. One, a man called Beech in Plymouth, asked for the loan of the Inniskilling Dragoons.

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He used it often, you know--that chaos of black birds. I have been reading about it since I was a boy. That I should live to see it, Mr Strange! That I should live to see it! It has a name in the Sidhe language, the language of his childhood, but the name is lost.*

*The chaos of ravens and wind is also described in the tale of the Newcastle glovemaker’s child.

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He took the merest stub of a candle, placed it in a candlestick and lit it.*

*The last element of a successful summoning spell is temporal. The magician must somehow convey to the summoned person when he is meant to appear, otherwise (as Strange once  observed) a summoned person might appear at any time and feel he had fulfilled his obligations. A candle stub is a very convenient device: the magician instructs  the person summoned to appear when the flame goes out.