1 She purrs and chirps – Humphrey ap Evans, Falconry For You, John Gifford, 1960, p. 36.
2 peculiar and somewhat sulky – Gilbert Blaine, Falconry, Philip Allan, 1936, p. 179.
3 Never was there a more contrary – Frank Illingworth, Falcons and Falconry, Blandford Press Ltd., 1948, p. 74.
4 not like her or her kin – Charles Hawkins Fisher, Reminiscences of a Falconer, John Nimmo, 1901, p. 17.
5 a thousand pities – Gage Earl Freeman and Francis Henry Salvin, Falconry: Its Claims, History and Practice, Longman, Green, Longman and Robert, 1859, p. 216.
6 sociable and familiar . . . altogether shye and fearfull . . . stately and brave – Simon Latham, Lathams New and Second Booke of Falconry, Roger Jackson, 1618, p. 3.
7 joye in her selfe . . . my playfellow – Edmund Bert, An Approved Treatise of Hawkes and Hawking, pp. 41–2.
8 crazy and suspicious – The Goshawk, pp. 146–7.
9 man who for two months – ibid, p. 37.
10 The thing he most hates – T. H. White, entry for 14 August 1936 in unpublished manuscript notebook ‘Flying Supplement’, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
11 monkish elite . . . small, tenacious sect – Lord Tweedsmuir, ‘Gos and Others’, Spectator Harvest, ed. Henry Wilson Harris, Ayer Publishing, 1970, pp. 7–9, p. 8.
12 deeply rooted in the nature . . . born, not made – Gilbert Blaine, Falconry, Philip Allan, 1936, p. 13.
13 It was not until I had kept some hawks – T. H. White, unpublished manuscript ‘A Sort of Mania’, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
14 that ancestor’s bony hand – The Goshawk, p. 18.
15 the wind in your face – J. Wentworth Day, Sporting Adventure, Harrap, 1937, p. 205.
16 Falconry is certainly of high descent . . . I believe he was mistaken – Gage Earl Freeman and Francis Henry Salvin, Falconry: Its Claims, History and Practice, pp. 3–4.
13: Alice, falling
1 Skipping and leaping – The Goshawk, p. 100.
2 was evidently a matter of exquisite assessment – ibid, p. 95.
3 Now, now – ibid, p. 105.
4 a hump-backed aviating Richard III – ibid, p. 106.
5 I braced the breast muscles – ibid, p. 107.
6 grow up a big, brave . . . any of these noble things – England Have My Bones, pp. 349–50.
7 I cry prosit loudly – T. H. White, entry for Thursday 27 August, unpublished manuscript notebook ‘Horse’, Harry Ransom Humanities Reasearch Center, University of Texas at Austin.
8 the wisdom of certainty – T. H. White, unpublished manuscript ‘You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down’, pp. 261–2, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
9 To anybody who has spent two months – ibid, p. 271.
10 ‘You went back to school voluntarily – ibid, p. 263.
15: For whom the bell
1 avoid the kicks which frighten me . . . actually a horrible surprise . . . only a man – T. H. White, entry for 25 August 1936 in unpublished manuscript notebook ‘Horse’, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
16: Rain
1 insensate El Dorado – The Goshawk, p. 124.
2 It had hardly any breaking strain. It had already been broken twice – ibid, p. 123.
3 You bloody little sod . . . my fault – ibid, p. 124.
17: Heat
1 To him I am still the rarely tolerated enemy, and to me he is always the presence of death – T. H. White, entry for 2 September 1936 in unpublished manuscript notebook ‘Horse’, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
2 I have lived for this hawk . . . never seen before – ibid.
3 growing sensual – Sylvia Townsend Warner, T. H. White: A Life, p. 29.
4 He has been frightened into insanity . . . and persecution – T. H. White, entry for 2 September 1936 in unpublished manuscript notebook ‘Horse’, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
18: Flying free
1 Rooks observed to be mobbing – Gilbert Blaine, Falconry, Philip Allan, 1936, p. 199.
2 I cannot remember that my heart stopped beating – The Goshawk, p. 136.
3 Love asketh but himself – William Blake, ‘The Clod and the Pebble’, misquoted in The Goshawk, p. 147.
19: Extinction
1 The exhibition was the excellent Three Days of the Condor by Henrik H?kansson, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge.
20: Hiding
1 Consider this, and in our time . . . look there – W. H. Auden ‘Consider this’ (first published 1930) in The English Auden, ed. Edward Mendelson, Faber & Faber, 1978, p. 46.
2 Silver-gold through the blue haze – T. H. White, unpublished manuscript notebook ‘ETC’, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
3 He was a Hittite – The Goshawk, p. 214.