A Faire Wood Withering

A Faire Wood Withering, by Peter Watershippe, was written in 1444.* It chronicles the decline of English magic after the Raven King left England, and contains examples of spells, such as Stokesey's Vitrification, which worked in Watershippe's youth, but were wholly ineffective after the Raven King's departure [39].

A reader of the book may consider its tone angry, but this pales in comparison to the tone of two of Watershippe's later books: A Defence of my Deeds Written while Wrongly Imprisoned by my Enemies in Newark Castle and Crimes of the False King [39].

Notes

*. Given that the art of printing was not practised in England until William Caxton's introduction of the printing press in 1476, we may presume that the earliest copies of this book were manuscript copies, meticulously hand-produced by scribes. However, it may be supposed that printed copies of the book were later produced and sold, although we cannot be sure of their number. It is unclear whether the version possessed by Mr Norrell is one of the manuscript copies or a later printed version, or if indeed he had both. The scrupulous nature of his scholarship — and unscrupulous nature of his methods of collection — would seem to favor that he did possess at least one manuscript copy.