Cold Henry

Cold Henry is the name by which a certain fairy prince is known; we are told that in his own language he had many more titles and honorifics. This prince had the happiness at separate times of receiving both the great Aureate magician Ralph Stokesey and later the adventurous Dr Martin Pale, though their visits to him were divided by a period of some three hundred years. Stokesey had caused some inconvenience to his host by negligently leaving a pair of boots behind him when he left. These boots Cold Henry had kept, fearing that their owner might one day wish to have them back, and also unsure whether he would be held accountable for their loss in the first place. During Dr Pale's visit he vainly attempted to pass the boots on to his guest, feeling another English magician would know how to dispose of them safely; but Dr Pale naturally declined. The boots were very old, very worn and in any case did not fit his feet.

Mr Segundus reads of this amusing episode in Belasis's Instructions, when he first sees a copy in Mr Norrell's library. It is illustrative of the great difficulty humans and fairies have in comprehending each other's actions[1].