ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      

 

Firstly, Suzanne Parnell, for "Fun with Middle English." Readers should know that there exists in the world a manuscript of this book in which all of the Middle English dialogue has been rendered accurate in both spelling and grammar, a labor of love for the language by Suzanne, which allowed me to water it down for modern consumption—and Suzanne, I wept for every "arn" and "ert" and "hopande" that wenten, forsooth, by cause our moder tonge mei maken swich luflych layes, and gets inside your head and sings. All errors introduced by editing are mine alone.

Secondly, "Tercel" on GEnie Pet-Net, and Don Roeber of Texas, for introducing me to falconry. Through the strange magic of computer networking, Tercel (not to be mistaken for a car) passed his love of hunting birds and this ancient sport—and more of his patience and sweetness of character than he knows—to me when I didn’t know a falcon from a hawk. Don generously answered my questions and loaned me books and gave me the opportunity to watch a real falcon on the hunt— and if it wasn’t the most perfect weather in the world, we got the mud part right, anyway. Next season—less fog, more ducks! All exaggerations and technical mistakes I may have made in creating my "superfalcon" once again are mine alone.

Thirdly, Mary Wilburn of the Zula Bryant Wylie Library, for ever-patient ordering of inter-library loans, and taking time out of her London trip to provide me help beyond the call of duty.

Fourthly, Commander Bill Ashmole and his wife, Joan, of Devon, who generously spent part of their holiday visiting English abbeys and priories under my orders—for showing Mother and Daddy the best of good times as usual. They always come home smiling.

Lastly, but never leastly, Mother and Daddy themselves. Braving the roundabouts and shipyards, and nearly sucked into the Liverpool tunnel, my father managed to locate Birkenhead Priory tucked among the drydock cranes, when even the fellows at the petrol station down the street didn’t know where it was. Another of the world’s small ironies: the little priory that lay deep in the wilderness of the Wirral some five hundred years ago—still used for worship, recently renovated as a pleasant, tree-shaded civic center for the city of Birkenhead—still difficult for the average pilgrim to reach. It takes a man of true determination like my father, and very glad to see him the priest was, for it seems they don’t get as many visitors as they deserve down there in the midst of the Birkenhead shipyards where no one can find them.

In addition, the Hundred Years War gamers on GEnie, who not only provide some pretty slick role-playing in the fourteenth century, but helped me obtain my own copy of Froissart; the Oxford University Press, for publishing the Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM; and Travis, the only guy in the universe, as far as I know, who can successfully install an internal NEC-84 CD-ROM drive.

And finally, most of all, an unknown poet or poetess, for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

To each of you, my heartfelt thanks. 

LK, 1993