25. The fig tree: see Matthew 21:19, Mark 11:13 Matthew 19:12
37. Matthew 10:29
39. John 11:25, 26 Matthew 27:25
40. John 11:25
41. The Shechinah: The Divine manifestation through which God’s presence is felt by man’, Gateway to Judaism, Volume One, p. 300, by Albert M. Shulman, Thomas Yoseloff, 1972
43. Matthew 27:22, 24, 25
48. Psalm 8:4
52. Mourner’s Kaddish, p. 80, The Authorised Daily Prayer Book, op. cit.
61. Deuteronomy 32:18
62. Deuteronomy 32:15-18
70. Mark 14:22
71. John 13:26, 27 Mark 14:22
72. John 11:48, 50-3
73. Matthew 26:50 Luke 22:48
74. Luke 22:48 Matthew 26:50
75. Mark 14:67, 68
76. Matthew 27:24
86. Jeremiah 2:24
94. Full quittance: see Ruth, p. 15, Volume Four, The Midrash Rabbah, edited by Rabbi Dr H. Freedman and Maurice Simon, The Soncino Press, London, 1977. This part is translated by Rabbi Dr L. Rabbinowitz.
95. Isaiah 26:19
106. The red heifer: see Numbers 19.
108. Abraham and the fiery furnace: see Genesis p. 311, Volume One, The Midrash Rabbah, op. cit. The sulphur-mercury process: see pp. 89, 90, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Thames and Hudson, London, 1978.
112. Psalm 137:5 Esaias 56:3-5, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, op. cit.
113. Isaiah 56:5 Bembel Rudzuk’s remark about the pattern going on for ever: this derives from Richard Ettinghausen’s caption on p. 72 of his Chapter Two, ‘The Man-Made Setting’, in The World of Islam, edited by Bernard Lewis, Thames and Hudson, London, 1976.
129. Tower Gate’s reference to the Quran: see Sura 4:79, The Holy Quran, op. cit.
132. Deuteronomy 23:2
133. The castration of Noah: See Genesis, pp. 291, 293, Volume One, The Midrash Rabbah, op. cit. The Genesis volume is translated by Rabbi Dr H. Freedman.
135. The she-camel: see Suras VII, 73-9; XI 61-8; XXVI 141-59; XXVII 45-53, The Holy Quran, op. cit.
162. Genesis 21:17-18 Genesis, p. 473, Volume One, The Midrash Rabbah, op. cit.
175. Ezekiel 24:6-9
177. Hebrews 1:11-12
177-179. Sura 81:1-14, The Holy Quran, op. cit.; see notes 5973, 5974.
196. Bohemond and the stirrup: see Chapter I, Medieval Technology and Social Change by Lynn White Jr, Oxford University Press, 1962.
207. Timaeus, 57E, Plato, the Collected Dialogues, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1961.
212. Malachi 3:1-2 I Kings 19:10
214. The new-moon formula is from p. 310, Volume One, Gateway to Judaism, op. cit.
220. The lines from ‘Inanna’s Descent’ are from p. 159, History Begins at Sumer by Samuel Noah Kramer, Doubleday Anchor Books, New York, 1959.
233. The farthest lote-tree: see Sura LIII 14-18, and note 5093, The Holy Quran, op. cit: ‘… the farthest Lote-tree marked the bounds of heavenly knowledge as revealed to men, beyond which neither angels nor men could pass.’
Wherever I have used a particular idea (as opposed to general information) from someone else I have acknowledged it in the above list. The idea network, however, is such that I sometimes think that emanations or idea pheromones may well reach out from unread pages to connect with the mind that wants to connect with them; for that reason I shall list here two books that I have only turned the pages of but I am well aware that even chapter headings and picture layout can move the mind one way or another; one is A Study of Vermeer by Edward A. Snow (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1979). The elegance of the production of this book, the quality and choice of reproductions, and the general layout are so finely tuned to the spirit of the painter that it cannot fail to sensitize and stimulate even the unreader. The other is The Prophet Elijah in the Development of Judaism by Aharon Wiener, in the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization series (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1978). It seems to me that just glancing at random lines in Wiener’s text made Elijah, all strange and wild and falling apart with the power that possessed him, leap newly vivid into my mind where a place had already been prepared for him not only by the Holy Scriptures but also by a song that I heard in a shortwave broadcast from Israel: Eliyahu, sung by Mordechai Ben David (the LP is ‘Moshiach is Coming Soon’, Aderet Records). This Sabbath-night song was translated for me in Jerusalem the Golden, the shop in Golders Green where I bought the record, by Alan Cohen, a stranger whose help I sought; he did it with a spontaneous enthusiasm that seemed to arise from the very essence of Elijah, the quintessential, the engodded stranger.
Acknowledgements
Riddley Walker left me in a place where there was further action pending and this further action was waiting for the element that would precipitate it into the time and place of its own story. It was my daughter Esmé and her husband Moti who on May 15th, 1980 took me to the ruined stronghold of Montfort in Galilee, built in the twelfth century by the knights of the Teutonic Order of Saint Mary and enlarged by them in the thirteenth century. We slept in the open in the camping site across the gorge from the ruin, and in the morning we went down the steep path to the stream at the bottom of the gorge and then climbed the winding road up to Montfort.
The look of the stars burning and flickering over Montfort, those three stars between the Virgin and the Lion with their upward swing like the curve of a scythe, the stare into the darkness, the hooded eagleness of the stronghold high over the gorge, the paling into dawn of its gathered flaunt and power precipitated Pilgermann into his time and place and me into a place I hadn’t even known was there.
For help in my researches I am indebted to Michael Freed, to Alina Edmond, to Michael Negin, Deputy Clerk to the Beth Din, to Ezra Kahn of the Jews’ College Library, to Robert Irwin, to James Mellaart, to S. D. Goitein, who very graciously sent me unpublished material for reference, and to the School of Oriental and African Studies Library of the University of London and its unfailingly co-operative staff.
To Mary Banks, my copy editor, I owe a special thanks; this text required many final decisions well beyond the range of copy-editing, and her fine-tuned ear, unerring eye, and reliably sound judgment made light work of it.
R.H.
A Note on the Author
Russell Hoban (1925-2011) was the author of many extraordinary novels including Turtle Diary, Angelica Lost and Found and his masterpiece, Riddley Walker. He also wrote some classic books for children including The Mouse and his Child and the Frances books. Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, USA, he lived in London from 1969 until his death.
By the Same Author
NOVELS
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
Kleinzeit
Turtle Diary
Riddley Walker
Pilgermann
The Medusa Frequency
Fremder
Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s Offer
Angelica’s Grotto
Amaryllis Night and Day
The Bat Tattoo
Her Name Was Lola
Come Dance With Me
Linger Awhile
My Tango with Barbara Strozzi
Angelica Lost and Found
POETRY
The Pedalling Man
The Last of the Wallendas and Other Poems
COLLECTIONS
The Moment Under the moment
FOR CHILDREN
The Mouse and His Child
The Frances Books
The Trokeville Way
First published 1983 by Jonathan Cape
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 1983 by Russell Hoban
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (
or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4088 3571 5
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Quotes and References
Acknowledgments
A Note on the Author
By the Same Author
eCopyright
Russell Hoban, Pilgermann
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