Schirmer, Walter F. John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the XVth Century. Trans. Ann E. Keep. London: Methuen; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961. English trans. of John Lydgate: Ein Kulturbild aus dem 15. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1952. Given how much we enjoyed the first two books in Stephen Fry‘s Greek myth trilogy— Mythos and Heroes—we’ve been eagerly anticipating the third book, Troy, a retelling of the Trojan War, which is now out. We asked him to tell us which sources and books he found most useful as he embarked on his retelling of the epic tale of the fall of Troy.

Steiner, George, ed. Homer in English. New York: Penguin, 1996. [ Troy Book Pro. 145-75, 2.7852-75, 3.5423-74, 4.7058-7108.] Harvey, Paul, ed. (1946). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p.802 . Retrieved 6 August 2012.

Frigii Daretis Ylias: De bello Troiano. In Werke und Briefe von Joseph Iscanus. Ed. Ludwig Gompf. Leiden: Brill, 1970. An amiable meander through the historic sources . . . Fry's light and graceful tone helps to ease the unfamiliar reader through the complicated genealogies The Times The Laud Troy Book. Ed. J. E. Wülfing. Early English Text Society, o.s. 121 and 122. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1902-03.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. "The Reputation of Criseyde, 1155-1500." Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 43 (1971), 71-153. His death "thorugh necligence only of his shelde" (3.5399) is surely the most interesting contradiction of Lydgate's poem. Hector's fatal lapse, which Lydgate adds to Guido's narrative, does not compromise Hector's heroic stature so much as challenge the primacy of prudence as a virtue that can be applied to so many facets of human experience. Frazer, Richard M., Jr., trans. The Trojan War: The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phyrigian. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. Ancient Egypt has been the singular most important influence in the development of Western Magic as practiced today. Yet, few people understand the core teachings and techniques of this once great civilization. Now, more than twenty years after its original publication, this classic work on Egyptian Magic is being made available in a revised and expanded version that is more than double its original size and scope. To conjure and control spirits – ‘ Who so beareth this sign about him, all spirits shall do him homage’ – one of the famous twin seals from Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of witchcraft (1584), a popular source for traditional cunning folk.Here and elsewhere, Lydgate uses the same images for poets that he applies in the narrative to characters who employ deceitful language to mislead others and subvert just deliberation. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Gen. ed. Larry D. Benson. Third ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Chaucer's Boccaccio: Sources of "Troilus" and the "Knight's" and "Franklin's Tales." Trans. N. R. Havely. Chaucer Studies 3. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1980. Pp. 167-80, 213-14. [Excerpts from Le Roman de Troie.] And witness the epic climax - the wooden horse, delivered to the city of Troy in a masterclass of deception by the Greeks . . .

To judge from the reception of Troy Book and the marginal commentary recorded in the manuscripts, medieval and early Renaissance readers understood Lydgate's moralizations on the level he intended them and not necessarily in their fuller, tragic implications. On the fly leaf at the end of one Troy Book manuscript (Rawlinson poet. 144), an anonymous sixteenth-century reader takes to heart Lydgate's protest that he writes true meaning but with little craft. Ancient English books, says this reader, show little art; ignorance darkened understanding in those earlier times, "but mark the substance of this book / In wiche this mownk such paynes hath vndertook" (Bergen 4:52). He then goes on, without any sense of contradiction, to connect Lydgate with precisely the poetic fabrication from which he strives to distinguish Troy Book in his Prologue:While Murray’s theories of witchcraft as an organised and surviving pagan religion have been discredited by subsequent research, her work vividly depicts the old and widely held beliefs, ideas and traditions surrounding witches which, naturally, may have long informed the operations of individuals and sporadic groups attempting to undertake a practice of witchcraft historically, and into the present. Many of her own more innovative ideas too have been hugely influential and have provided the blueprints to various modern day witchcraft traditions, leading to Margaret Murray being referred to, justifiably, as the ‘Grandmother of Wicca.’ An Olympian feat. The gods seem to be smiling on Fry - his myths are definitely a hit' Evening Standard Boffey, Julia. "The Reputation and Circulation of Chaucer's Lyrics in the Fifteenth Century." Chaucer Review 28 (1993), 23-40. A symbol within some branches of traditional witchcraft depicting, among other things, the altar of the Wise, the six-fold cross of the Ways, the witches’ God, the Huntsman and the sacrificial King.

A bronze limited edition of 50 of The Horned Hand – an ancient symbol of power and protection, a traditional Apotropaic Charm against the Evil Eye in Italian folk magic. Torti, Anna. "From 'History' to 'Tragedy': The Story of Troilus and Criseyde in Lydgate's Troy Book and Henryson's Testament of Cresseid." In The European Tragedy of Troilus. Ed. Piero Boitani. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. 171-97.The History of the Destruction of Troy. Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974. Scott, Kathleen L. Later Gothic Manuscripts: 1390-1490. 2 vols. Vol. 6 of A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles. London: Harvey Miller, 1996. The History of Troy in Middle English Literature: Guido delle Colonne's "Historia Destructionis Troiae" in Medieval England. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer; Totowa, N. J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.