1. Hughes, ‘The Hanged man and the Dragonfly’, p.21. “Epic is the story of mana”, WP.100.

2. Extracts from this play were broadcast on the BBC Third Programme, October 17, 1965, at which time it was described as “violently contrasted and highly dramatic scenes in which words, music and pictures are couterpointed and balanced”.

3. Johann Valentin Andreae, The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkretuz, Anno. 1459 , Translated into English by Edward Fox in 1690, Facsimile edition, Minerva Books,London (undated).

4. As Hughes explained to Faas, “Crow is the bird of Bran, is the oldest and highest totem creature of Britain…England’s autochthonous Totem is the Crow. Whatever colour of Englishman you scratch you come up with some sort of crow”. Faas, p.81.

5. Faas, p.98.

6. Hughes described Crow this way in the BBC broadcast ‘Poetry Now’, Radio 3 (6 July 1970.

7. Alan Garner, The Guizer: A Book of Fools, Hamish Hamilton, 1975, p9.

8. Milton, ‘The Sort of Dramatic Poem which is called Tragedy’, Introduction to Samson Agonistes, available on Project Gutenberg's web pages under the ‘The Poetical Works of John Milton’.

9. Faas, p.207.

10. Hughes, ‘Introduction’ to Here Today, poetry compiled by Hutchinson Educational, 1963.

11. Tom Stoppard, ‘Orghast’, Times Literary Supplement, 1 October, 1971, p.1174.

12. A.C.H Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, p.43.

13. J.C.Trewin’s discussion of Orghast in Peter Brook, MacDonald, 1971, p.166.

14. Ossia Trilling, ‘Playing with words at Persepolis’, Theatre Quarterly, Vol.2, No.5, January–March, 1972. pp.33–40.

15. Smith, p.41.

16. Smith, p.43.

17. Smith, p.44.

18. Smith, p.13.

19. Smith, p.209.

20. Smith, p.45.

21. Smith, p.177.

22. Trilling, p.37.

23. Smith, p.45.

24. Trilling, p.38.

25. Faas, p.200.

26. Hughes’, review of The God Beneath the Sea by L.Garfield and E.Blishen. Children’s Literature in Education, 3, A.P.S. Publications, 1970.

27. Prometheus was the son of a Titan (a giant race fathered by Uranus on Mother Earth) and a sea nymph: thus he inherited Heavenly and Earthly characteristics. He was a trickster – cunning and clever. He created Mankind from earth and water and stole fire from heaven to give to them. Zeus, angered by his trickery and thieving, had him chained to a rock and sent a vulture to eat his liver which grew whole again each night.

28. Neitzsche, “The Birth of Tragedy’, p.226.

29. Neitzsche, p.229.

30. Hughes, ‘Asgard for the Addicts’, review of Myth and Religion of the North, by E.O.G Turville–Petre, The Listener 71, 19 March 1964, pp.484–5. WP.40–1.

31. Claud Levi–Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to Sacred Mythology. Vol.1, J and D. Weightman (trans.) New York : Harper & Row, 1969, p.13–16. Hughes read anthropology at Cambridge University and a copy of The Raw and the Cooked is in his library, which is now held at Emory University.

32. Trilling, p.38.

33. Smith, p.132.

34. Smith, p.54.

35. I. Wardle, ‘Brook’s Grand Opera’, a review of Orghast. The Times, 14 Sept. 1971, p.16.

36. Trilling, p.38.

37. Wardle.

38. Hughes’ review of The Environmental Revolution by M. Nicholson, The Spectator, 21 March 1970. WP 129.

39. Wardle, ‘The Persian Expedition: conjuring buried music out of the earth’, The Times, 10 Sept. 1971.

40. H. Popkin, The Guardian, 7 Sept. 1971.

41. Smith, p.243, paraphrases E. Wendt’s review in Theatre Haute.

42. Wardle, ‘The Persian Expedition: conjuring buried music out of the earth’.

43. A. Porter, ‘Orghast’, The Financial Times, 14 Sept. 1971.

44. Peter Wilson, ‘Orghast: Interview with Ted Hughes by Peter Wilson – 5th Festival of Arts, Shiraz Persepolis’, Tamasha Daily Bulletin. Week Aug./Sept. 1st, 1971. Transcript