So began Freriks’ fascination with falconry, born out of the close affinity he already had for wild birds. Thirty-six years later he has united his two passions in a unique book, which combines every facet of the cultural history of falconry with observations on how falcons live in the wild. His account is gripping, indeed magnetic, with a poignant ending.

For anyone interested in falconry, The Falcon is a gift from heaven, just as that original bird had been for the author. Freriks expertly considers the emergence, rise and decline of falconry in Europe, especially Italy, Britain, Germany, France, Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands. He writes warmly of Frederik II of Hohenstaufen of southern Italy, a thirteenth-century hands-on falconer and the author of De Arte Venandi cum Avibus (The Art of Hunting with Birds), ‘unsurpassed as a manual and study of the training of hunting falcons’, in which he recommends weighing the bird every morning. If she is too light (they are always females, being larger than the male) she will not be powerful enough to hunt. Too heavy and her appetite for hunting will weaken and she may fly away.

The falcon, the fastest bird in the world, capable of reaching speeds of three hundred kilometres an hour, is an unparalleled hunter. Falconers have a deep bond with their raptors, which they repeatedly allow to fly free. A bird returning from high in the sky to its master’s hand is a unique spectacle, described lovingly here by Freriks. Clearly he felt liberated at being able to express his lifelong passion for this ‘beauty on the fist’ so infectiously, and with such verve and wisdom.

• Brings together the world of tame falcons with that of wild birds of prey
• Describes different methods of catching falcons: the Scots take young birds from the nest, while the Dutch catch adult birds
• First ever account of the hazardous and thrilling seventeenth-century ‘falcon trips’ to Iceland by Dutch ships