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THE FOLKLORE OFDISCWORLDLegends, myths and customs from the Discworldwith helpful hints from planet EarthTerry PratchettandJacqueline SimpsonLONDON TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND JOHANNESBURG
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TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SAA Random House Group Companywww.rbooks.co.ukFirst published in Great Britainin 2008 by Doubledayan imprint of Transworld PublishersCopyright Terry and Lyn Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson 2008Illustrations Paul Kidby 2008Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson have asserted their right under theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of thiswork.Discworld is a trademark registered by Terry Pratchett‘The Ship of Death’ from The Complete poems of D. H. Lawrence reproduced bypermission of Pollinger Limited and the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli.Permission to reprint lines from ‘East Coker II’ in Four Quartets by T. S. Eliotgranted by Faber and Faber Ltd.A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.ISBN 9780385611008This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade orotherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without thepublisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that inwhich it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition,being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can befound at: www.randomhouse.co.ukThe Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC), the leading international forest-certification organization. All our titlesthat are printed on Greenpeace-approved FSC-certified paper carry the FSClogo. Our paper procurement policy can be found atwww.rbooks.co.uk/environmentTypeset in 11/15.5 Sabon by Falcon Oast Graphic Art Ltd. Printed and bound inGreat Britain by Clays Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 ß1
ContentsCoverTitleCopyrightAbout the AuthorIntroduction by Terry PratchettIntroduction by Jacqueline Simpson1 The Cosmos: Gods, Demons and Things2 Dwarfs3 The Elves4 The Nac Mac Feegle5 Trolls6 Other Significant Races7 Beasties8 The Witches of Lancre9 The Land of Lancre10 The Witches of the Chalk11 The Chalk12 Heroes!13 Lore, Legends and Truth14 More Customs, Nautical Lore and Military Matters15 Kids’ Stuff You know, about ’Orrid Murder and Blood16 DeathBibliography and suggestions for further readingIndex
Also by Terry PratchettThe Discworld series1. THE COLOUR OF MAGIC2. THE LIGHT FANTASTIC3. EQUAL RITES4. MORT5. SOURCERY6. WYRD SISTERS7. PYRAMIDS8. GUARDS! GUARDS!9. ERIC (illustrated by Josh Kirby)10. MOVING PICTURES11. REAPER MAN12. WITCHES ABROAD13. SMALL GODS14. LORDS AND LADIES15. MEN AT ARMS16. SOUL MUSIC17. INTERESTING TIMES18. MASKERADE
19. FEET OF CLAY20. HOGFATHER21. JINGO22. THE LAST CONTINENT23. CARPE JUGULUM24. THE FIFTH ELEPHANT25. THE TRUTH26. THIEF OF TIME27. THE LAST HERO (illustrated by Paul Kidby)28. THE AMAZING MAURICE & HIS EDUCATED RODENTS (for youngerreaders)29. NIGHT WATCH30. THE WEE FREE MEN (for younger readers)31. MONSTROUS REGIMENT32. A HAT FULL OF SKY (for younger readers)33. GOING POSTAL34. THUD!35. WINTERSMITH (for younger readers)36. MAKING MONEY
Other books about DiscworldTHE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE (with Ian Stewart and JackCohen)THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD III: DARWIN’S WATCH (with Ian Stewartand Jack Cohen)THE NEW DISCWORLD COMPANION (with Stephen Briggs)NANNY OGG’S COOKBOOK (with Stephen Briggs, Tina Hannan and PaulKidby)THE PRATCHETT PORTFOLIO (with Paul Kidby)THE DISCWORLD ALMANAK (with Bernard Pearson)THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CUT-OUT BOOK (with Alan Batley andBernard Pearson)WHERE’S MY COW? (illustrated by Melvyn Grant)THE ART OF DISCWORLD (with Paul Kidby)THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DISCWORLD (compiled by Stephen Briggs)Discworld mapsTHE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK (with Stephen Briggs)THE DISCWORLD MAPP (with Stephen Briggs)A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE – A DISCWORLD MAPP (with StephenBriggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby) DEATH’S DOMAIN (with Paul Kidby)A complete list of other books based on the Discworld series – illustratedscreenplays, graphic novels, comics and plays, can be found onwww.terrypratchett.co.uk.
Non-Discworld novelsGOOD OMENS (with Neil Gaiman)STRATA THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN THE UNADULTERATED CAT(illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)Non-Discworld novels for younger readersTHE CARPET PEOPLETRUCKERSDIGGERSWINGSONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKINDJOHNNY AND THE DEADJOHNNY AND THE BOMBNATION
THE FOLKLORE OFDISCWORLDVisit www.terrypratchett.co.uk for news and information,to join the forum and to register for updates.www.rbooks.co.uk
Introductionby Terry PratchettA number of things conspired to cause this book to be written.There was the time when I was in a car with several other grownup, literatepeople and we passed a sign to the village of Great Dunmow, in Essex. I saidaloud, ‘Oh, yes. Home of the Dunmow Flitch.’ They had not heard of it, yet forcenturies a married man could go to that village on a Whit Monday and claimthe prize of a flitch (or side) of bacon if he could swear that he and his wife hadnot quarrelled, even once, during the past year. And that he had never wished hewas a bachelor again. Back in the late fifties and early sixties the Flitchceremony used to be televised, for heaven’s sake.Not long after this I did a book-signing on the south coast, when I took theopportunity to ask practically every person in the queue to say the magpie rhyme(I was doing research for Carpe Jugulum). Every single one of them recited,with greater or lesser accuracy, the version of the rhyme that used to herald thebeginning of the 1960s and 70s children’s TV programme Magpie – ‘One forsorrow, two for joy’. It wasn’t a bad rhyme, but like some cuckoo in the nest itwas forcing out all the other versions that had existed around the country (someof which will appear in a later chapter). Then a distinguished-looking lady wasin front of me with a book, and I asked her, with some inexpressible hope in myheart, how many versions of the magpie rhyme she knew. After a moment’sthought, she said ‘about nineteen’.And that was how I met Jacqueline Simpson, who has been my friend andoccasional consultant on matters of folklore, and once got me along to talk to theBritish Folklore Society, where I probably upset a few people by saying that Ithink of folklore in much the same way a carpenter thinks about trees.Some of the things in this book may well be familiar, and you will say ‘buteverybody knows this’. But the Discworld series, which on many occasionsborrows from folklore and mythology, twisting and tangling it on the way, must
be the most annotated series of modern books in existence. And one thing I havelearned is this: not many people know the things which everyone knows.But there are some things we shouldn’t forget, and mostly they add up towhere we came from and how we got here and the stories we told ourselves onthe way. But folklore isn’t only about the past. It grows, flowers and seeds everyday, because of our innate desire to control our world by means of satisfyingnarratives.I used to live a short distance away from a standing stone which, at full moonand/or Midsummer’s Eve, would dance around its field at night, incidentallyleaving unguarded a pot of gold which, in theory, was available to anyone whodared to seize it and could run faster than a stone. I went to see it by daylightearly on, but for some reason I never found the time to make the short nocturnaljourney and check on its dancing abilities. I now realize this was out of fear: Ifeared that, like so many stones I have met, it would fail to dance. There was asmall part of me that wanted the world to be a place where, despite planningofficers and EU directives and policemen, a stone might dance. And somewherethere, I think, is the instinct for folklore. There should be a place where a stonedances.For those who feel the same way we have included a short reading list, intheory for those readers who would like to know more, but also because peoplewho love books always want to recommend them to other people at the leastexcuse.
Introductionby Jacqueline SimpsonAh yes, I remember it well, that book-signing on the south coast! A misty,moisty November evening in 1997, a long queue inching its way towards a veryimpressive black hat, the eager voice demanding, ‘Tell me everything you knowabout magpies!’A little ahead of me in the queue, one woman had been explaining to all andsundry as we waited that it was for her nephew, not herself, that she wanted asigned copy of Jingo. She herself never, ever read novels of any kind, let alonefantasy fiction. ‘I only want facts. What’s the point of reading about things thataren’t real? As for a world flying through space on a turtle ’ Her voice died outin a splutter of indignation, and the combined arguments of a dozen Discworldreaders couldn’t budge her one inch. I was not surprised to learn what her jobwas; she was an accountant – which is to say, very nearly an Auditor of Reality.Give her a small grey robe with a cowl, and she would find a perfect niche onthe Disc.The truth of the matter is, the Disc is the Earth, but with an extra dimensionof reality. On the Discworld, things that on Earth are creatures of the imagination(but sometimes quite powerful, even so) are alive and, in some cases, kicking.Sometimes we recognize them at once (is there anyone who doesn’t know adragon when they meet one?). Sometimes we simply feel that something isdeeply familiar and completely right, but we have no idea why. Hours, days orweeks later, we may find the key, when the rich soil that accumulates at the backof the mind suddenly yields the fruit of memory.Then we realize that the key to the familiarity lies in folklore. Whatever isfolklore on Earth finds its mirror in the reality of the Disc. Of course it’sperfectly natural that Mrs Gogol’s house moves about on four large duck feet,because Baba Yaga’s hut spins around on chicken legs in the forests of Russia; ofcourse the Nac Mac Feegle are pictsies, not pixies, because of stories the Scotstold about Picts; of course there’s an ancient king sleeping in a cavern deep
under a mountain in Lancre, because that’s what King Arthur does in Englandand Scotland, and the Emperor Barbarossa in Germany. We’ve known aboutsuch things for ages, even if we called them fairy tales, myths, and folklore; nowthat we’re on the Disc, they are real, and we feel quite at home.Well, then, what is the ‘folklore’ of Earth, and more specifically of Britishtradition? It’s the sum total of all those things people know without ever havingbeen officially taught about them, all those stories and images which drift aroundwith no apparent source, all those funny little customs people follow simplybecause everyone has always done them (and, usually, it’s fun). If we werebookish children, we may remember precisely when we first discovered some ofthem. Terry still has the copy of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable whichhe bought second-hand when he was twelve years old, and read from end to end(it cost him 10/6 – OK, OK, 50p, about three weeks’ pocket money). I rememberthe hot summer day I spent sitting against a haystack, aged thirteen, andembarking for the first time on the genuine full-length tales of King Arthur andhis knights, as written by Sir Thomas Malory in the 1460s, funny spellings andweird words included. But most people, most of the time, just grow up havingalways known how and when to touch wood or cross their fingers, and whathappens when a princess kisses a frog or a boy pulls a sword from a stone. Theytake for granted that there will be pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, pumpkins andscary costumes at Halloween, bonfires on Guy Fawkes Night, mince pies atChristmas. (Non-British readers, please adjust to fit your own traditional foodsand calendars.)So who are the ‘folk’ who have all this ‘lore’? The answer is, ‘any of us’. It’sa mistake to think that the only folklore worthy of the name is what you get byfinding the oldest crone in the dirtiest cottage in the poorest village in theremotest mountain valley, and cross-examining her on her deathbed. Everygroup and sub-group in society has its jokes, its beliefs, its tales and traditions.At this very moment, there are children in the playground giggling over the latestnaughty joke (it may or may not be one their great-grandparents knew too);young mothers who take for granted that little girls must wear pink; collegestudents teaching each other the equivalent of Nanny Ogg’s ‘Hedgehog Song’.And because where there is fun there is also money to be made, there’s a largescale trade in birthday cards, Easter eggs, Mother’s Day cards, Halloween masksand so forth, which no parent dares ignore. And any town or pub or castle whichwants to attract tourists will go looking for colourful local legends and customsto exploit.
The days are long gone when scholars insisted that ‘real folklore’ mustalways be something passed on by word of mouth, not in print. This was neververy realistic, at any rate in literate societies, where generations of poets andnovelists and dramatists have drawn material from myth and folk tale, twistedand embroidered it, and then ha
THE WEE FREE MEN (for younger readers) 31. MONSTROUS REGIMENT 32. A HAT FULL OF SKY (for younger readers) 33. GOING POSTAL 34. THUD! 35. WINTERSMITH (for younger readers) 36. MAKING MONEY . Other books about Discworld THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen) THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen) THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD
